Is there a Focus Control How-To for controlling VST effects?

Hello,

I create a project, then add a song to my set list, add a part to my song, add a stack, add a VST (Line 6 Hellix maybe). Now I want to create a Focus Control to see just the controls I am using from my VST. So I add a Module to the part and choose Focus Control, all good so far. Now I drop in a knob, how do I link that back to my a control in my vst?

Is there a tutorial/How-To regarding how to build a Focus Control of this type?

Thank you in advance.
JR

Hi and welcome @Atomic.playboy,

the ā€œFocus Controlā€ can connect to the Quick-Controls of a Stack. Hereā€™s a description

  1. Start VST Live, New Project
  2. Select STACKS, Add a Stack
  3. Load PingPongDelay to Insert_Slot_1
  4. Open Editor and Open Quick-Controls sections
  5. For QC_1 the Delay Parameter is assigned

  1. Open ā€œMenu / Devices / Actions and Shortcuts ā€¦ā€
  2. Select Stack category, add an Action and select ā€œInsert 1 Quick 1ā€ for it

  1. Select MODULES and add a Module
  2. Load a ā€œFocus Controlā€ to it
  3. Open Editor of the ā€œFocus Controlā€ and enable ā€œEDITā€ Mode
  4. Drag a Dial and select it.
  5. In the Widgets Inspector (right side) select Stack for Category
  6. Select ā€œInsert 1 Quick 1ā€ for the Action

Now you are able to control the Delay for PingPongDelay.

If you want to control another Parameter for the QuickControl_1, go back to the Plug-In Editor and change it there.

If you want a global Focus Control, create a Global Part and add your Module / Focus Control there.

See you,
Michael.

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Hello Michael,

Thank you for the walk through. It was very helpful; I had missed that I needed to add the action in the device menu. But this was not encouraging, hopefully I have other misunderstandings.

So:

  1. It appears that the quick controls can only apply to the ā€œautomation controlsā€ from a plugin, and only 8 of those. Therefore a focus control panel could only control 8 parameters of a given plugin?
  2. It appears that the quick controls can only apply to the ā€œautomation controlsā€ from a plugin, and only 8 of those. And since this drives the actions menu, which appears to be the only place for midi mapping ergo I can only control 8 parameters from a plugin with midi control even though the plugin is happy to map at least all 128 ccā€™s?
  3. It appears the Focus Control is one way, it can control a parameter of a plugin but if one opens the pluginā€™s editor and moves the control it doesnā€™t feed back to the Focus Control module. Further, if I use midi to control the plugin, the plugin responds to the midi but the Focus Control doesnā€™t.
  4. On the stacks page I am having an issue with the quick controls. I will be happy to send a screen recording if needed, but first Iā€™ll describe it. Add multiple inserts on the stack. Go look at each set of quick controls, the first time going to the quick control is fine but returning from another set of quick controls and the zone will be blank. Same for the other inserts. Leave stacks (go to notes maybe) and return to the stack and each will be available for one more view.
  5. On the stacks page I am having an another issue with the quick controls. Come to the stacks page from any other page. Click the little 0 to show quick controls. Now click the 0 to hide the quick controls zone. Click again to show the quick controls and there is nothing in the zone.
  6. I know that I can have automation, but can this be used to grab ā€œScenesā€, in this parlance scenes meaning the full set of parameter values for plugin such that you can send the full set of parameters to the plugin in order that a program change is not needed and hence there isnā€™t an audio dropout. It is as if each parameter had been altered manually. This can be 50 to 100 parameters to send at a time.

Pretty obvious Iā€™m a guitar player I suppose.

Thank you for the help this morning,
JR

(reply reg. controls later)

Each (non-shared) Layer Instrument, or Stack Insert plugin in a Part holds the entire state, thatā€™s the idea! Switch to another ā€œPartā€, and everything is restored as set before or loaded; call it a ā€œsceneā€.

That is also true for Tracks and their channels, inserts etc, there, a ā€œsceneā€ would rather relate to a ā€œSongā€. All channels that are not global (Groups and Outs are global as well as all channels of a global Part assets like Layers, Stacks, and Modules), like Song Groups, Layer and Stack channels etc keep their complete state per Song. A Song is practically an entire project of a DAW, like a Cubase project.

Parts are twofold, in addition to beeing ā€œscenesā€ for their assets states, they have a time trigger and loop duration, so you can create FlexLoops with it, or jump to a quantized measure etc.

After a reboot I now canā€™t replicate #4 and #5. So perhaps that was a situational event and hopefully the situation isnā€™t easy to reproduce.
JR

Actually that is the fear, that ā€œeverything is restoredā€, granted Iā€™ll be testing this later today so Iā€™ll know better. The point of scenes is that they only restore parameters of the already loaded patch. They absolutely do nothing more.

Suppose that I have a Marshall amplifier simulation and the drive is at 3. Now I want to up the drive to 7 because Iā€™m going into a lead. So great I create the lead part.

If the part reloads the Marshall simulation this is very bad. This causes an audio drop out, sure itā€™s milliseconds but a change in sound including a stop and start is always obvious, even a millsecond dropout. Maybe if amp sims did something different with tails this might be ok but they really donā€™t.

So a restore of the patch very bad, a change in just the individual parameter - beautiful - sure there may be a millisecond of sound transition but not a drop out.

That is the point of scenes - they only change differences in parameters. If a particular parameter is not part of the patch to start with you canā€™t change it via scene. But if you have the parameter available (even initialized at 0) you can change the parameter without neccessitating a full patch restoration.

In some cases like Helix or Amplitube the question is kind of moot as long as you have good midi control because they have scenes built into their processing, and you can manage the scene changes yourself. But not all amp sims have scenes.

Also if parts preload a change such that part a and part b are both active for a period of time and the audio input changes, that would be fine, but seems like it would be a bear to code and might be a resource hog during part changes.

Likewise if songs were complied so that an optimizer reviewed the song so as to only execute a diff when switching parts rather than a full state change that would be amazingly cool. But wow again I wouldnā€™t want to code it, or even do the technical spec on such a task.

Thanks,
JR

Hi @Atomic.playboy ,

I think I understand you. You say itā€™s problematic using different Marshall-amp-plug instances / parts (because of millisecs of dropout)

BUT you would like to just send ā€œMIDI#CCā€™sā€ to the Marshall-amp to modify its settings,
RIGHT? :slight_smile:

I thinkg you are right. Better using a Global Marshall Amp Plugin (in a Global Stack) then program to modify itā€™s settings.

I have an idea:
There are QCā€™s in the plugin-instance.
You can ā€œadjust themā€ via ā€œActions And Shortcutsā€

Then you can decide to put a MIDI-CLIP at changes
or create Layers / PARTs and send MIDI#CCā€™ from there

Oh, I like that fkalmus. Fingers crossed that there is a way to map dozens (perhaps hundreds) of NOT-SO-Quick Controls. Wow if a layer could then play continuous controllers to the control input of a stack, that would be powerful.

Itā€™s all about patches, anytime there is a patch change there is an audio dropout, so I want a single patch (preset) per song and let everything else be via CC/VST parameter change.

JR

Agree!

Did you look Actions and Shortcuts already for controlling your Marshall Plugin in a GLOBAL STACK?

The QC will bring up the 8 different and selectable controls of the plugin.

Just some basics: a plugin is a black box. It exposes parameters, which you can control and automate via Quick Controls.

Other than that, a plugin only has a state. When you change things in the pluginsā€™ own editor (view), the host (VST Live) does not get any notion of that.

When you close the editor, or switch to another Part etc, we get a snapshot from the plugin which is also opaque (we donā€™t know anything about whatā€™s in there, itā€™s just binary data that only the plugin understands), and when the plugin is re-activated, it gets fed back those data. This may or may not take time, or interrupt the pluginsā€™ processing - that is specific to the plugin.

So you can automate quick controls for global Layers or Stack Inserts, that shoulkd work w/o gaps.

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. That is very helpful. It explains some of my frustration with other VST Host systems. So there is no way for a host to query a plugin for a particular parameter value in the current state?

And the answer to questions 1 and 2 are:

VST live can only map 8 parameters of a plugin to gui representations of the control, correct?
VST live can only map 8 parameters of a plugin to midi control, correct?

Thank you,
JR

Can: getParameterProperties() not be used to determine the starting point for each visual element in the Focus Controlā€¦ maybe triggered by the Focus Control regaining focus?

The parameters that the host can access are those in the menu list you get for quick controls. Those we can change, others not.

Those limits are set by VST Live. But when do you need more? It would get messy to have 100ā€¦? My Marshall does not even have that many dials :slight_smile:

I suspect that you think there is a difference when setting only those parameters to when the entire state is changed. But that is not necessarily so, and it would most probably not give the result you expect. As said, this all depends on how a plugin evaluates states, and paramters exposed to the host (QC).

One more thing:

Part 1 Stack with an Amp plug, and Part 2 Stack the same plugin, but an entirely different state, then switch back to Part 1, the plugin in Part 1 will not have to load or change anything, because it already has everything. As long as you donā€™t change any of those 2 plugins, nothing will ever happen at all when you switch Parts, no time is lost. The only thing that VST Live does is to re-connect Layer and Stack Channel connections in the Mixer, which is a matter of nanoseconds.

That means if you get dropouts, the reason is to be sought elsewhere. Stacks even have settings for sustain, and input fade (see Edit/Preferences/Stacks).

Not sure how to properly quote in this forum but firstā€¦ when does a musician need 100 controls? When you are using a virtual pedalboard. Or a virtual channel strip. Or multiple keyboards and you want a singular interface. When you use plugins with divergent gui designs and you want something cohesive. When the plugin you want is great but the gui is crap. I could go on and on, I would say you need an unlimited, or 16*128 (16 midi channels * 128 ccā€™s) would be reasonable, controls available to each VST/VSTi any time you design a live performance. Hopefully you wonā€™t need them much at all on stage but you darn sure donā€™t want to be hamstrung when designing the show.

You say it would get messyā€¦ here is my Reaper controller build with LBX stripper ā€¦ This is over 150 controls, sorry I quit counting at 150 I figured this made my point. This is what I planned to build in Focus Control:

I donā€™t find it messy, I find it to be a wildly easier interface than that delivered with Helix. Reaper also has a limit to controls per plugin (32) so you see where I have to have multiple instances of the plugin and a different preset for each in order to accommodate that limitation. Unfortunately having to run multiple instances is a real PIA when saving a particular sound. VST Live has a limit of 4 inserts so another limitation that would impact building something like this (this requires 5 instances of Helix on a track in Reaper).

Having to open multiple focus controls to see my distortion and my flanger? This is why so many folks wonā€™t use virtual gear live. When it gets hairy a visible knob (even a vitural knob) beats ā€¦ well it just wins. The plugins are mighty the hosts are puny.

I might add that this panel is also syncā€™d with midi so that if I make a midi change to any controller it effects the plugin AND the channel strip you see above. Getting all the knobs to show initial state is another reason Iā€™ve not stopped with Reaper, because there is no ā€œget current stateā€ buttonā€¦ but Iā€™m not sure that is a limitation to the VST, or if it is a case of short sightedness in the software design.

As far as dropouts are concerned I think Iā€™m starting to understand. Part 1 has plugin(instance1) and Part 2 has plugin(instance2) and they do not have any relation to one another. I also did not understand you can reverse and go part 1/part 2/part 1. I thought it was a purely linear concept. This does open up some fabulous possibilities.

But probably preset selector can do the hard-work, not? (One Quick with values like preset1, preset2,ā€¦)
I mean, I practically would find it impossible to keep 100of params / song / part on a complete setlist organised and keep track what is going on.

I barely see guitarist with huge pedalboards touching any stompbox while playing primetime. The stompboxes are set and footswitching ON/BYPASSā€¦ maybe Split here or thereā€¦

And I guess that is where I may be barking up the wrong tree. If the product is for the production manager at FOH then maybe you donā€™t need to be able to get down and dirty with plugins. Maybe you have time and enough hands (and screen space) to deal with multiple plugin editors.

If you a pit guitarist, or a studio guitarist, or a serious improviser you want every parameter available. Yes if you are Tommy in Kiss you need 2 tones, distorted and clean. Heck if you are Angus Young you can drop the clean tone. Most of us donā€™t have our own signature sound that we use for a full performance, we emulate multiple signature sounds and we need controls that allow us to get those tones, and to switch from one to another.

Also there is another ā€œLiveā€ that we have to consider. You are in the practice room, the bass players says ā€˜dude the treble is ripping my head off, can you bring it downā€™. You want a full on channel strip like I show above. Noone wants to wait for you to go and choose the right plugin and open the right editor, then open another editor because now you need to adjust output volume to compensate for dropping the treble.

And even if you arenā€™t with other folks it makes your life infinitely easier when practicing when you can design a meaningful workflow.

Iā€™m not trying to be harsh. Iā€™ve tried Cantible, Gig Performer, Live Professor, Camelot, Ableton, Reaper, and on and on, there are IMHO no useful VST hosts worthy of controlling the show for a musician. There are musicians who deal with the pain and go on, but IME VST Hosts add complexity to workflow, when we want them to simplify workflow.

If anyone is getting confusedā€¦ Iā€™m discussing 2 limitations: 1st is that I can only access 8 controls in a Focus Control, and 2nd that I can only access 8 controls via midi. Because you want screen representation to match midi tweaks they are functionally related issues though grossly different technical issues. Sorry if that is confusing.

You misunderstood, or I was not sufficiently clear. With all mixer etc controls cumulated, you may end up with many more, even 1000. I was relating to 1 (one) plugin, where you cannot reasonably cope with 100 parameters.

Well, maybe even that. Because while there are ā€œonlyā€ eight Quick Controls per plugin, each of these can be assigned one of the ā€œnā€ parameters of the plugin, where ā€œnā€ is given by the plugin. If ā€œnā€ amounts to 100 parameters, then you can select an arbitrary 8 out of those ā€œnā€, and while trying to operate
8 per plugin (!) during a live show seems already quite demanding, for the sake of programming, you may also assign other sets of 8 out of ā€œnā€ for the Quick Controls, so effectively you can use all of ā€œnā€ or 100 or more.

There are 8 inserts per Channel. A VST Live ā€œStackā€ is a convenient submixer, which mixes input processed through 4 inserts, and its own send fx (another 2) to its output channel, where you can add another 8 plugins. So all in all, a Stack holds up to 14 plugins, plus 8 sends from the channel to other Groups (ā€œFx Channelsā€). And if that is not enough, you can use one of those 8 channel sends to address another Group Channel with another 8 inserts, and so on, so practically, there is no limit.

Not even sure what you mean to say by that. It has been explained that Part assets (Layers, Stacks, Modules) keep their state when switching Parts, so to not waste time streaming parameters. During a show, you want quick transitions, and ā€œhaving to do nothingā€ is how quick it gets. But maybe you want to achieve something else, let us know.

With FlexLoops, you can even jump during a show to a quantized beat or bar, or program infinite loops and jump out anytime, or back to a chorus, should the bandleader suddenly decide so, and more. Enjoy :slight_smile:

That is one plugin. It is called Helix and it is produced by Line 6 also owned by Yamaha. And those are the minimum controls needed quickly.

Regardless, I want to thank you for your time. You have been very helpful. I think it is obvious that this product is not for me.