Open Stage Control (Tutorial) - An alternative to Lemur and TouchOSC

[RoWi]

@Manaberry Jean-Emmanuel is still offering great support in finding a solution for Openstage Control to find virtual midi devices. I installed LoopBE30 and MidiOX. On win10, MidiOx can not see loopbe30 virtual midi channels. On win7 (My mastermachine) MidiOX can see LoopBE30 virtual midi channels. So I guess this is a Win10 problem. OpenStage Control can not find midi devices due to this win10 problem.
Of course I am not giving up!

Is it possible that Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 could cause this problem?

greetz RoWi

 

[RoWi]

Today My OpenStage Control Win 10 problem has been solved!!!

Cause: Windows Remote Desktop feature!!!

As I have my Server (Slave computer, VEPRO 7) in a dedicated server room I used Windows Remote Desktop feature to manage the slave computer.
Via Remote Desktop a Midi Device listing (OpenStage Control) command (right click) does not work! Python commands do not work either.

First I closed my Remote Desktop session.
I attached a display, keyboard and mouse to my slave computer and applied a right click on OpenStage Control and selected to list midi devices.
All midi devices were listed!!!
Python commands are working.

So now I edited the midi section in OpenStage Control and created a "button".
Everything works as expected !!!

I locked the user and next I opened a Remote Desktop session again.
I pressed the "button" in a browser on my Master Computer.
OpenStage Control generates a hugh ammount of errors. So I concluded Remote Desktop messes up Open Stage Control.

Now I choose TeamViewer as a remote desktop manager.
Conclusion: No problems anymore.

This "no listing of midi devices in OpenStage Control" issue, engaged me for a week to tackle the problem. I never thought Remote Desktop is the cause for no midi device listing in OpenStage Control.

So all helpfull people on this forum: Thank you so much for your efforts to help me solve te problem.
Take this as a good advice.
Do NOT use Remote Desktop to manage a remote computer on your dedicated subnet! Especially in the case you are working with OpenStage Control.

I am a happy guy again!

Greetz. RoWi

 

[Manaberry]

@RoWi I'm very happy you solved your problem! Thanks, for sharing this issue and its solution Enjoy OSC!

 

[RoWi]

@Manaberry How can I create a canvas in OpenStage for an ipad or ipad Pro?
I guess I have to set a Media Query at the root level. Any idea?
Are there good examples to load in OpenStage to study all posibilities with OpenStage?

Greetz Ron

 

[DMDComposer]

@DMDComposer I'm intrigued to see the progress you're making on your osc template. Would you share a screenshot?

Hi Luke,

I haven't had as much time to start implementing it fully into my template so mainly the VEP disable/enable and the visual tracks on the top half of Joe's template is still the same. However, I've been making my way through his bottom half and adding a lot more icons/commands that I use frequently and hiding some that I know hotkeys for that I don't need to push a button. If I know a hotkey it's much faster to just use the keyboard then to have a button for example "cut, or paste". etc etc


The main function I had to add was "Track Versions", as I find it crucial to my workflow being able to create track versions for many tracks at once, and flipping through the versions. This is incase I have a film project with a cue, 1m21-v-03, so it's the third version. However, what if I had 3 different ideas for the last bar of the piece, wasn't sure which chord fit best with the film. So I'd have, 1m21-v-03a, 1m21-v-03b, 1m21-v-03c. But, instead of creating 3 different *cpr files I'd rather keep v-03 as one file, and just change the tracks versions to A,B, or C. I find this method for me personally a lot more organized especially when I have to go to v-04 or after and I don't even need the alternates anymore.



Also, I've messed with his button to overlay another section of buttons on top. Here, I hid some of Joe's buttons that I didn't need to see or don't need to have quickly.



Still a work in progress and I thank Joe for sharing his hard work and expertise to get the ball rolling for me. By the end of the year I'm thinking I'll get rid of my two metagrid ipads and just be a full OSC user.

Cheers,
Dillon

 

[Luke Davoll]

Hi Luke,

I haven't had as much time to start implementing it fully into my template so mainly the VEP disable/enable and the visual tracks on the top half of Joe's template is still the same. However, I've been making my way through his bottom half and adding a lot more icons/commands that I use frequently and hiding some that I know hotkeys for that I don't need to push a button. If I know a hotkey it's much faster to just use the keyboard then to have a button for example "cut, or paste". etc etc


The main function I had to add was "Track Versions", as I find it crucial to my workflow being able to create track versions for many tracks at once, and flipping through the versions. This is incase I have a film project with a cue, 1m21-v-03, so it's the third version. However, what if I had 3 different ideas for the last bar of the piece, wasn't sure which chord fit best with the film. So I'd have, 1m21-v-03a, 1m21-v-03b, 1m21-v-03c. But, instead of creating 3 different *cpr files I'd rather keep v-03 as one file, and just change the tracks versions to A,B, or C. I find this method for me personally a lot more organized especially when I have to go to v-04 or after and I don't even need the alternates anymore.



Also, I've messed with his button to overlay another section of buttons on top. Here, I hid some of Joe's buttons that I didn't need to see or don't need to have quickly.



Still a work in progress and I thank Joe for sharing his hard work and expertise to get the ball rolling for me. By the end of the year I'm thinking I'll get rid of my two metagrid ipads and just be a full OSC user.

Cheers,
Dillon

Thanks so much! I love how people share their ideas. We can all learn so much.

About the track versions. That's very cool. Would you be able to give a little more info how you accomplish this.

And on an unrelated note, I see you have one slave. Would you share what your latency is? Do you run your master at 128 and your slave vep at 1? How many tracks is your template? How many audio returns are coming in? And do you find you hit real time limits with your current setup? Cheers!

 

[DMDComposer]

Thanks so much! I love how people share their ideas. We can all learn so much.

No problem. My pleasure.

About the track versions. That's very cool. Would you be able to give a little more info how you accomplish this.

1. Select every midi track, audio if I need to, time signature/tempo. I use a PLE function to be swift.
2. Assign a common ID to the tracks. This is so you can cycle through all of them at once. Otherwise it'll give you an error saying common id doesn't exist or something.
3. I then depending if I want something clean I'll use NEW TRACK VERSION, but 9/10 I'll use DUPLICATE TRACK VERSION so I can start from where I'm at, and the make the alternate edits.
4. I then RENAME all the tracks to v1 or v2, or vA or vB whatever you like.

That's pretty much it. Let me know if you want me to explain something further. This is still relatively new in my template/process of writing as even though track versions have been around for a long while in Cubase I didn't really grasp the full power of it til a few months ago.

Would you share what your latency is?

Terrible... I usually write and record at 256 with a lot of tracks disabled and track compensation latency on... To be able to play back depending on the size of my template and plugins I usually go straight to 1024 and at times 2048. This is because my CPU is the bottleneck, I'm still a quad-core user and need to upgrade.

Do you run your master at 128 and your slave vep at 1?

256 (I wish it was 128 as I hate piano latency when I start playing fast scales, I can really feel the lag at 256). Yes, VEP is at 1.

How many tracks is your template?

Under a 1000 perhaps? I used to be the one who had every library at all times, but honestly I write in Sibelius first now, so when I get to Cubase I just go to my go-to libraries. I'm not the best mock-up person but I'm not one who is overly obsessed with how my orchestral mock-up is. I spend 1000% more time in Sibelius and the writing/orchestrating phase. Just my personal preference though.

How many audio returns are coming in?

Least as possible. I still think its because of my quad-core being the bottleneck as I had a template with shorts/longs, on every different type of orchestral section. Also percussion was stemmed out for a lot of different types... but in the end I realize that Cubase was not handling the information of so many audio returns. Especailly now with VEPRO 7, I do a lot of premixing in VEPRO and just return to Cubase Winds,Brass,Percussion,Keys&Mallets,Choir,Strings,Synth... something like that. Some projects I might have a few more audio returns from vepro to cubase but I try to keep it down because of my limits. I really think 6 cores might be the minimuim these days for Cubase/vepro with samples,plugins, and synths becoming power hungry.

And do you find you hit real time limits with your current setup?

Yes, sadly yes. I deal with it though until I can afford to upgrade.

Cheers!

 

[springverb]

new here. i just moved to win (Cubase 10 pro from logic). this really looks amazing.
one ques : I see the files are available for Linux too. can I set up OSC using Raspberry Pi instead and use that to control my windows Cubase setup on the computer? Got a pi3 lying unused. thank you.

 

[Manaberry]

Hello @springverb, Welcome!
On the paper, as soon as you send midi signals from the server to your DAW machine, you can control it from anywhere. Running the server on Linux, using a smartphone as a touch-screen, and having your daw on a W10 machine.

 

[zig]

Hello Mihkel @Mihkel Zilmers, I use your template to trigger expressionmap and it's very useful. Thank you for sharing this patch.
I work with Nuendo, I've been trying for a few days to create a new tab to manage the CCs of lontakt instruments.
No problem when the communication is just one direction (OSC to Nuendo).
But...I would like to have faders with bi-directional communication (I want OSC to show me the right state of the fader).
I tried adding a second send on my midi track but I have error messages in the OSC console and when two tracks play, both send information to OSC who goes crazy!

where's a trick? Is this possible with OSC, could someone guide me?

Zig

 

[matthieuL]

Hello,

Even if Lemur is back on Android, I'm trying OpenStageControl.

The installation and configuration was relatively easy, thanks to the tutorial at the beginning of this thread !
But I find it a nightmare to edit a project. Is there a tutorial on this ?
The official documentation is not helping, as it doesn't list possible values (for example, in (broken link removed) what can be the string address ?) and there is no practical example.
I loaded projects of others in order to understand things, but too much things seem mysterious for me.
I really miss a good documentation or tutorials for basic tasks.

For the moment, I only managed to send a note (via address = /note), but failed to send a cc (via address = /control if I understood well).

Thanks for your help, and sorry if I missed an obvious thing

Matthieu

 

[matthieuL]

Finally, I read, re-read, re-re-read pages 7 and 8 of this thread, and was able to make the Mihkel Zilmer project working. From there, I think I will be able to customize it.
For others, don't give up !

 

[Manaberry]

Hello @matthieuL !
I was not able to respond lately sorry.
I'm happy you successfully made osc work. If you have any questions, please let me know!

 

[matthieuL]

Thanks, it's nice !

A little question for the moment : I'm using O-S-C on Chrome on an Android tablet (Samsung A5 2016), whose resolution is 1920x1200.
But on it the UI appears as it was zoomed, it exceeds in the 2 dimensions (so I have to scroll horizontally and vertically), while all the UI fills well my desktop screen (1920x1080).
I also tried Opera (which uses Chromium too), but same thing.
I found this page : https://support.google.com/chrome/forum/AAAAP1KN0B0oYPjdI7TR8w but it concerns desktop Chrome...

I don't find a solution, would you have an idea ?

 

[Manaberry]

I've got the same problem. You have to find the proper size to fit everything on your tablet screen. No magic can be done here sadly.

 

[matthieuL]

Ok, many thanks !

 

[Manaberry]

Hi there.

A little update on the spreadsheet. I've added 5 new icons (base64). Those are meant to be used for Selector Start, Selector Left, Next Bar, Prev Bar, and the Curve tool.

Check the spreadsheet here

I will add more icons later. If you have some specific needs, please tell me

 

[DMDComposer]

Hi there.

A little update on the spreadsheet. I've added 5 new icons (base64). Those are meant to be used for Selector Start, Selector Left, Next Bar, Prev Bar, and the Curve tool.

Check the spreadsheet here

I will add more icons later. If you have some specific needs, please tell me

Thanks Manaberry! I'm curious to know how are you going about creating these icons? Are you using photoshop or something and manually drawing in the icons to convert to base64?

 

[Manaberry]

Thanks Manaberry! I'm curious to know how are you going about creating these icons? Are you using photoshop or something and manually drawing in the icons to convert to base64?

I use photoshop and then I convert them to base64. All is original icons or copied from Cubase (redraw)

 

[Mihkel Zilmer]

Hello Mihkel @Mihkel Zilmers, I use your template to trigger expressionmap and it's very useful. Thank you for sharing this patch.
I work with Nuendo, I've been trying for a few days to create a new tab to manage the CCs of lontakt instruments.
No problem when the communication is just one direction (OSC to Nuendo).
But...I would like to have faders with bi-directional communication (I want OSC to show me the right state of the fader).
I tried adding a second send on my midi track but I have error messages in the OSC console and when two tracks play, both send information to OSC who goes crazy!

where's a trick? Is this possible with OSC, could someone guide me?

Zig

Sorry for the slow response, I somehow missed your post.

What you are asking for is technically possible, but when I last looked into this (couple of years ago, on Lemur), some workarounds were necessary. At the time I decided this feature isn't really important for me and did not pursue it any further.

I can not remember all of the details, but I believe that I concluded at the time that there are two options. I think one option was to map your CCs to QuickControls and then make new Generic Remote entries to send those QuickControl values on the selected track. And I think the other option was to use the automation lanes in the arrange window (that is, NOT in the MIDI editor - you can also add CC lanes under your MIDI / instrument track in the arranger).

Unfortunately that's about all that I can remember about bi-directional communication. I'm exceptionally busy at the moment, but if by some miracle I manage to find a few spare minutes I could look into it. Unless someone else already has it working?