Hot off the presses! free plug-in for dub mixing - Mac only

[leigh]

I whipped this idea up today to try out... and I'm posting it only here at TOMB for starters. The concept is explained below. If you try this out, please post here about your experience with it!

Download the free plug-ins

"Dub Demon" and "dub minion" plug-ins

(Pluggo plug-ins, Mac only)

This pair of plug-ins provides a way to map MIDI controls to audio mutes in any compatible DAW. While some modern DAWs (Ableton Live, for one) provide for very flexible MIDI control mapping, others (such as Pro Tools) do not. The user is constrained to whatever has been provided for in a particular controller profile.

"Dub Demon" and "dub minion" work as a team to make an end-run around these limitations. The user instantiates one Dub Demon plug-in in a session, which acts like the MIDI "brain", coordinating the flow of controller messages. Then, a "dub minion" plug-in is placed wherever the user wishes to have mute control over the signal chain. The Dub Demon routes the MIDI controls to the various subservient dub minions.

Why all the trouble, just to be able to mute audio? My goal was to be able to do hands-on dub mixing in-the-box. Being able to punch mutes quickly is essential - mousing on-screen controls just won't do. At the same time, the Pro Tools MIDI mapping leaves much to be desired - I wanted to be able to place mutes on both channels and effects sends - and not be constrained to working in banks of eight channels at a time.

[leigh]

16 downloads and no replies... is this too weird/esoteric for anybody else?

[ctmsound]

I just d'led it. I'll try it out in the next few days, throw some feedback your way.

[JES]

Brilliant idea. Before I had a controller, I would just group tracks and so muting one would mute them all, but this looks a lot more flexible. Now with the SAC 2.2 it's a mute point (har har) as I can just do it manually, but for people without big controllers, this sounds like a great idea.

Best,
--JES

[leigh]

Brilliant idea. Before I had a controller, I would just group tracks and so muting one would mute them all, but this looks a lot more flexible. Now with the SAC 2.2 it's a mute point (har har) as I can just do it manually, but for people without big controllers, this sounds like a great idea.

Cool, yes, exactly what I was going for.

On the control surface I use (a Kenton), it does a bank of 8 channels at a time. Those 8 channels are always consecutive, and if I remember right, the first of the eight is chosen by whatever the "current" channel selection is.

One of the nice things about mixing with hardware is, once you set up a subgroup, the routing of it doesn't change just because you click you mouse somewhere. I wanted to be able to set up mix environment where the hardware (control surface) had a more immutable connection to the channels that it's controlling.

Also, the MIDI controller side of the Dub Demon could be made a lot more flexible... for example, it could allow for mapping a standard MIDI keyboard's notes to control the muting. Hardware control for everyone! But that would take more time, to design it for such flexiblitiy, so I was more interested, off the bat, to see if people would be into the basic concept.

We'll see... there's a few other projects to kick out the door first, before this one gets revisited...

cheers,
Leigh

[leigh]

The Dub Demon and dub minion have now gone fully public. Updated the download link to freeware above to work with the new reFuse Software site... here it is again, direct to the Dub Demon page:

http://www.refusesoftware.com/products/feature/11

[newfuturevintage]

what a great idea...not on a mac, can't try, but had to chime in. Well played!

[Waltz Mastering]

Great Job...3 thumbs up ; )

[uncle bastard]

Brilliant idea. Before I had a controller, I would just group tracks and so muting one would mute them all, but this looks a lot more flexible. Now with the SAC 2.2 it's a mute point (har har) as I can just do it manually, but for people without big controllers, this sounds like a great idea.

Cool, yes, exactly what I was going for.

On the control surface I use (a Kenton), it does a bank of 8 channels at a time. Those 8 channels are always consecutive, and if I remember right, the first of the eight is chosen by whatever the "current" channel selection is.

One of the nice things about mixing with hardware is, once you set up a subgroup, the routing of it doesn't change just because you click you mouse somewhere. I wanted to be able to set up mix environment where the hardware (control surface) had a more immutable connection to the channels that it's controlling.

Also, the MIDI controller side of the Dub Demon could be made a lot more flexible... for example, it could allow for mapping a standard MIDI keyboard's notes to control the muting. Hardware control for everyone! But that would take more time, to design it for such flexiblitiy, so I was more interested, off the bat, to see if people would be into the basic concept.

We'll see... there's a few other projects to kick out the door first, before this one gets revisited...

cheers,
Leigh

Ooh yes please- my Nova IIX has loads of knobs, sliders and buttons to do this with. Does it work in OS 10.3.9?

[syrupcore]

leigh! This is brilliant!

Is this just one hardcore code-a-thon weekend away from adding volumes and solos? Cause if you underhandedly sneak in "any control surface" midi control of volume/mute/solo in Pro Tools you're gonna make some money.

I'm so rarely here anymore I missed this the first time. Can't wait to try it.

The new site looks great and yay code igniter. They're not portland but they are from Oregon (Bend I think).

Will

[DinosaurSR]

I'm one of the few people, I think, who realizes how awesome this is. Great job!

[leigh]

Hey all, glad you are enjoying the plug-in! Sorry I missed your comments initially - I was subscribed to this thread, but I guess it stopped sending those emails after a while...?

So I'll make some replies now, starting with:

Ooh yes please- my Nova IIX has loads of knobs, sliders and buttons to do this with. Does it work in OS 10.3.9?

I don't know the Nova's capabilities, but can you remap all those controls to send different continuous controller messages? In any case, I would guess they're all sending *something* already, it might just take a little figuring out what that is. And, as long as they are continuous controller messages, you're already in business with the Dub Demon.

As for OS 10.3.9, that's a good issue to raise. The answer is, it depends... Dub Demon only works with Pluggo 3.6 (and not version 3.5). The guidelines as to whether you can run Pluggo 3.6 are as follows (from http://www.refusesoftware.com/files/docs/002/ under the Installation/Pluggo section):

Code: Select all

Which Pluggo Version Do I Use?

There are currently two release versions of Pluggo, version 3.6 and version 3.5.

* Anyone on an Intel Mac will need to use the Pluggo 3.6 (Universal Binary) version. Skip down now and download Pluggo 3.6
* If you're on a PowerPC machine, which version of Pluggo to use depends on your OS version and your host application:
    o If you are running OS 10.3.8 or lower, or Pro Tools 6.x, download Pluggo 3.5
    o Otherwise, download Pluggo 3.6

Hope that helps! Let me know how you get on with it.

cheers,
Leigh

[leigh]

leigh! This is brilliant!

Is this just one hardcore code-a-thon weekend away from adding volumes and solos? Cause if you underhandedly sneak in "any control surface" midi control of volume/mute/solo in Pro Tools you're gonna make some money.

I'm so rarely here anymore I missed this the first time. Can't wait to try it.

The new site looks great and yay code igniter. They're not portland but they are from Oregon (Bend I think).

Will

hey Will,

Thanks man!

I was *going* to reply that, by using the Cooper CS-10 controller profile in Pro Tools, programmable control surfaces can already be mapped to volume/mute/solo controls. While that has been the case, it looks like Digi is phasing out support for legacy controllers (the Cooper and the Peavey PC-1600), whether intentionally or through neglect who knows. These profiles, in fact, are crashing Pro Tools 8:

http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?p=1387704

So, providing a guerilla method of generic MIDI control over Pro Tools becomes a more attractive option. Still, one issue with volume is a lack of resolution from standard MIDI control surfaces. Continuous controllers send a value range from 0-127, whereas for good volume control you want maybe four times that resolution. The PreSonus FaderPort, for example, sends a value range of 0-1023. There are hacks and ways around this, like using a pair of sliders/knobs/whatever for volume control, one coarse and one fine. But it's not the way people are used to working, and it would tend to confuse.

Nonetheless, I plan to expland the Dub Demon, just not sure where I want to take it first. Please hit me with your feedback about all this!

cheers,
Leigh

[uncle bastard]

Hey all, glad you are enjoying the plug-in! Sorry I missed your comments initially - I was subscribed to this thread, but I guess it stopped sending those emails after a while...?

So I'll make some replies now, starting with:

Ooh yes please- my Nova IIX has loads of knobs, sliders and buttons to do this with. Does it work in OS 10.3.9?

I don't know the Nova's capabilities, but can you remap all those controls to send different continuous controller messages? In any case, I would guess they're all sending *something* already, it might just take a little figuring out what that is. And, as long as they are continuous controller messages, you're already in business with the Dub Demon.

As for OS 10.3.9, that's a good issue to raise. The answer is, it depends... Dub Demon only works with Pluggo 3.6 (and not version 3.5). The guidelines as to whether you can run Pluggo 3.6 are as follows (from http://www.refusesoftware.com/files/docs/002/ under the Installation/Pluggo section):

Code: Select all

Which Pluggo Version Do I Use?

There are currently two release versions of Pluggo, version 3.6 and version 3.5.

* Anyone on an Intel Mac will need to use the Pluggo 3.6 (Universal Binary) version. Skip down now and download Pluggo 3.6
* If you're on a PowerPC machine, which version of Pluggo to use depends on your OS version and your host application:
    o If you are running OS 10.3.8 or lower, or Pro Tools 6.x, download Pluggo 3.5
    o Otherwise, download Pluggo 3.6

Hope that helps! Let me know how you get on with it.

cheers,
Leigh

I'll have to check which version of Pluggo Runtime I have; I know that the knobs & sliders on the Nova send 0-127 continuous messages; whether I can map them to send specific individual ones is an area I will explore. I'll let you know.

[leigh]

I'll have to check which version of Pluggo Runtime I have; I know that the knobs & sliders on the Nova send 0-127 continuous messages; whether I can map them to send specific individual ones is an area I will explore. I'll let you know.

The good news is, you don't have to map your hardware controller to specific continuous controller (CC) messages - Dub Demon can be set up to use any CC messages you got. See the interface:



That column of pop-up menus has all the available CC messages already.

However, knobs & sliders may be somewhat difficult to use wth it - it works best with buttons, since all it does to the audio is mute or not mute. Spinning a knob won't raise or lower the volume - it will toggle the mute on and of rapidly, one time for each new value sent out by the knob.

Cheers,
Leigh