Control selector module, 8+ inputs
  • jasonbeyers
    super8 member
    Posts: 125
    Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2018 7:16 am

    Control selector module, 8+ inputs

    by jasonbeyers » Fri Feb 18, 2022 8:51 am

    Hi,

    The control combiner module has been very handy for manipulating & routing controls within Madmapper. This has been especially important when applying controls to surface FX, which cannot have multiple copies with their own controls (on the same surface).

    Let's say a project uses a single surface as the "main" content source, or a "bottom layer". If you apply a surface FX and want audio to control one of the FX settings, you're basically stuck with that particular audio control (with the ranges & filtering) for the duration of a live show. There's no way to tweak the nature of that control in a live setting.

    With a control combiner module driving a surface FX parameter, you can enable/disable/adjust that audio (or oscillator) control before it reaches the FX. It's not complete management of the original control, but on/off is a good start.

    Now let's say you come up with a handful of interesting controls for that FX parameter - one from audio, and two from different oscillators. With the "control combiner" module in mode=lua, you can craft a simple A/B/C selector, and apply those 3 controls to the inputs of the combiner. In a live setting, you could select among these 3 with a cue governing the combiner.

    But, 3 inputs just isn't enough. In my projects, I've been creating copies of my surface FX files (changing the filenames) just so I can get different controls on the same settings. This also means I need to map MIDI/OSC for each of these FX, for FX settings that I manage manually during an event. This produces quite a mess, both in the project but also in the FX thumbnail browser and on disk.

    My proposed solution: a new module, "Control Selector", that simply selects 1 among 8 or more inputs via a drop-down menu.

    It would be basically an 8+ input Control Combiner where the only options are "Input 1", "Input 2", "Input 3", "Input 4", etc. And if the input count itself is configurable, even better.

    OR, an option for 8+ inputs in the existing control combiner module.

    This would improve my workflow greatly! And no more hard decisions on what cool control schemes to choose & discard, for a given show.

    My use case:
    * 3 "stacks" of surfaces (3-4 quad layers per stack), routing output from stack1 -> stack2 -> stack3 via syhonn/spout
    * Surface FX applied to every surface, with specific FX getting re-used throughout a show
    * 50-60 total surface FX parameters with some sort of audio or oscillator control. Half of these are routed through a control combiner to allow for enable/disable.

    Closing thought: More flexibility on the control-routing side would make surface FX more useful in a live setting.

    Thanks for your consideration!
    -Jason

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