Touch OSC help please!

The Lounge Other Gear
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Any Touch OSC experts here?

I’m trying to create a simple layout. I just want X-Y pads, with a little button next to each one that allows me turn ‘spring’ on or off (so it moves back to a default position after taking your finger off).

I’ve worked out how to make X-Y pads. I’ve worked out how to make them either spring back, or not.

What I can’t work out, is how to have an X-Y pad, that you can switch spring on or off.

I don’t want to use 2 X-Y pads to achieve this, as it takes up valuable screen estate (and creates other problems with not knowing which one I touched last etc).

Any help massively appreciated!

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After poking around with your request, seems like the values you want to change, basically setting Pull from your given setting, to 0 and back, isn’t exposed for internal control.

It may require some scripting, IF, you can access those setting that way. I will assume it’s possible. But as I have only VERY basic JSON skills…I don’t think I can be much more help than that.

But if you find someone who can help script that up, if not do it yourself, I’d love to know the outcome/way to do it. Super good idea :+1:t6:

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Appreciate the help, thanks!

I came to the same conclusion you did, that Pull isn’t accessible.

I’ve emailed the TouchOSC people but they haven’t replied (didn’t reply to my emails a few months ago either).

I’m not really sure where else to ask. Maybe over on the Audiobus forum? Might be worth a try.

If I solve it, I’ll post here!

I do a lot of quite complex stuff with MIDI in my setup. I really think there’s a gap in the market for a more advanced Ipad app with stuff built in, that doesn’t require scripting.

For instance, X-Y pads that have a few little buttons/knobs down the side:

Spring On/Off
Bouncing Ball (knob for friction, swipe and then the dot bounces, instant LFO’s etc)
Motion Record (knob, goes from Off, through 1 beat, to 8 bars etc)
Lock X
Lock Y

And so on. All stuff that’s do-able atm with Drambo or scripting, but in one easy to use app that makes it easy to create interactive MIDI controlling layouts.

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would be cool to be able to build some controls in MAX and export them to TouchOSC

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I think this is what I need to do. Learn TouchOSC and Max and work out how to connect them. Endless possibilites to control Ableton!

Btw, it just might be possible to do in TouchOSC, without scripting. The dev replied, hopefully I’ll know soon and post it here…

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I can say that with TouchOSC and Max you basically can do whatever you want. Also if you work with Ableton then you can export those patches as M4L devices. The combination is so powerful (in fact is limitless…)

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It sounds very interesting!

Can you explain what this means in more detail please?

One problem I’m facing is that I’ve used up all the available MIDI CC’s, basically around 120CC’s on each of the 16 MIDI channels are mapped to something (sometimes multiple things as well).

So I’m hoping that using TouchOSC on an Ipad, to control a M4L device, which then can control any parameter on Ableton, might be the way to proceed. Plus also, the bi-directional aspect, conditionals etc.

How hard is it to learn?

I have a little experience of basic coding (a long time ago), I understand the basic concepts etc. But I’m unsure how that could relate to learning this combo of TouchOSC and Max.

Are there any specific resources/forums to point me in the right direction?

Any advice appreciated, thanks!

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Better would be able to build stuff in MAX and take it into Touch :wink:

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So you are saying that you need more parameters to be mapped to other things as you almost don’t have free CC’s, or that you need to build a TouchOSC template to control all those CC maps?

CC’s have a lot of limitations. First of all, the lack of definition and detail when controlling a parameter. Another issue is that the number of CCs is limited. But they are easily mappable and all the DAWs out there are prepared for this.

The solution to avoid those drawbacks is to use a higher definition and limitless system like OSC, and as the name implies TouchOSC is capable of using any kind of control and send it’s information over OSC. I REALLY recommend OSC if you are going to be using an iPAD to control things in your DAW. There are several things that you are going to need: lightning 2 ethernet adapter, ethernet 2 USB adapter, an ethernet cable and then a M4L device to receive all the messages and to use them. Also you can use a dedicated router to send and receive all the information wireless. I created a M4L device to be used with the Push 3 to do OSC and MIDI mappings, but due to the lack of interest I retired it from my Gumroad page. The device is a little complex because it was designed to be able to map any parameter from the Push 3, but if you don’t need to do mapping on the fly and use it with your own system it should be easier to create your custom M4L device.

This is a small tutorial I made using my M4L device. It may answer several things, like the IP address, connections, … etc.

VIDEO

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If I could jump in. He wants to control a parameter in TOSC that isn’t exposed for control. Currently it’s an option that is on or off and it would be nice to be able to expose that so it could be toggled from the UI when it’s running.

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Could you explain what this means in more detail please?

I’m a noob at both MAX and Touch!

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Yes, this exactly! I’ve run out of CC’s as they are all taken now.

My setup is quite big and complex. Basically 2 Macs, 4 Ipads, a LOT of midi controllers (4 LCXL’s, 4 Launchpads, 2 Launchkey MiniMK3’s, a Nektar P6, +others), hardware synths, FX, mixers etc.

Most of the controllers don’t interface with the Macs directly, they go into an Ipad running a huge Drambo project (thousands of modules). Drambo is basically an advanced MIDI processor, and handles bi-directional feedback to make the controllers light up and behave like one big system etc.

Not easy to explain, I’ll probably make a video one day showing what it can do. Will be a long video though and I never seem to have time as I’m always using it, maintaining or upgrading it :smiley:

MIDI does in general too! And that’s the issue, I’m reaching the limits of what MIDI can do and I need more.

I’m using 2 Iconnectivity devices (Mio10 and a MIDI4+) to interface the some of the Ipads with the Macs (and hardware synths etc). I use RTP-MIDI over Ethernet to connect the Mio10 to Mac 1, this allows me send square-wave LFO’s as CC’s at 40Hz, to enable some RG LEDs to display as yellow. Bit of a hack, but it has to be Ethernet as a DIN MIDI cable won’t carry that much data etc.

So, with those two Iconnectivity boxes, would I still need the lightning to ethernet adapters and so on?

Why does OSC have to be sent over Ethernet? Can it not go directly down a USB-C to USB-A cable? (directly connecting an Ipad to a Mac).

Appreciate the help! I have a lot to learn it seems!

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Ah yes, this is a specific thing that I’m trying to get working for the X-Y pads. I still haven’t had time to dig into TouchOSC and see if it can be done.

The lack of CC’s left in my Ableton project though, is a more long term thing that I’m trying to solve by switching some of my controls over from CC’s to OSC.

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Well, probably they will work if you are already sending data between those 2 devices. Just try to send something and see if this thing works. Within the TouchOSC app establish a new connection and put the IP address of the device you want to send something to, and a port number. Then in the receiving device just put that port number a listen to the incoming messages. If the receiving device is your computer, create a m4L device with a “UDPRECEIVE” object and the number of the port and connect a print object. You should see the incoming data, if there’s something. If you have any doubts just look at the UDPRECEIVE help within Max. It’s pretty straightforward.

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Thanks for this info! I’ll try this tonight.

There’s a useful M4L device I sometimes use called MultiMapPro. You can basically use 1 knob to control 6 devices and each device can have a different output graph.

If I could get that MultiMapPro to receive the OSC signal, then that could control any other Ableton parameters, would be enough for me to work with.

One of the problems I’ve found though, is that MultiMapPro (and quite a lot of other M4L devices), seems to take a lot of CPU. Which is surprising as the maths behind it doesn’t seem to be too complicated.

I’m wondering if this is true of all M4L devices or not? They don’t seem to be very efficient.

I’m currently on two of the cheapest Macs (Mac Mini M1’s), and I’m at the CPU limit, so I’m saving up to get a better Mac eventually which might help.

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Did you try using the xy from the prebuilt TouchOSC called beatmachine Mkii. It has the option to turn on the spring on or off and change directions too.

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Appreciate the reply!

Yes, I went through all of the prebuilds, very helpful for understanding the possibilities and copying bits of script etc. TouchOSC is amazing!

What I wanted, was not just spring on/off, but basically ‘variable spring’ and also ‘variable reverse spring’.

So basically slewing, and different rates for whether you’re putting a finger on or taking it off.

In TouchOSC terms, they call spring, ‘Pull’. So I wanted variable ‘Pull’ and variable ‘Push’ if that makes sense.

A very clever and helpful fellow Elektronaut solved this with some coding magic. It’s on this thread:

XY-Push-Pull SOLVED!

(Go up a few replies to see the video. In real usage the ‘ghost’ XY sits on top of the ‘real’ XY and is invisible).

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