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gathering fader values etc. from logic 9

Posted: 30 Sep 2013 12:40
by faddycooper
yeah so here i go again,
is there any way to get lemur to gather fader values, solos, mutes etc. from logic so if i start up logic, lemur automatically will set itself
to the exact state the logic session right now.

btw: i cant really go with OSC since i have an old mac without wifi support.
or can i go with OSC via usb?

thanks in advance

faddycooper

Re: gathering fader values etc. from logic 9

Posted: 01 Oct 2013 22:28
by Softcore
I dont have/use Logic but what you are asking should be what is really happening...Let me explain, provided Logic supports bi-directional feedback of midi controls, you should have Lemur and Daemon set up and open first, then open your Logic project. Upon opening, Logic should then, send all midi data to connected midi controllers, in our case Lemur, to update the controls. This procedure is what really happens in both Ableton Live and Cakewalk's Sonar which I havechecked.

Granted, sometimes you might want your DAW to have a special function where, when executed, it would force the software to update the connected controls - or even better be able to accept some sort of midi message as a "midi controllers update request" but unfortunately I havent found such a function in the above DAWs so possibly Logic wouldt have one too. The closest to this, is Live's "midi mapping mode" - when engaged and disengaged again, Live sends all the current parameter values back to the mapped controllers. Yet still, all this is out of control of Lemur meaning, what you are asking should be a DAW feature - not Lemur's - Lemur in this case is the "listener" - if the "speaker" (DAW) is mute, the listener cant do much about it!

;)

Re: gathering fader values etc. from logic 9

Posted: 03 Oct 2013 11:23
by faddycooper
I'm assuming that logic is bidirectional too, because many other hardware midi controllers work fine as well with logic.

i have a 2008 mac pro (3.1) with quad core intel xeon processors and osx 10.6.8.
neither lemur version 4.0.3 nor 4.1 will install properly. it says an unknown error occured and i should get in touch with the software developers.
ayn ideas on that. or how to run properly without daemo?

Re: gathering fader values etc. from logic 9

Posted: 03 Oct 2013 14:56
by Softcore
If I remember correctly, Daemon is not needed in Macs as you guys can have virtual midi ports natively in your systems - I really dont have a clue though as Im a "windows" guy so better scout the forums for related topics on how to set things up for Mac.

;)

Re: gathering fader values etc. from logic 9

Posted: 06 Oct 2013 12:13
by SBPBK
I'm sorry to hear you're a Logic user. I used to be in your situation and all I have to say there is no hope. That being said, here we go....

Logic only has true bidirectional functionality with Control Surfaces that "Control Surface Scripts" have been written for. Unlike Ableton, Logic's Control Surface Scripts have to be implemented by the company and can't be written by the user. This, outside of what I consider to be massively inferior audio quality, was one of the biggest reasons I decided to make the move from Logic to Ableton. I wasted over a year trying to craft my ideal Lemur/Logic scenario and after a while realized it was a futile quest.

However, there might be some hope depending on what you want your setup to be.

Are you familiar with Logic's Environment? I would suggest heading over to some of the LogicProHelp forums, those guys over there are amazing and have a lot of information on the topic.

To give you an overview, the Environment is the 'behind the scenes' of Logic's MIDI handling, it's where all the MIDI events happen.. If you hit command + 8, and select the "Clicks and Ports" from the drop down menu on the top left of the Environment Window and then press a few keyboard keys or move a controller fader - you'll see the MIDI messages listed in the monitor prior to the output to the sequencer. Now, select 'Mixer' from the drop down menu - to be clear, this is not the same Mixer as hitting 'X', this is the Environment's mixer. Then, in the top drop down menus create a new monitor. Cable one of the tracks in the mixer to this monitor. Then move the volume fader or toggle mute. You will see MIDI messages in the monitor. To get everything linked up, you need to 'transform' the MIDI that gets output by the volume fader (or whatever you plan to map) to the CC value that the lemur fader is set to. You move the fader in Logic, it will update the fader on Lemur.

In the environment you are able to 'transform' MIDI messages, along with many other ways to deal with MIDI, but there is no proper way to simply 'bang' out a value without actually engaging it. You can't just say "Logic, output all of your values to my Lemur template so you guys can play nicely." If only....

If you are looking to just control things only in the mixer, like volume and sends then there might be some basic Environment work you can do to make what you want work. Mapping 3rd party software is what is almost impossible, without some really extreme "down the rabbit hole" environment work (trust me, I've gone down it multiple times now to no avail that I personally was happy with...), but at the end of the day if you were to load any sort of new preset on a synth/effect that wasn't something you were initiating through a ton of Environment idiocy (creating an Environment fader for EVERY parameter you want to map both before and after the track you want to map it to, and then saving Transformer Map 'presets' within the Environment for that object) then your preset will update on the software itself, the software's knobs will be set to the newly loaded preset values, but your Lemur controls will stay where they are. This is because upon preset load, Logic does not output all of the newly loaded values. Logic only outputs values that you MANUALLY engage, meaning change with either the mouse or a controller. This means there is absolutely no way to bang out values of anything 3rd party with retaining an easy, 'normal' workflow. Major drag.

However, with things like volume/mutes, you are able to do this environment work around and be able to make it work since unless you're constantly loading new channel strips that have different volumes, the communication will otherwise never be broken between your Environment and Lemur since you most likely won't be loading any presets that change the volume/mute position... You will need to set it up in your template beforehand.. You will create fader/button objects in the Environment that will represent the Lemur side of things (for input) and then the Logic side of things for output. The reason this is necessary is because you CAN bang values in Logic, but only the values that the objects in the Environment are set to..

For example:

You want to map a volume fader from Logic to your Lemur. You will go to your clicks and ports, create a fader to represent your Lemur fader. Cable the input into this fader. This will convert the CC of what the Lemur fader is set to the CC that it needs to send in order to control whatever in the Environment you want it to, all available via the dropdown menus on the left which appear when any particular object is selected. Then, cable that fader to the track you want to control. After that fader gets sent to the track, you'll cable the track's output to another fader to convert the CC messages back to whatever it needs to send back to the Lemur fader. Then create an 'instrument' and set its ports to the Lemur ports, and it should work. Then, when loading a session back up, you'll have to bang the values back out to your lemur, unless you have a way of recalling settings on your lemur. This is done with a meta event with a CC of 99 which occurs directly before the object you want to bang out. I put a quick example of this together. There's a button called "bang", when you hit it you will notice the volume of the Mixer fader jump to 0db and the Fader that is after the Mixer fader will jump to 90. In the long run you would even be able to map a button on your lemur to execute this so upon opening Logic all you would have to do is press a button and it would send the fader's current states out to your Lemur template.

Good luck!

This is a Logic 9 file, assuming you can still opening this if you're running X.. As you can tell, I've had no reason to upgrade... Doing this was the only time I've opened Logic in the past 4 months :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: