Quick Controls Focus can be confusing

[jaslan]

I found some old threads about this but with the change from VST Quick Controls and Track Quick Controls to Focus Quick Controls, I thought best to make a fresh topic.

Firstly, the “Quick Controls on/off” button in the Quick Controls tab of the Inspector (what we traditionally call Track Quick Controls) still doesn’t seem to actually do anything. To the right side of the Quick Controls tab in the inspector is a blue “knob” symbol that says (when you hover) “Indicates if Track Quick Controls are Active” is always blue. This can be confused with assuming that those parameters “have the focus” of the “focus Quick Controls”. So, if you have a MIDI remote mapped to the “focus quick controls” you might think it will control these.

These controls get the “focus” when the project window is the active window (unless you have your “Quick Control Focus Setup” set to “Track Focus Only”.

Another confusing thing is that in the instrument rack on the right pane, each instrument has the little knob in the lower right corner which, when hovered, say “Set Remote Control Focus for VST Quick Controls”. This DOES NOT set the Focus for the new “Focus Quick Controls”. I did not set up the “Legacy” VST Quick Controls Device to test if it works for that but, maybe it still does….

I THINK what I have figured out is that, If a plugin window is open and active, the plugin Quick Controls have the focus unless “Track Focus Only” is selected in setup. If the project window is the active window, the selected Track Quick Controls have the focus unless “Plugin Window Focus Only” is selected in Setup. In the upper right corner of the plugin window is a “QC” and a “Lock” symbol and a box which, if blue, indicates Focus for the Focus Quick Controls. You can lock the focus to that plugin so even if you go back to the project window or open another plugin, the Focus for Focus Quick Controls remains with the locked plugin. You can also lock the focus to a specific tracks Track Quick Controls so if you select another track or plugin window the focus remains. The only place I can see to lock the focus to a track is in the header portion of the MIDI Remote lower pane.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Track Quick Controls and Plugin Quick Controls can be the same (i.e. mapped to the same parameters) or different. If they are the same, then controlling one controls the other also.

I imagine this will get cleaned up in the future when they start removing the “Legacy” Quick Controls concepts.

[Nico5]

You’re right - using the old and the new Quick Controls simultaneously can get pretty confusing.

But I’ve simply eliminated the old Quick Controls from my Studio setup, since I don’t think they add any value anymore. Confusion eliminated.

And now the FQC behaves in a pretty nice way:

• If there’s a plugin window having focus (instrument or fx - doesn’t matter which), then the FQC follow that.

  • If you switch the “lock FQC” to on, the FQC will stay glued to that plugin - even when it no longer has focus.

• If there’s no plugin having focus, the Quick Controls fall back to the Track Quick Controls of the currently selected track (if applicable - e.g. when a folder track is selected, the Quick Controls are simply inactive)

The MIDI Remote window in the lower zone shows what’s going on:

[m.c]

@Nico5

If there’s a plugin window having focus (instrument or fx - doesn’t matter which), then the FQC follow that

Exactly, and this is the big difference with the “Legacy” Track and VST Quick Controls Setup.
These refer to the quick controls of either the selected track, or the instrument plugin slot of the selected track again. The focused quick controls object will cover whichever object has the focus, be it either a track, an instrument plugin or an fx plugin, even when it doesn’t belong to the selected track.

Anyway, in the new MIDI Remote, we can easily replicate the older Track and “Plugin” quick controls.
For the track quick controls (selected track), we need these:

For the instrument plugin slot (again of the selected track) these: