Toggle Note with distinct parameters

Hi,

Thank you for this great plugin for Stream Deck.
I find it very useful.
It allows me to control various DAWs using Mackie Control emulation.

One thing I am missing, though is the ability to use Note ON/OFF toggle but not to toggle the ON/OFF state as it is now. Instead, to toggle the note number. So, in essence, a mode right in between Push and Toggle, as it is now. In this new mode, let's call it Latch for now, a key press would send an immediate ON,OFF as it is now in the existing Push mode, but it would toggle between two user-defined note numbers, so each odd press would send note number XX, while each even press would send note number YY.

I tried using Stream Deck's built-in Multi Action Switch, but that one works with some latency and is completely unsuitable for this task.

Here is the use case I am talking about: almost all DAWs have the key Space bound to their transport. But, this Space is neither Play, nor Stop, it is both, but toggled. And this works great for fast edits and rewinds in most DAWs, so when editing an instrument, hitting Space repeatedly forces the DAW to play back a small portion, instantly rewind and play it back again, and so on. For quick and precise editing, this is godsend.
But, through MIDI Mackie Control protocol, this can't be achieved because Play Note ON/OFF MIDI message toggles between Play and Pause, not Stop. Hence, I can not use my Stream Deck for this. I do have Stop button configured right next to the Play button, but, in reality, it is nowhere near as convenient and fast for me to keep pressing Play/Stop/Play/Stop/Play/Stop...

Hence, the only way to simulate what almost all DAWs have bound to the biggest button on everyone's keyboard is to introduce this new Latch mode, or however you want to call it.

Thank you.

Cheers!

AtmanActive

Hi, thanks for the suggestion.

Are you in a situation where you must emulate Mackie Control? For me, the "normal" way of remote controlling transport functions like Start/Stop is to use Control Change messages, but I might be too Cubase oriented   With a Control Change button in cycle mode you can implement a scenario like the one you describe where you toggle between two distinct messages, but as you have noticed the same functionality is not available for Note On/Off buttons.

When I started off with the plugin I didn't see that much use for the Note On/Off action but added it just for the fun of it. I have come to realize that there actually are a number of situations where the action would be handy but where the current implementation falls short. I realize that the Mackie Control protocol uses note messages for a number of things so it's probably ( ) a good thing to extend the functionality of the Note On/Off action.

There is a rather big update in progress where the Note On/Off action has got some new features but unfortunately not something that enables the scenario you want to have. The first thing that comes to my mind is to implement cycle mode for the note action as it is for the Control Change (and Program Change in the coming version). Cycle mode is extremely powerful and flexible (in the coming version) and it is no problem implementing the toggle scenario you describe. I must investigate how I can implement the GUI without making things too complex.

Here are the options I have:



Cycle would be great indeed and the simplest way to implement UI inputs is to allow a comma.
If user types in 94,93 (or 94, 93), then Note ON/OFF message could cycle through those note numbers.
And if someone would like a longer sequence - no problem, they can type in 94, 93, 64, 62, 18, 55 and so on. Also, if someone types in just one number, then, there would be no cycle at all but a normal Push mode.

I'm afraid that the cycle implementation found in Control Change and Program Change actions are more complex than adding a comma - it's controlled by xml files. On the other hand the implementation can handle a lot of complex situations like displaying individual texts/images for each midi value and handle send and receive separately (i.e. can send certain values when you press the button but can handle other values received).

In the plugin version currently in development cycle xml files are actually implemented in the Note action as well, but only for midi input (the request I have got from other users is that they wanted to be able to display specific texts/images based on incoming midi messages). If I do anything I think it will be to fully implement the current cycle xml file logic in Note actions in the same way as for the other actions.