ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching

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Blades
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2014/06/23 22:25:38 (permalink)

ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching

I have had a post out on the old Pro Audio forum for the last 7 years with nearly no action: http://forum.cakewalk.com/ACT-question-re-bus-output-settings-m1106306.aspx#3056300
 
Here's what I'm trying to do in a nutshell and I don't think is yet fixed in the X3 platform:
 
I have an Echo Layla 3G.  The output #1 pair is mirrored to the headphone out, so I have nothing plugged into that speaker out, so it's exclusively for headphones.  I have my main monitors plugged into Out 2 on the Layla.  To switch from monitors to headphones, I show the Master bus and change its output routing to Out 1 or Out 2 (which I've renamed for simplicity to "Headphones" and "Monitors" in Sonar).
 
This is a great setup and works ok, but it's a bit of a pain to get to when you do it over and over - so I wanted to make an easier way - and I can imagine that this would be useful to others as a basic monitor switching function.
 
I tried to assign two busses to the main out instead, each one pointing to the correct physical output, then using the midi remote function, I put a toggle using a button on my PCR800 keyboard.  So, when I press the A8 button, it engages one and turns off the other and vice-versa.  This APPEARS to work: the lights change on the busses to enable/disable as expected - but nothing happens to the actual routing, so the sound stays wherever it was (i.e. monitors).
 
If I CLICK the same bus boxes to enable and disable them accordingly with my mouse, it does exactly what it's supposed to.  This seems like a bug, and after fiddling with it over and over, I've found it's not like it's just a bug at the master bus or anything - this particular midi remote function doesn't appear to work anywhere.
 
Can someone try a similar thing and see if they can get it to work or think of another way that I can accomplish the same goal of pressing a single hardware button (ACT or not) to switch the Master from Out1 to Out2?
 
Thanks for any input.

Blades
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    azslow3
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    Re: ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching 2014/06/24 05:38:57 (permalink)
    I have answered in your original thread: "Mute" works with Remote control.

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    #2
    Blades
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    Re: ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching 2014/06/24 08:21:21 (permalink)
    Thanks azslow3 - I will give this a shot and see if it works for me!

    Blades
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    Blades
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    Re: ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching 2014/09/14 08:56:30 (permalink)
    I finally had a chance to play around with this and get it working.  Thanks AZSlow for the mute on the mains tip, as that DOES work.
     
    For those interested in doing something similar, here's what the configuration is:
     
    1. Set your Master bus to have two sends, one to the headphone out and one to the monirot out (or multiple monitors or whatever).  In the case of the Echo Layla, this is Out 1/2 (headphones) and Out 3/4 (monitors) - I still have 5/6 and 7/8 available for other things.
     
    2.  Make sure that both of these sends are on and at the standard 0db level.
     
    3.  Go to your console view and turn on the Main Outs in the view options - they should be to the right of the Bus displays.
     
    4.  Go to each of the Mute buttons on each main out and right click and select Remote Control.  Then choose what will toggle the control.  In my case, I selected Note C0 since that will never naturally occur in anything I'm doing.
     
    5.  Select the buttons so that one of the pairs is muted and the other one isn't.  This will make them alternate when the toggle is used (so the headphones mute is engaged while the monitor one is not).
     
    6.  Now, on the keyboard (a PCR800), I go to the ACT settings and select a button to disable it from being an ACT button - in this case, I've chosen the A8 button.
     
    7.  I then edit the button from the control panel on the keyboard itself to send midi note C0 (you could do this from the control program as well, I suppose, but for one button, it's like 10 key presses).
     
    Now I can use this one button as a toggle for the headphones and monitors.  It probably doesn't seem like much, but this is a real pain to do otherwise when you are going back and forth between the two settings.  It also functions more or less like some of the monitor switching devices out there that you have to BUY :)
     
    I doubt that this will help anyone much since there hasn't been a whole lot of activity on the post, but maybe it will help someone along the way!

    Blades
    www.blades.technology  - Technology Info and Tutorials for Music and Web
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    Blades
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    Re: ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching 2014/09/14 08:57:56 (permalink)
    By the way - HEY CAKEWALK - I suppose this should be put in as a problem report since the remote control doesn't work in many cases but does in this case.

    Blades
    www.blades.technology  - Technology Info and Tutorials for Music and Web
    #5
    Anderton
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    Re: ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching 2014/09/14 12:30:56 (permalink)
    In general, toggling between functions is easy to do with grouping. For example, I often need to A/B two tracks. I set one track's solo button on, the other off, and group them. Clicking on either solo button toggles between the two.
     
    In your situation, set the On buttons for the two sends oppositely, group them, then assign Remote Control on one of the buttons.

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    Blades
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    Re: ACT/Remote Control for Main out switching 2014/09/14 14:40:18 (permalink)
    Anderton - that's the problem: for sends (whether on a bus or on a track) the remote control SHOWS that this would work in that the screen shows that the bus gets turned on and off and the function would work if you click the mouse on it, but when you press the remote control button, it only shows the video on screen that the switch is happening, but the audio doesn't react accordingly.
     
    When I do the exact same thing at the Main Out level using the Mute buttons as the item to modify with the remote control, it does work.  This is why I'm saying I think it's a bug.  AZSlow kind of confirmed this in the other thread I have, but I couldn't really get anyone else interested enough to try it to see if it was just something I am doing wrong.

    Blades
    www.blades.technology  - Technology Info and Tutorials for Music and Web
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