Routing Device

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:41 am

Hello,

In my current setup I have 32 stereo inputs and 12 stereo outputs. Is there a device that can route any input to any output, controlled through MIDI messages. The STM 24xx mixers only have 4 stereo output busses. I would like to use 12 stereo 'busses' but not 3 STM 24xx mixers! Volume controls for each input are not necessary. Also, if possible I would like to merge several stereo inputs to one stereo output.

Dodge

[ This Message was edited by: dodge on 2005-10-01 07:45 ]

djmicron · Post by **djmicron** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 6:55 am

take a look to http://www.j9ksys.com/ routing devices, or this http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 6&forum=16 you can also do the job using the modular shell or the dynamic mixer.

[ This Message was edited by: djmicron on 2005-10-01 08:12 ]

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 9:04 am

You can try my free mixer, Route, which has 16 stereo ins and 6 stereo bus outputs. You'd need to use two for your setup, but it's better than three!

It's in the devices forum and at http://www.shaynesworld.com.

(I just remembered, there might be some DSP management issues, so you might not be able to use all the channels at once. If it doesn't work, you'll have to try sometime else.)

Shayne

_________________
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[ This Message was edited by: Shayne White on 2005-10-01 10:05 ]

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:14 pm

Dodge:

I have a homebrew "bus matrix" which is *only* MIDI-controlled (no GUI) and also has a very strange algorithm for MIDI control...

It is a 60 x 14 bus patcher. No level control, only "on/off" settings for each channel to each bus output. It uses 120 MIDI ccs (1 MIDI channel's worth) and uses very little DSP (somewhere between 1/2 and 1 DSP). Also if you have the SDK you can hack it however you like.

Using 2 of the plugins (1 for 32 x 12 "left" channels, and the other for 32 x 12 "right" channels) wouldn't cost much DSP.

But the MIDI control is weird, if you're using a hardware controller. Each MIDI byte has 7 bits that turn on or off a channel-to-bus route. That makes it impossible to control, unless you have some kind of software to do the mapping for you.

For example to route channel 1 to various combinations of buses 1-12, you would add the following cc / control values:

<pre>
Channel 1 routings:
Bus cc # Value Bus cc # Value
------------------ ------------------
1 0 64 2 60 64
3 0 32 4 60 32
5 0 16 6 60 16
7 0 8 8 60 8
9 0 4 10 60 4
11 0 2 12 60 2
13 0 1 14 60 1
All off 0 0 All off 60 0
</pre>

If you want to route channel 1 to buses 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8, then here's what you would send:

<pre>
cc 0: 104
(bus 1 = 64 bus 3 = 32 bus 7 = 8
64 + 32 + 8 = 104)

cc 60: 40
(bus 4 = 32 bus 8 = 8
32 + 8 = 40)
</pre>

Now it gets really weird when you turn a knob with a setup like that!

But if you have any way of programmatically mapping on/off button presses to the above values, it would do the trick.

Let me know if you're interested (and not confused as hell

) and I can hook you up with the module.

Incidentally, until someone comes up with a MIDI compression algorithm, this module will be the most efficient and maxed-out setup you can get.

60 input channels x 2 ccs each = 120 MIDI ccs
7 bits per cc x 2 ccs per channel = 14 output buses
= 1 MIDI channel used up completely

Using 1 MIDI channel you could have 120 x 7, 60 x 14, 40 x 21, 30 x 28, 24 x 35, ... Other "normal numbers" (like 64 x 24) lead to a lot of wasted MIDI cc's.

Sorry for all the geekspeak...

Johann

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:15 pm

@ Shayne,

Thanks for the info. I will check that out!

@ djmicron

I couldn't get anything to work using the modular III as it's near impossible to use on my system (Mac). I don't know why, but I can't load any item from the menu's for about 8 times, and when it does it loads the first item I tried to select. After a while Scope crashes?

The switch devices wouldn't really help, because it doesn't allow routing any input to any output. I need 8 in 8 out for example, not 8 in, 2 out.

I could change the normal Scope routing as my projects progress but it would be nice to stay as close as possible to my default setup and try to find a way to automate it using MIDI messages. That way I could batch record all the inputs and move them to separate tracks in Logic 12 tracks at a time.

Dodge

[ This Message was edited by: dodge on 2005-10-01 13:16 ]

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:20 pm

Oh incidentally though a 24/48 gives you 18 buses (16 + 1 stereo mix):

- 8 buses
- 6 auxes
- 1 stereo monitor

The problem with the 24/48 and 48/96 is that you can't MIDI-control the 8-bus assignments.

EDIT: also a warning. MIDI control of the monitor bus pan doesn't work (for me at least). And there is the 48/S mixer, which gives you 16 MIDI-controllable buses (if you turn 8.1 surround on and use 2 cc's for the 2-D panning). But I was never able to get completely distinct bus outputs. No matter what Intensity setting I used, the output from channel A to bus X would always bleed a little into buses Y and Z. When you have 30 tracks going it becomes really annoying and you have to add expanders etc which sucks. But then when you try to patch channel 1 through bus 1 into outboard gear back into channel 2 into bus 2... You get MAJOR feedback! Turn it off!!!!! AAAAAH!

Ummmm... Sorry for the geekrant...

I still haven't used Shayne's Route (though I've downloaded it like 5 times!) but maybe it has aux buses too, that you could use as extra "main" buses?

[ This Message was edited by: blazesboylan on 2005-10-01 13:24 ]

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:27 pm

@ Johann

I understand the math involved with MIDI messages.

Applications like these can get quite complex. I don't know of a simple way to implement this in let's say Logic without entering the values manually, which would probably make it easier to just alter the routing window itself.

Thanks for the offer but I think I'd rather go for something that makes my setup a little bit easier to change.

Dodge

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:36 pm

I use the STM mixers aux buses for FX so those are not available to me for output. MIDI control is what I'm after so if you can't assign the inputs to a bus output using the STM mixers (I haven't tried it yet) than there is not point in using the STM to begin with.

Dodge

[ This Message was edited by: dodge on 2005-10-02 03:23 ]

djmicron · Post by **djmicron** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 3:35 pm

if you have the stm mixer, you can use the dynamic mixer to add bus capabilities to the project and midi controllable.
Using the direct outputs of the stm mixer, you can route to the dynamic mixer and use it as a bus addon.
I'm sorry for the bugs that you have on the mac, here on winxp all is fine

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 10:27 pm

I will try the dynamic mixer. Sounds like a good option.

Dodge

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 2:30 am

Well I ended up with 3 STM 2448's again. Same as the initial setup I started with. The route device works as well, so I'm going to try rearranging the setup later today.

Dodge

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 10:31 am

Hello again.

I'm thinking about a new device: 8 IN / 8 OUT. This will allow any input to be routed to any output, with the limitation that you can specify an input to be routed to only one output. No signal duplication. It should behave the same way as the route 'empty effect' device from j9k, only with a different look. I don't have access to the SDK yet, so maybe there's someone that can actually build this device. I have no idea how much work it involves. Based on this device, you could create others with more ins and outs. Inputs are on the left of the matrix, output on the top. The image below shows the default routing: input 1 to output 1 and so on...

The image:

Dodge

[ This Message was edited by: dodge on 2005-10-02 11:34 ]

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 10:41 pm

Wow, nice looking

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:41 am

Hey dodge,
nice idea. As my music goes I think in a expermintal way. It would be nice to put eight multi lfo´s on this, one lfo for each channel.
So the lfo´s could work as a random or sinus, bpm based routing.
Imagine to put different effect chains on every out, you´ll get nice rhythmic or random effect grooves.

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:23 am

thats just up my alley too, and one of the reasons i love Modular, where i can build similar efx.

my vote is on this plugin to be developed sometime soon!

ps. and yea baby, thats a nice looking plugin! ds.

[ This Message was edited by: steffensen on 2005-10-03 02:23 ]

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:23 am

Hello,

As soon as I can get the SDK I will see what I can do. Right now it's just a PhotoShop mock-up.

Dodge

[ This Message was edited by: dodge on 2005-10-03 03:25 ]

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:12 am

I was thinking about using midi note on/off messages to control the matrix. Can anyone tell me if that is possible within the Scope MIDI implementation?

It would open up more possibilities for this device because it would allow you to play with it using a keyboard. And playing back arpeggio's for example would result in input output changes on a time controlled basis.

Dodge

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:43 am

On 2005-10-04 10:12, dodge wrote:
I was thinking about using midi note on/off messages to control the matrix. Can anyone tell me if that is possible within the Scope MIDI implementation?

Yes.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 5:18 am

Dodge, your design reminded me...
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 6&forum=16

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2005-10-05 06:18 ]

dodge · Post by **dodge** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 7:27 am

Hi,

The idea is pretty much the same, exepct for the fact that I don't need volume control for the matrix. A good alternative for now. Thanks for the pointer!

Dodge