Report on problem and newbie question

[pianopaul]

Seems so, he deactivated the MIDI Out Ports for Keylab and now it is working,
But I am no sure if it is also working when he uses more than 1 rackspace…

[David-san]

@pianopaul

more than 1 rackspace

More than one plugin instance, OK, but why shouldn’t it work with more than one rackspace?

[pianopaul]

Because when you use the KOMPLETE Kontrol Plugin from Native Instruments it is not really working because NI assumes that you use instances of KOMPLETE Kontrol in your DAW on different tracks.
Now in Gig Performer when you switch between the instances on the S88 your are totally lost because KOMPLETE Kontrol does not stay within a rackspace - seems it sees all instances in the Gig.

And I think KEYLAB could have the same issue.

[David-san]

OK, I see. Changing from one instance to the other could be seen as muting or unmuting a track of you DAW, but from what you explain it doesn’t.

[pianopaul]

The problem is that Komplete Kontrol does not switching instances of Komplete Plugin within a rackspace.

[megapeng]

hi guys,i could not post anymore yesterday… b.t.w. bought my licence of GP

o.k. done some further testing…
it works in general within the first rackspace.
it works with the same plugin (duplicate rackspace) on second third rackspace e.t.c.
it does not work on rackspaces (exept 1st) with different arturia plugins.
very strange indeed.

here is the communication with arturia from yesterday not very helpful though. it looks like there is a young student replying substituting the “real” support guys wich are already at their “end of the year” holiday so i have to be patient (patience is the natural enemy of my mind):
my message
everything works fine (with arturias vsts) exept for one, to me crucial, thing. the display on the keylab 49 does not get the status back (wich preset loaded e.t.c.) on the display.
i tried it with reaper and samplitude there it works,
i have tried it also with analog lab loaded into gig performer,wich is not the idea after all, but it does not work either.
i am in touch with the GP guys as well (just to let you know)
they suggestet scripting in gig performer wich is way beyond my skills.
the setup (in GP) is not meant to be “big gigs” with all songs but max 12 preset changes for a (frank zappa tribute)
all synth by arturia
all piano,e piano e.t.c. by pianoteq.

arturias response:
Hi Dave,

Thank you for using our instruments.

Do you have the same issue in Stand alone?
Sorry for the inconvenience but unfortunately, gig performer is not within our supported DAWs so it may just not have this function or you have to configure it within the DAW.

Below you can find further information for the compatibility:

Virtual instruments and effects - Compatibility Installation FAQ

I stay at your disposal.
Best regards,

[David-san]

@megapeng

bought my licence of GP

Welcome to the club

How does it works with the keylab. Is there a keylab plugin hosting the different Arturia synth or only a driver and you still need GP to host the different Arturia synth plugins. I use GP for hosting the Arturia synth without keylab keyboard so I don’t exactly know…

[megapeng]

edit: reactivated arturia midi out in midi prefs no changes…
closed and opended GP and it did change…no display at all…therefore back to turn midi out off

lets say i have the mini on rackspace 1 and jupiter rackspace 2
the mini sends his data to the mkII display (name,knobs,faders)
jupiter (rackspace 2) responds correctly with all the knobs but no change on the display.
this in rackspace 1 started working after pianopauls suggestion to deactivate keylabs midi out in preferences.
just tried (as workaround) by loading songs - make two songs - assign only one rackspace to each of the songs but no luck…
only exeption was duplicate rackspace one (lets say as the third rackspace) that works but only if the same plugin is loaded…

arturia vst is loaded into GP in standard mode (load arturia midi in - load arturia vst - connect) no special driver.

[David-san]

@pianopaul is right, you have to uncheck the special Arturia MIDI in/out ports as they are reserved for Arturia’s KeyLab communications.

If I understand the experience of @pianopaul with the NI keyboard and if I suppose it works the same with the KeyLab keyboard, the issue is that when you open an instance of an Arturia plugin in a Rackspace, it takes the hand on the communication with the Keylab keyboard. When changing to a second Rackspace with a different plugin, it seems that the first Arturia instance is still active together with the second one which is not correct.

Keeping only one instance of GP with one Rackspace with AnalogLab and changing presets within AnalogLab could perhaps be a half solution.

[megapeng]

i give it a try thanks

[megapeng]

kinda works BUT one looses the overlapping of sounds on rack change wich in my opinion is more important than the display…
the idea why i insist so much much on the display thing is avoiding staring on a computer screen during a show…our keyboarder stands front stage. plus there is a lot of impro going on and one has to have access quickly different sounds/synths…

thanks for your effort
maybe the arturia guys open up their minds…

[David-san]

@megapeng

on rack change

My suggestion was not to have multiple Rackspaces, but one single Rackspace in one GP instance dedicated to the Arturia keyboard. Then find a way to automate plugin preset changes through variations. e.g. assigning a GP widget to the plugin preset selection, if the plugin offer this possibility, which would make it possible to store one different preset per variation while keeping the same AnalogLab plugin.

Regarding the Arturia display it is probably (very) limited to the Arturia plugins, while GP is virtually limited by… nothing. e.g. you can use a smartphone or a tablet with Lemur to control a very complex GP setup. I personally use a small touch screen which is perfect to face the crowd.

With Arturia you own the KeyLab, with Gig Performer you own the stage!

[megapeng]

i understood that…BUT as i said (i presume you have analog lab) within analog lab it works nicely but the sound cuts off on preset / sound change…this is one of the main reasons i went for GP up to 10 sec sound overlapping

[megapeng]

something completely different : on the main midi monitor, the very first value one sees at the left - ist that NRPRN values?

[pianopaul]

I think that is somewhat like a time information.

[dhj]

Edit:
Ooops – it’s the absolute time of the incoming message starting at when the monitor window was opened

[David-san]

@megapeng

i went for GP up to 10 sec sound overlapping

Unfortunately this works only for Rackspace changes.

I have the V Collection, but I never used AnalogLab

Which kind of useful information is displayed on the KeyLab screen?

[megapeng]

- YouTube

[David-san]

OK, I understand, it is nothing special, but it is convenient and works out of the box. However, if you want to do more with the KeyLab than using an Arturia plugin, I suppose you would reach the limits of the KeyLab software.
Using GP you can also make use of the KeyLab screen using GPScript. See here what @rbmj has done:

@rbmj

Thanks! That’s quite the hack but it works great! I just wrote code to show the current rackspace name on my Arturia Keylab mk2’s LCD screen. A couple notes/wishlist items, and I’ll share the code at the bottom:

• Global Scripts would be nice. If the interacted with the rig system that would be even better (though you’d probably need to add oop and inheritance to GPScript for the last bit so I understand that’s a stretch :D)
• Some sort of way to share code between rackspaces, even if it’s just a basic #include style copypaste
• Understand that documentation is a pain, especially for something like this. Maybe make it a wiki or host it on github so that the community can help?
• Add me to the list of people asking for OnSongActivate - Looks like from another thread you’ve written the code so hopefully it’s easy!
• String constant expressions are pass by reference, which leads to the rather confusing behavior that var s : String; s = "foo"; bar(s); is not equivalent to bar("foo"); if bar modifies its argument. If all non-primitive types exhibit this behavior it would be helpful if it was explained in the tutorial.

I’ll share my code in case anyone else is using the keylab:

var
    Keylab2          : MidiOutBlock;
    SysEx            : SysexManager;
    KEYLAB2_LCD_PRE  : String;
    KEYLAB2_LCD_SEP  : String;
    KEYLAB2_LCD_END  : String;
    ASCII_STRING     : String;
    ASCII_HEX_STRING : String array;

Initialization
    ASCII_STRING = " !\"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[Y]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}><";
    ASCII_HEX_STRING = ["20","21","22","23","24","25","26","27","28","29","2A","2B","2C","2D","2E","2F","30","31","32","33","34","35","36","37","38","39","3A","3B","3C","3D","3E","3F","40","41","42","43","44","45","46","47","48","49","4A","4B","4C","4D","4E","4F","50","51","52","53","54","55","56","57","58","59","5A","5B","5C","5D","5E","5F","60","61","62","63","64","65","66","67","68","69","6A","6B","6C","6D","6E","6F","70","71","72","73","74","75","76","77","78","79","7A","7B","7C","7D","7E","7F"];
    KEYLAB2_LCD_PRE = "# F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 04 00 60 01 ";
    KEYLAB2_LCD_SEP = " 00 02 ";
    KEYLAB2_LCD_END = " 00 F7";
 End
    
Function StringToHexString(str : String) Returns String
   var i : Integer
   result = "";

   For i=0; i<Length(str) ; i=i+1 Do
     result = result + ASCII_HEX_STRING[IndexOfSubstring(ASCII_STRING, CopySubstring(str,i,1), True)];
   End
End
    
Function Keylab2LCD(line0 : String, line1 : String)
    If Length(line0) > 16
	Then
		line0 = CopySubstring(line0, 0, 16);
    End
    line0 = StringToHexString(line0);
    
    If Length(line1) > 16
    Then
        line1 = CopySubstring(line1, 0, 16);
    End
    line1 = StringToHexString(line1);


    SM_CreateSysexFromString(SysEx, KEYLAB2_LCD_PRE + line0 + KEYLAB2_LCD_SEP + line1 + KEYLAB2_LCD_END); 
    SM_SendMidiOut(SysEx, Keylab2);
End

On Activate
    var s : String;
    s = "Rackspace:";
    Keylab2LCD(s, GetRackspaceName());
End

An alternative, which doesn’t necessitates scripting could be to use a GP Lemur or Touch OSC template working with OSC:

How to use TouchOSC application as a remote display and control surface with Gig Performer

How to use Lemur with Gig Performer using OSC functionality

[megapeng]

thanks,
and happy new year,
i ll report if something new comes up - arturia support responded with the classic "ill forward this to devs team" answer…probably will take a while coz they`re busy adapting to the new macs (new cpu)
but one never knows.