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Sending pinned midi on song end

Started by aeonaero, September 22, 2023, 05:11:59 AM

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aeonaero

I just wanted to see if anyone has a work-around for this scenario...

While I have almost everything automated in BH and it's just about perfect, it would complete my automation journey if there was some method of sending the pinned midi at the end of each song without having to embed the "send pinned midi" command at the end of every automation.

For example, a song ends, and my pinned midi would send miri to my harmonizer to turn off my vocal harmonies so when I talk, the audience doesn't hear my electronic backup singers trying to harmonize with everything I'm saying to them.  :D

I am WAY too lazy to try to remember to hit the footswitch after each song, or to manually put the command at the end of all my automations. Arlo already has to deal with so much trying to support us BH morons, so I don't want to do a feature request for yet another addition option. I was hoping someone smarter than me has figured out a way to accomplish something like this already and could share.

arlo

You can set Setting > App Control > Actions > Send Pinned MIDI to Layout Actions > Song Completion. If you're using automation tracks, the end of each automation track will trigger that.

JerryK

How can I be sure that Pinned Midi 3 (whatever) will always be #3 ?
All the presets are listed in alpha order on the Midi Preset web page and I don't see a way to re-order them on the press-and-hold midi button.
So using "Pinned Midi" will send the first one, same as Pinned Midi 1 ? but what happens if I create and pin one with an alpha-earlier name?
What did I miss?

arlo

There isn't a way to position the pinned presets beyond their default alphanumeric sorting. If you are targeting a specific preset number with the app control settings and you pin or unpin any presets, you can update your app control settings as needed. I don't expect this is something that would change very often, and it doesn't take long to change the app control settings when it does.

JerryK


avdb

this seems a rather unexpected change to the previous Layout MIDI function that I had to figure out during a live performance....

And I concur with Jerry that this workflow may lead to non-deterministic behavior, which in my opinion is not correct for this particular function. I would think that the previous layout MIDI was perfect, as it ensured that a particular midi-command (like FX-OFF, light reset etc) were ALWAYS sent at song end (in my particular workflow). This regardless if the midi was pinned to a song or not, regardless of its placement in the midi preset list of that song. That was an ensuring factor.
If I understand the concept of pinned MIDI now correctly (but I had no way to really verify as the change-log pages of the website seems to be down?) is that now the only option is to send a pinned midi (#1?). Does change in workflow mean that besides being nondeterministic, I would now have to go thru each of the songs in my repertoire and verify that the correct midi preset is added to each song and actually is on the 1st position?

And even if this is the case, again, imho, this should be a deterministic workflow, regardless of what midis are pinned to a song or not.

But may be I am missing something here?

arlo

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I would think that the previous layout MIDI was perfect, as it ensured that a particular midi-command (like FX-OFF, light reset etc) were ALWAYS sent at song end (in my particular workflow).

Unless you changed layouts or devices and forgot to attach the same MIDI presets in the same order to the new layout ... then it wouldn't work. That was a disadvantage of the previous approach.

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Does change in workflow mean that besides being nondeterministic, I would now have to go thru each of the songs in my repertoire and verify that the correct midi preset is added to each song and actually is on the 1st position?

I think you're conflating attaching a MIDI preset, which works on a song-by-song basis, with pinning a MIDI preset, which makes a preset available from all songs without having to attach it to all songs. Attached MIDI presets work the same way they did before, and pinned MIDI presets take the place of layout MIDI presets.

Ahiru

If you want to accomplish the OP's objective but avoid the use of pinned MIDI, consider using an approach where the end of the previous song triggers First Song Selection for the next song, but the automation for that next song does not start until Second Song Selection (e.g. by tap or switch).

Then the first attached MIDI in each song (which would be sent on that First Song Selection as a result of ending the previous song) can include all sorts of 'utility' commands appropriate for both ending the previous song (turn off harmonizer, turn off reverb, set lights for talking, turn off song recording, etc.) and getting ready for the next song (e.g., setting initial instrument presets).  Since a BH MIDI preset can contain a list of other MIDI Presets (which can contain other presets, and so on), you can define one globally useful 'end of song' preset, which you include in the first attached preset for each song along with whatever other presets that song needs for unique 'getting ready' settings.

(I'm not a fan of positional references to pinned MIDI, since I use them more as globally available 'emergency' buttons on all layouts, so it feels like forcing one data structure into two rather different use cases.)