Hello,
First a little backstory... I've been using QLC+ 4.8.1. I recently upgraded to 4.9.1, went through updating my setup and tweaking all the fade-in/fade-out/duration settings to work with the new version, I finally got a chance to test it with my mixer and I've run into a major issue with the way I've got my sequences and chasers setup. I went back and downloaded all the previous versions and tried my setup in them, and found that between versions 4.8.2 and 4.8.3 is where my setup stopped functioning the way it used to.
Basically, I run the MIDI "beat" signal into QLC+ from my DJM-900 Nexus, I setup the "beat" 531 signal to "tap" a Speed Dial, and give me a steady duration reading from the 531 signal. This worked very well for me in older versions, I use the MIDI-tapped Speed Dial to then send fade-in, fade-out and duration to my sequences and chasers, which did a pretty good job of keeping the scene steps in time with the beat being provided by my mixer automatically.
However, it appears that in version 4.8.3+ that the "tap" button on the Speed Dial advances the sequence/chaser every time it's "tapped" by the MIDI 531 signal from my mixer... This leads to my sequences and chasers advancing every beat, even when they're set for 2/4/8/16 duration in the Speed Dial. I had relied on the older method where the "tap" just set the duration in the Speed Dial, and the Speed Dial then sent duration to the various sequences/chasers, and many of them are built around running for 8/16 beats before they're intended to advance to the next step.
Looking through changes after I noticed this, I found in the documentation that tap "advances things" in chasers/sequences when it's pressed now... So I was wondering, if there's any way to disable this and go back to the older style where tap only sets duration, and doesn't advance chasers and such? I'm not sure if the older versions didn't have this feature, or it was intended to be in there and broken, or it was simply added between versions, but the way it currently is basically broke my entire setup I've been working on for a very long time. I've considered going back to an older version, but the setup I've built into 4.9.1 now has all the fade-in/fade-out/duration settings for a lot of functions in there, and the older versions seem to handle this differently as well.
I should also note that this is running the chaser in a cue list in virtual console... Even in 4.8.1 it will advance chasers with every tap if the chaser is just started through a button... But in a cue list, in 4.8.1, it would run it's full duration. In 4.9.1, whether it's in a cue list or not, it will advance every beat regardless of it's set duration.
Any suggestions would be appreciated as to how I may disable the "tap advances things" feature, or work around it. If not maybe for future versions would it be a consideration to have an ability to toggle this "tap advances things" feature on and off?
Thanks for your time, and QLC+ is a great program... Hopefully there's a way I can get it working again the way I used to have it working.
Can I stop Speed Dial Tap from advancing chasers?
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Pyrodox
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2015 8:44 am
- Real Name: Jonathan
If anyone is interested in this, I've come up with a solution...
Being a Linux developer, I never really tried developing on OSX (I run a MacBook Pro for my lighting/music stuff), but I thought I'd give it a go as it's a BSD system at it's base. Surprisingly, I was able to do what I wanted with the 4.9.2 GIT version. One simple snippet of code I commented out in vcspeeddial.cpp. Looks like I'm back in business!
As a suggestion for future releases, it might be a useful feature for some (I know it is for me) to have the "speed dial tap advances chasers and sequences" feature be either toggleable, or maybe even have another "send" column in the Speed Dial's properties page that is "Duration (No Tap Advance)" along with the "Duration (+tap)" column, and have them be exclusive of each other (IE set one, the other is disabled and grayed out in the UI). Or even a secondary Speed Dial widget (possibly in a different color) that doesn't include the "tap to advance" feature, so they can be placed in the Virtual Console side by side, and you can choose which you want to use, for instance running a beat-to-beat synced advancing chaser, vs one you just want to set duration, fade-in and fade-out times for.
For anyone that's interested, I'm not sure it it would be useful, but I'll elaborate on my setup.
I use the "beat clock" that my DJM-900 provides, it's an MIDI signal the mixer sends out that QLC+ can receive if you set the mixer driver as an "input" in QLC+.
QLC+ uses the MIDI 531 signal, and I assign this as an input on the "tap" function of a Speed Dial in Virtual Console.
I then use the Send feature of the Speed Dial and assign various multiples of beats to be sent to different functions, chasers and sequences.
I build my sequences, chasers and scenes around multiples of beats, IE I have 8 PARs across the top of my truss, and I have one sequence where each PAR lights on-beat while the previous one turns off. It creates some pretty interesting effects when I meld the various sequences together.
With the MIDI signal providing the "beat clock" from my mixer, it actually keeps the lights on-beat surprisingly accurately.
I use it in this way so I can run it in "set and forget" mode, and run random programs, or planned shows, and it will remain on-beat with and changes in BPM introduced, automatically.
I also find it's great for using in "interactive" mode, where I can switch between sequences and chasers using Virtual Console buttons, and it still keeps the fade and duration effects inline with the BPM of the music.
Being a Linux developer, I never really tried developing on OSX (I run a MacBook Pro for my lighting/music stuff), but I thought I'd give it a go as it's a BSD system at it's base. Surprisingly, I was able to do what I wanted with the 4.9.2 GIT version. One simple snippet of code I commented out in vcspeeddial.cpp. Looks like I'm back in business!
As a suggestion for future releases, it might be a useful feature for some (I know it is for me) to have the "speed dial tap advances chasers and sequences" feature be either toggleable, or maybe even have another "send" column in the Speed Dial's properties page that is "Duration (No Tap Advance)" along with the "Duration (+tap)" column, and have them be exclusive of each other (IE set one, the other is disabled and grayed out in the UI). Or even a secondary Speed Dial widget (possibly in a different color) that doesn't include the "tap to advance" feature, so they can be placed in the Virtual Console side by side, and you can choose which you want to use, for instance running a beat-to-beat synced advancing chaser, vs one you just want to set duration, fade-in and fade-out times for.
For anyone that's interested, I'm not sure it it would be useful, but I'll elaborate on my setup.
I use the "beat clock" that my DJM-900 provides, it's an MIDI signal the mixer sends out that QLC+ can receive if you set the mixer driver as an "input" in QLC+.
QLC+ uses the MIDI 531 signal, and I assign this as an input on the "tap" function of a Speed Dial in Virtual Console.
I then use the Send feature of the Speed Dial and assign various multiples of beats to be sent to different functions, chasers and sequences.
I build my sequences, chasers and scenes around multiples of beats, IE I have 8 PARs across the top of my truss, and I have one sequence where each PAR lights on-beat while the previous one turns off. It creates some pretty interesting effects when I meld the various sequences together.
With the MIDI signal providing the "beat clock" from my mixer, it actually keeps the lights on-beat surprisingly accurately.
I use it in this way so I can run it in "set and forget" mode, and run random programs, or planned shows, and it will remain on-beat with and changes in BPM introduced, automatically.
I also find it's great for using in "interactive" mode, where I can switch between sequences and chasers using Virtual Console buttons, and it still keeps the fade and duration effects inline with the BPM of the music.
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plugz
- Posts: 637
- Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2015 6:30 pm
- Real Name: David
Hi,joe wrote:Wow! You're making this so much harder than it needs to be. Just set up a solo frame with 2 pages, one with the speed dial with the DJM900 tick set, one of the fader control, bpm tap key or whatever you're using.
How does this fix his issue ?