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best DAW for Lemur
Started by drain on .
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meanwhile Lemur has like endless possibilities i feel like I'm always limited in my daw in how midi is "customizable".
wich DAW has the best options for midi, osc and stuff in terms of customizability ?
wich DAW has the best options for midi, osc and stuff in terms of customizability ?
Cubase by far.
I don't think there is a best DAW. It more depends on how creative you are and how good you are at writing scripts. If you thoroughly learn the OSC and MIDI protocols, are willing to research your DAW's API, and don't mind learning a scripting language like Python or JS, you can basically do whatever you want. You get what you put in. If you're unwilling to do your homework, you're going to be stuck with templates that kind of suck no matter what DAW you use.
Cubase has a nice 'Generic Remote Device' option (MIDI, including NRPN for high resolution), where you can send and receive plugin parameters, so that the Lemur surface is always updated when you load a new preset in the plugin. I think it's also the only DAW that sends parameter values after a preset change command. It's pretty ideal for Lemur.
Reaper is good for its OSC integration, although until now it doesn't send feedback all the time. One has to switch back and forth sometimes. But the advantage of OSC over MIDI is that you not only get parameter value feedback, but also parameter name feedback. Logic has also OSC, but it's more restricted than Reaper.
So I would agree that the perfect DAW for Lemur does not exist yet, or, one has to do a lot of scripting and custom mapping to make it work as one wants. And even then there is still something missing.
Reaper is good for its OSC integration, although until now it doesn't send feedback all the time. One has to switch back and forth sometimes. But the advantage of OSC over MIDI is that you not only get parameter value feedback, but also parameter name feedback. Logic has also OSC, but it's more restricted than Reaper.
So I would agree that the perfect DAW for Lemur does not exist yet, or, one has to do a lot of scripting and custom mapping to make it work as one wants. And even then there is still something missing.
Ableton has a limit of MIDI parameters per device at like 256. There's a plug-in where I needed more so I went to Logic for that. There are ways to expand functionality with Python but I'm still learning about it.
However, I would also say there are better DAW controllers than Lemur - touchable for Ableton is insane and Logic Remote is too easy. I still use Lemur more for more specific things but it's helpful to know all the tools available.
However, I would also say there are better DAW controllers than Lemur - touchable for Ableton is insane and Logic Remote is too easy. I still use Lemur more for more specific things but it's helpful to know all the tools available.
Really? Can you point me to documentation of this? I hadn't run into this limitation before.freepuppies wrote:Ableton has a limit of MIDI parameters per device at like 256.
I ran into it while mapping U-He's Bazille. (self-plug template: https://liine.net/en/community/user-library/view/661/) I thought it was 256, but this Reddit post says 128. https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/comments/4uxbvk/more_than_128_parameter_mappings/phase_change wrote:Really? Can you point me to documentation of this? I hadn't run into this limitation before.freepuppies wrote:Ableton has a limit of MIDI parameters per device at like 256.
The limit of 256 gets referenced on the messageboard here:
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175915
This guy has figured out the workaround using a combination of Lemur, Max, and Python. But he charges for his templates and I don't want to pay him money, so I'm going to try to figure it out myself.
http://www.xmonsta.com/
I would love anyone's help in trying to figure out the Live API - I know some Python but am a little over my head.
128 and 256 are always interesting numbers to come across - interesting in the sense that they tell you something is n-bit. I find this kind of surprising for a number of reasons. Someone mentioned in that reddit thread it was a limit of the MIDI protocol being only 8 bit... but what about using multiple controllers? I probably can do it fairly quickly. Definitely wouldn't give it away for free though.
This might help you get started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgKwcCJsoz4. Couldn't find official documentation of Ableton's API aside from this bit from Cycling '74 https://docs.cycling74.com/max5/refpages/m4l-ref/m4l_live_api_overview.html. Idk what your experience w/ scripting is, but APIs can seem challenging to grasp at first, but they're not.
freepuppies wrote:I ran into it while mapping U-He's Bazille. (self-plug template: https://liine.net/en/community/user-library/view/661/) I thought it was 256, but this Reddit post says 128. https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/comments/4uxbvk/more_than_128_parameter_mappings/phase_change wrote:Really? Can you point me to documentation of this? I hadn't run into this limitation before.freepuppies wrote:Ableton has a limit of MIDI parameters per device at like 256.
The limit of 256 gets referenced on the messageboard here:
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175915
This guy has figured out the workaround using a combination of Lemur, Max, and Python. But he charges for his templates and I don't want to pay him money, so I'm going to try to figure it out myself.
http://www.xmonsta.com/
I would love anyone's help in trying to figure out the Live API - I know some Python but am a little over my head.
Just to comment - I know people hate paying for things, but you also have to figure out how much your time is worth. It seems kind of unfair to not want to pay for a working thing you can use immediately and then turn around and ask others to contribute their time and effort to create something for free. If you're going to do most of the heavy lifting yourself and need a couple pointers, that's fine. If you expect others to do 99% of the work for you, that's not so cool.
Lemur templates, especially ones that work well with Max/MSP, Python, Ableton, etc are non-trivial.
Something to consider anyway; there's been a long debate on this board and others about software and it's worth.
I feel like I stirred up something that probably is best buried deep in the forum - the fact that everyone comes here and says "can I haz free example plz?" and the debate over creating free content/content that cannot really be protected that adds value to a paid for application. I feel like if Liine offered a runtime for free like Cycling '74 does, it would be an easier pill to swallow. What Oldgearguy is saying is true about what your time is worth to you.
I really get not wanting to spend any money ever - I was a poor musician/student for many, many years and have just recently reached the lower-echelon of the middle class. When you're eating ramen, beans, and rice every day for years, giving someone $5-15 is insane/impossible.
There are a few questions I ask myself when thinking about whether paying somebody to do something: how many hours of my life does this cost i.e. how much is the price divided by my ability to earn money in an hour? Am I able to be making money during the time I am currently working on this? - If not the first question is irrelevant. Can I actually afford to buy this right now or will I be over my budget? Am I developing a skill that I will later use to make money? Can I sell my work once I am done with it i.e. does it create value? If so, why is it better than existing options?
I really get not wanting to spend any money ever - I was a poor musician/student for many, many years and have just recently reached the lower-echelon of the middle class. When you're eating ramen, beans, and rice every day for years, giving someone $5-15 is insane/impossible.
There are a few questions I ask myself when thinking about whether paying somebody to do something: how many hours of my life does this cost i.e. how much is the price divided by my ability to earn money in an hour? Am I able to be making money during the time I am currently working on this? - If not the first question is irrelevant. Can I actually afford to buy this right now or will I be over my budget? Am I developing a skill that I will later use to make money? Can I sell my work once I am done with it i.e. does it create value? If so, why is it better than existing options?
Okay, so first of all relax man.
The guy selling his solution only has support for a couple synths which I don't own. So it's not worth it as a product only as something to reverse engineer.
I don't mind teaching myself to program - I enjoy the challenge (I made my own Lemur templates).
Yes, people asking for free stuff is bad. I wasnt asking for that. I was asking to form a community to solve a common problem with an open source solution as opposed to a proprietary one. Nothing wrong with that.
The guy selling his solution only has support for a couple synths which I don't own. So it's not worth it as a product only as something to reverse engineer.
I don't mind teaching myself to program - I enjoy the challenge (I made my own Lemur templates).
Yes, people asking for free stuff is bad. I wasnt asking for that. I was asking to form a community to solve a common problem with an open source solution as opposed to a proprietary one. Nothing wrong with that.
I'm p sure nobody here isn't relaxed...freepuppies wrote:Okay, so first of all relax man.
Oldgearguy is a v talented Lemur user and in another thread I brought up this topic and even referenced an older thread that apparently destroyed this forum in 2013. I would hate to lose him as a resource since he is one of the few ppl I learn from that still frequents this board.
The thing is if you work in the IT field or as a software engineer, you can do something like this alone faster than you can with somebody who doesn't do this for a living. This isn't something that meets a need I have and I did give you some really good resources to get started with.freepuppies wrote:I was asking to form a community to solve a common problem with an open source solution as opposed to a proprietary one. Nothing wrong with that.
Is it helpful to use Bidule which
Runs as OSC client and server
http://www.plogue.com/products/bidule/
or other modular VST that supports OSC?
I am not saying that Bidule is up to the task
but if it is may help DAW's lacking the OSC
support.
Runs as OSC client and server
http://www.plogue.com/products/bidule/
or other modular VST that supports OSC?
I am not saying that Bidule is up to the task
but if it is may help DAW's lacking the OSC
support.
Bidule looks like a poor man's version of Max. If you want to use something like this, use UDP send and receive objects and skip this.
There are two things that could possibly be happening. Either Bidule is taking OSC and translating to midi (most likely) or it is taking OSC and communicating with the DAW via its API (kinda unlikely). LiveOSC already exists for Ableton and is free. M4L includes objects for communicating w/ Ableton's API and is well-documented. It's hard to imagine the engineers at Bidule making it compatible with every DAW on the market via each DAW's API.
There are two things that could possibly be happening. Either Bidule is taking OSC and translating to midi (most likely) or it is taking OSC and communicating with the DAW via its API (kinda unlikely). LiveOSC already exists for Ableton and is free. M4L includes objects for communicating w/ Ableton's API and is well-documented. It's hard to imagine the engineers at Bidule making it compatible with every DAW on the market via each DAW's API.
freepuppies wrote:Okay, so first of all relax man.
The guy selling his solution only has support for a couple synths which I don't own. So it's not worth it as a product only as something to reverse engineer.
I don't mind teaching myself to program - I enjoy the challenge (I made my own Lemur templates).
Yes, people asking for free stuff is bad. I wasnt asking for that. I was asking to form a community to solve a common problem with an open source solution as opposed to a proprietary one. Nothing wrong with that.
I've been really busy, but I just wanted to say that if this info was provided in the original post you might have seen different replies. It's really hard to know what a user has tried and what they know if they don't give as much information about what they've done and explored and exactly what problem they are trying to solve.
Okay, I will be better about that in the future. Thank you all for the help and resources.
so to answer all the suggestions 
- im aware of touchable, i bought it years ago and its the best experience i ever had, never seen a fader react like this, its the best of all, even better than a real console motorized fader. the problem there it is not working well anymore and lacks updates and looks pretty dead since a long time, although after contacting every source i could find 1 responded me a week ago and told me they are working on a new version.
- tried xmonsta and bought that as well, the problem there is the pretty much the same, no support and looks dead. and it didn't worked the way i was thinking of, as an example using osc does not update the parameters on preset change on every plugin like it does on normal remote scripts
-i tried reaper and it has a really nice OSC implementation but cant find out how to limit the parameters displayed like in ableton, which in many cases are well over 1000 and you have to flip thru tons ofs banks which makes it unusable for plugin control which is my main goal
-then there is logic and the logic remote, its not bad but not configurable at all and the faders and knobs are just not so pleasant to use
-TouchOSC template that works with logic, but touchOSC is so limited in its capabilities and no customization in logic
-max4live, no success
-livecontrol (TouchOSC version) yeah its what i wanted in regard of plugin control but it works over TouchOSC only and that lacks functions i really need
-livecontrol2 cant find a way to use that to make my own template from
-shoved, pretty good but parameter value change is a mess like a v-pot in a mackie emulation
all i ever wanted was 8 parameters at a time (preferably 16 or more) with a fader/knob and text label that follows currently selected track/device and updates on preset/device/track change..
something control scripts in ableton actually do normally
i had this working with liveosc and i even got it working on live 9.7, but can't set it up correctly in lemur and it feels buggy or I'm just to dumb. after using the touchOSC template and finding out piece by piece some messages i managed to come pretty close to what i want, all it was missing is the follow blue hand capability /sigh
lemosc.jpg
the faders run over OSC so they feel snappy and precise, pretty close to touchable.
the labels display the name of the parameters but with a ' at start and end of the name (minor thing)
but i can change device only over the liveOSC to change the controlled device, it does not have a blue hand that follows, and having set up a apc40 or similar it does not follow the selection....
because ableton changed the blue hand behavior at a point it was not "on" by default for every script anymore
there is this fix for some scripts by simply adding this line
"self._device_selection_follows_track_selection = True"
in liveOSC in various places but I'm not a coder and could not make it work in liveOSC
to be honest i bought the iPad just for this reason and lemur a couple of years ago, but still im not able to get this working how i want
it should be a simple task but its apparently not possible, for me
is there anyone that can help me out to get this working how i want ?
as you see im not afraid to pay for it and ready to change daw for it as well
clearly ipads,iphones and androids are the most sold midi/OSC controller of all time and the possibilities are endless but the missing link is the implementation in daws
in a perfect world liine would give us a midi remote script which does everything like liveOSC and more so we can design our own templates with it and the customization power of Lemur can unleash its potential
or in logic 3th party developers can make templates for it, like touchosc did but its not customizable.....
liine could do this i think for many daws, provide the missing link
and get paid for it accordingly
wall of text end
- im aware of touchable, i bought it years ago and its the best experience i ever had, never seen a fader react like this, its the best of all, even better than a real console motorized fader. the problem there it is not working well anymore and lacks updates and looks pretty dead since a long time, although after contacting every source i could find 1 responded me a week ago and told me they are working on a new version.
- tried xmonsta and bought that as well, the problem there is the pretty much the same, no support and looks dead. and it didn't worked the way i was thinking of, as an example using osc does not update the parameters on preset change on every plugin like it does on normal remote scripts
-i tried reaper and it has a really nice OSC implementation but cant find out how to limit the parameters displayed like in ableton, which in many cases are well over 1000 and you have to flip thru tons ofs banks which makes it unusable for plugin control which is my main goal
-then there is logic and the logic remote, its not bad but not configurable at all and the faders and knobs are just not so pleasant to use
-TouchOSC template that works with logic, but touchOSC is so limited in its capabilities and no customization in logic
-max4live, no success
-livecontrol (TouchOSC version) yeah its what i wanted in regard of plugin control but it works over TouchOSC only and that lacks functions i really need
-livecontrol2 cant find a way to use that to make my own template from
-shoved, pretty good but parameter value change is a mess like a v-pot in a mackie emulation
all i ever wanted was 8 parameters at a time (preferably 16 or more) with a fader/knob and text label that follows currently selected track/device and updates on preset/device/track change..
something control scripts in ableton actually do normally
i had this working with liveosc and i even got it working on live 9.7, but can't set it up correctly in lemur and it feels buggy or I'm just to dumb. after using the touchOSC template and finding out piece by piece some messages i managed to come pretty close to what i want, all it was missing is the follow blue hand capability /sigh
lemosc.jpg
the faders run over OSC so they feel snappy and precise, pretty close to touchable.
the labels display the name of the parameters but with a ' at start and end of the name (minor thing)
but i can change device only over the liveOSC to change the controlled device, it does not have a blue hand that follows, and having set up a apc40 or similar it does not follow the selection....
because ableton changed the blue hand behavior at a point it was not "on" by default for every script anymore
there is this fix for some scripts by simply adding this line
"self._device_selection_follows_track_selection = True"
in liveOSC in various places but I'm not a coder and could not make it work in liveOSC
to be honest i bought the iPad just for this reason and lemur a couple of years ago, but still im not able to get this working how i want
it should be a simple task but its apparently not possible, for me
is there anyone that can help me out to get this working how i want ?
as you see im not afraid to pay for it and ready to change daw for it as well
clearly ipads,iphones and androids are the most sold midi/OSC controller of all time and the possibilities are endless but the missing link is the implementation in daws
in a perfect world liine would give us a midi remote script which does everything like liveOSC and more so we can design our own templates with it and the customization power of Lemur can unleash its potential
or in logic 3th party developers can make templates for it, like touchosc did but its not customizable.....
liine could do this i think for many daws, provide the missing link
and get paid for it accordingly
wall of text end