Problem using subcontrols rather than copies for sliders

Question

I would like to have the same slider controls available on different pages. I don't want to use copy because I'd like the controls to be a different size on the second page, so I'm using subcontrols. No problem so far.

The control relationship is one-to-one (one supercontrol->one subcontrol). This is working great when the sliders have 128 ticks and 128 MIDI values. A problem arises, however, when the controls have a number of ticks and values other than 128 ticks / 0-127 values.

For instance, I have a supercontrol slider with 100 ticks and MIDI values from 0-99. It has a subcontrol with exactly the same setup, but there is no relationship between the displayed or sent values. If I drag the supercontrol to value 50, the subcontrol reads and sends value 39 (which is essentially the ratio of 100:127).

I have to work around it by setting the supercontrol MIDI values to 0-127 while keeping it's number of ticks at 100. Is this the intended behavior? It took me a while to figure out the relationship, but I would have thought the controls would have been more of a 1:1 relationship.

Long post to tell you I've got it worked out, but it doesn't seem right.

Comments

Hi, I'm at NAMM and typing this on my iphone, but: this sounds like a mess. I'll look into it. I'm thinking about putting individual sizes for control copies BACK in (because I dumped that to reduce confusion, originally). Anyway, I'll read this question again in a few days and give it a serious looking over. Feel free to drop a comment here if I drop the ball, please.Thanks!

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This is out in 1.5.1/1.5.2. Hope you're using it... I am!

Best!
Dan

Answer 1

Yes, this is the intenteded behavior. A supercontrol that is limited from the full POSSIBLE range (0-127) will limit the subcontrol's actual range. So if a subcontrol has a range of 50 and you reduce the supercontrol's range to 32 (25% of 128), you'll get a range of only 25% of that 50. Where it gets weird is when you increase the MIDI minimum in the supercontrol. This allows you to get all kinds of variations using the same subcontrol, depending on the MIDI range of the supercontrol.

There are a bunch of situations in which this is useful.

If you think about this, it makes sense because the subcontrol sends, so only it gets the real MIDI range. The MIDI range is used in supercontrols to determine how they work as supercontrols.

Hope that makes some sense.

Comments

That makes sense in the default settings where the supercontrol doesnt send messages, and if you were to change the behavior now it would certainly break a bunch of layouts. I appreciate the verification of what I'd figured out.

So in situations like mine I just have to remember to set super controls back to the full MidI range. OK.

I would then like to place my support behind the earlier comment regarding copies. If I were able to change sizes of copies, then I'd have functionally-exact matches of controls on different pages without having to make property changes to supercontrols. I usually start my duplicate controls from the "make similar" command. Thanks for your response.

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My main concern, from before, is that people would get confused about their being copies. I'll have to mull this over. Might take a month or two to put this back, but it's been annoying me too (not having control of copies' sizes).

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I'm hoping to unleash this again in 1.5.1. Layouts would not be backwards compatible, but it's a small price to pay at this point. Stay tuned for early May release, sorry for the delay.

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This is already in for 1.5.1. Coming to you within 3 weeks (perhaps less). Thanks!

Answer 2

Yes, this is the intenteded behavior. A supercontrol that is limited from the full POSSIBLE range (0-127) will limit the subcontrol's actual range. So if a subcontrol has a range of 50 and you reduce the supercontrol's range to 32 (25% of 128), you'll get a range of only 25% of that 50. Where it gets weird is when you increase the MIDI minimum in the supercontrol. This allows you to get all kinds of variations using the same subcontrol, depending on the MIDI range of the supercontrol.

There are a bunch of situations in which this is useful.

If you think about this, it makes sense because the subcontrol sends, so only it gets the real MIDI range. The MIDI range is used in supercontrols to determine how they work as supercontrols.

Hope that makes some sense.