Moving this to its own separate discussion to see if anyone out there is using Bitwig and wants to have more control over the environment with the EO.
Although I’m investigating a true custom script to follow my workflow there is already a good resource to bring the EO into the BW universe and that’s by using the script from Mossgraber (link below).
Using his script and using his “GENERIC FLEXI” midi controller you can quickly and easily assign control over things that you have in focus (ie. track focus), plugin and things like that.
If this is of interest and anyone needs further info, let me know!
Rich
Yes, good thing with a dedicated topic.
As mentioned I’m working on an extension, and with a lot of inspiration from Moss’s code and his videos on the API.
As also mentioned, I’m for now focused on automatically mapping plugin parameters to pages on the electra. So when you change plugin in Bitwig, the layout of the electra changes with it. I also want to set up a page for adding plugins to your chain in bitwig, so you could for example have a page with you favorite plugins assigned to buttons on the electra, and when you push them, you add plugins on the selected track.
And setting up buttons to browse through the plugins in your chain with the electra.
A lot is possible with the Java API for Bitwig, so I’m still also very open to ideas from anyone here.
Further down the road I will try and make it customizable as Moss’s extension so brilliantly does, but Im learning a lot of Java while doing this, so progress sometimes is slow.
Wow all sounds great!
I’ll be happy to test for you!
For now, going to map via Moss to the best of my ability.
My main focus is to have quick access to track focus SENDS and focused plugin parameters.
LOVE the idea of being able to use the EO to add plugins into the chain etc.
Well yes and no.
It is possible to get Bitwig to send out plug-in names, tracknames and so on as sysex messages, thats what the presonus faderport displays uses for example, but Electra doesnt support that at this moment. And im not sure it’s necessary.
What I’ve done so far, and works very well is just to make different pages and presets on the electra and have Bitwig send out MIDI messages to change pages on the electra. It works smoothly. Only thing is you have to keep the presets and pages in a specific order on electra.
But my electra changes page when i change plug-in so the the layout is setup with plug-in and parameter names. But ive put Them in to the electra “manually”
But Then again it could be cool if you change the name of a send the electra would imidiately reflect it, it’s not doable right now, as i understand, but it could be a suggestion to be able to rename parameters on the electra externally via sysex. Lets see what Martin says
I used the GENERIC FLEXI script from Moss yesterday evening as a starter. It worked very well for the basics like selected device parameter 1-8 assignments, selected track control, transport, selected fx sends, etc.
This is brilliant. Thanks to everybody who is involved! I am finishing assembling of last controllers today and I am really eager to give test ride what you guys have done.
@andersskibsted helped me to get the Bitwig and the extensions running on my computer. Thx!
Did anyone succeed in getting normal bidirectional control working in Bitwig like it does in Ableton or Studio One?
I can easily map an electra control to a knob in Bitwig on a device panel, but moving the knob onscreen doesn’t send data back, and neither does changing presets etc.
I’m new to EO so maybe just doing something wrong…
I’ve come up with an Electra One Control script for use in Bitwig. It maps to Remote Parameter Pages in devices, it is bidirectional, high-res, shows labels, and allows you to traverse the availlalbe device pages (which can be created without limit).
@joris.roling Wow that’s fantastic. Already turned the Electra into a really handy tool for composing in Bitwig. So far I haven’t seen any “bugs” but some limitations which would be great to get past for the next versions, though I don’t know if Bitwig will let you:
Show multiple pages on the controller at once
and/or ID the device and use that to load a page which is linked to the multiple pages
and/or allow direct control of the selected device without mapping the pages
smaller maybe: support other control types (toggle button, momentary button)
… ok I could go on but just wanted to let you know your work is much appreciated.
About your points:
Multiple pages at once is not possible in Bitwig, The reason probably being that there are devices (like VSTs) that have thousands (and thousands) of parameters, So one needs to break 'em down somehow, and I think Bitwigs appraoch is to simply limit them (to pages of 8 parameters at once), but allow you to have unlimited amounts of these pages. I much prefer this to Abletons way of things. (Remember, these Remote Control Pages can be made sticky to the device, so that future uses of that device will have these pages again.)
But I’m considering to use a bunch of quick access buttons (with labels) to have the page changed.
Theser are still 24 ‘cells’ unused in the current version, so I think that could be a way to go forward.
Yes I’d heard of that limitation in Bitwig before. However you can map any number of knobs directly to parameters on a device without using the Remote pages. So if you could:
Switch page and
Tell Bitwig to focus the mapped knobs directly to the currently focused instance
then you’d bypass their annoying limitation. But perhaps that’s not possible either? I thought @andersskibsted was taking this approach with his project…
Re some quick-change buttons, yes it would be handy to be able to assign some of those - perhaps 6 or so, especially if named, would make it quite practical (like an Elektron device). I wouldn’t use up all the slots though, as it would be nice to use those for some other benefits like sends, bypass, etc.
I never heard of that apprach, maybe @andersskibsted can confirm/explain this approach?
Will look at the quck access approach soon. First had to implement a protection so other the “Bitwig Control” presets would not be altered (labels) by the Control Script.
Sometimes I get one quick access button, and sometimes I get 6, but if I go from a device with for example 8 to a device with only 1 page, then the 1 quick access button label updates but the other 5 buttons remain (non functional).
Also I notice the quick access buttons are toggles not momentary, so they are stuck on once you tap them.
Already seeing plenty of value though, and I notice Repro 1 comes with a set of pre-defined pages which are named etc - should be excellent, but now I’m stuck on one button only for some reason?
Good find! Yes, I see now it did a bad job in getting that number of Quick Access buttons from settings. I fixed that now (v1.05), and I think it should work out better now. Have a look!
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