Speed Dial + Midi Clock + Duration Factor

[DarkMain]

Hi.

This year I have decided to lean DMX so I picked up some basic beamz light fixtures and a ultraDMX Micro (DMXKing). I then discovered QLC+ while looking for software and have come to find the whole experience of using it pretty intuitive as well as it being able to work on Win/Linux/OSX (I plan to use it on all 3 systems depending on my use case).

Any way, while playing around I have come across something I cant seem to figure out on my own. I just have a quick questions regarding the above (Speed Dial + Midi Clock + Duration Factor).

I have a Speed Dial setup with the midi clock input assigned to 'tap'. The issue I have run into is I cant seem to get a chaser to run longer than a single beat (duration factor 1) while the midi clock is 'tapping'.

I assume its because of this "For cuelists/chasers and RGB Matrices, the tap button advances the function to next step/position when speed dial is set to adjust duration."

Is there any way to stop this from happening so I can use a higher duration factor?

I guessing, as of now the only real way is to put the speed dial into a frame and manually toggle the 'enable' button every so often but if there is another way I would love to hear it.

Thanks.

[GGGss]

You have 2 uses ... or you use the 'tap'-signal to get to the next cue or
you use the 'tap' signal to sync the speed dial __and__ bind the speed dial time to the duration of a chaser step.
With the last solution you can start playing with different time fractions so chaser steps could take up to 4/4 or 16/4 ...

[DarkMain]

You have 2 uses ... or you use the 'tap'-signal to get to the next cue or
you use the 'tap' signal to sync the speed dial __and__ bind the speed dial time to the duration of a chaser step.

How do I select the one I want? I just want to make it clear I'm talking about the Speed Dial Widget in the Virtual Console and not the Speed Dial window in the Functions tab.

According to the documentation "the tap button advances the function to next step/position when speed dial is set to adjust duration."

Because Midi Clock is assigned to 'Tap' its constantly tapping. Only way to stop it is to put the speed dial in a frame and then disable the frame.

Inside the Speed Dial, on the functions tab I can see the duration factor, however, anything that I set to above 1 (2, 4, 8 or 16) doesn't work because of the continuous tapping coming from the midi clock. Once the frame is disabled any duration factor above 1 will work but I'm no longer getting accurate timing.

Timing is important for me because I'm working with live DJs. I could manually enter the timing but DJs don't always keep the same BPM, and manual tapping isn't accurate enough. If my tapping is out by say 40ms (around 1bpm at the speeds we play at) then by the 16th bar (64 beats) the timing is out by a whole beat. 16 bars is roughly 30 seconds so it happens rather quick.

[GGGss]

Have a look ...
and try it ...
midi-signal now triggers the speed dial
and speed dial controls duration of the steps in the cue

(I had to make a loopback channel to simulate the midi-signal since I don't have midi)

[DarkMain]

I had a look at your example and I don't think you are understanding what I'm trying to do.
In your example the duration factor of 'cues' is set to '1'.

Double click on the speed dial and in the first tab (functions) you will see 4 headings.
Functions, Fade In factor, Fade Out factor and Duration factor (+tap).

Under the Duration factor its currently set to 1. So if I tap the button at 128bpm (roughly 468ms) it works how its meant to. The duration of the cue changes to 468ms and it changes every beat.

Now, what if I want to change every 4 beats...
I double click on the speed dial and change the Duration factor from 1 to 4.
Go back to the console and start tapping again.

This time the speed dial still shows 468ms but now the cue list is showing a duration of 1.872 seconds. Ok, its doing what its meant to be doing HOWEVER, if I constantly tap the midi send button (just like the midi clock would be doing) the cue list never plays the full duration.
It skips to the next cue before the previous one has finished.

If I stop tapping then the full duration will play before moving to the next cue.

The more I play around the it seems like things are 'working as intended' and there is currently no way to achieve what I'm after.

[GGGss]

What you are describing is not true...

I think the midi-input is still bound to the 'next step' in your chaser - that is the reason why it moves every step.

See project in annex - I added the 4 scenes so you can see that it plays the whole cue.
(use the multiplication buttons on speed dial to adjust to f.i. 4 beats)

[DarkMain]

What you are describing is not true...

Ok then, What am i doing wrong?
https://youtu.be/vmITbEDykmI

This is your project file, not modified and as you can see there is nothing bound to 'next step'.

When I change the duration factor to 4 you can clearly see that the progress bar at the bottom of the cue list is not fully progressing and the scene buttons you added are also swapping every 2 beats.

use the multiplication buttons on speed dial to adjust to f.i. 4 beats

Setting the speed dial to 4x using the buttons instead of Duration Factor inside the properties does the same thing.

[GGGss]

If I do exactly the same and set the divider to 16 f.i. every cue runs for 4 beats (to the complete end of the timing except the first 'reset' cue)

Why is it working as expected on 2 of my machines (at home and at work) and not with you

Other question why this happens ... is your DMX interface connected? Disconnect and retry...

[DarkMain]

If I do exactly the same and set the divider to 16 f.i. every cue runs for 4 beats (to the complete end of the timing except the first 'reset' cue)

That's not working. x16 is 4 BARS, not 4 beats. If you change the divider to 4 (which IS 4 beats) what does it do? I'll be willing to be it changes ever two taps.

If 1 beat = 468ms, then x16 = 7 sec 488ms (you should be able to see this time under the duration column in the cue list of in the brackets if your using the multiplication buttons on the speed dial).
4 beats = 1.872ms.

The chaser is changing 5 sec 608ms earlier than it should.

(side note: at x16 it starts off changing every 4 beats, but if you keep tapping for long enough every once and a while it will change on the 3rd beat or the 5th beat).

Why is it working as expected on 2 of my machines (at home and at work) and not with you

I don't know but I am experiencing the same thing on 3 different machines. One Windows 10 machines, one Linux machine (Linux Mint) and one OSX machine.

Other question why this happens ... is your DMX interface connected? Disconnect and retry...

It happens regardless of my DMX controller being connected or not.

[rfesig]

Darkmain, I understand exactly what you're trying to do; I tried to do something similar and ran into the same issue.
There doesn't seem to be a way to make QLC+ reliably count the number of beats from the MIDI clock and use that count as a basis for changing things.
I ended up doing the counting in another program, and using two speed dials tied to two different MIDI CCs. One for the beat, and one for the "bar".

Good luck.

[FFsgrant]

Have a look ...
and try it ...
midi-signal now triggers the speed dial
and speed dial controls duration of the steps in the cue

(I had to make a loopback channel to simulate the midi-signal since I don't have midi)

thank you. I found this example very helpfull

[lighting]

Hello!

First of all: thank you Massimo for this excellent tool!!
Thanks to QLC+ I could transform my living room into a club which is great since there is no clubs out there anymore right now

Regarding beat sync I am running in the the same issue described in this thread:
Assigning the MIDI signal as tap input works great, unless no mulitplication factor is applied to the speed dial. But if this factor becomes >1 the cue steps are not run completly anymore. I found this related topic here viewtopic.php?t=8933
So it seems there was a change in logic with a new release version, potentially GGGss has used an older version and so does not see the problem.

Unfortunately, I don't have a solution - apart from modifying upfront the MIDI signal to e.g. trigger only every bar instead of beat.
Maybe someone else has one?

[GGGss]

if this factor becomes >1 the cue steps are not run completly anymore.

Is the timer widget setting the hold time of your cue-list, or is it producing a step pace?
How is your cue list triggered? Step by Step or is it progressing on its own (by changing the hold time) ?
Are you sure that the hold time is not set to a time to a value that is longer than the tempo advances?

[lighting]

Hey GGGss!

Sorry for this late reply, I just picked up the topic again and used your provided midi-beat-chaser example on my computer.
And I can unfortunately confirm what DarkMain already said:

As long as the multiplication is <=1, the tapping is converted into the right step length.
But as soon as the factor becomes >1, the steps are not running to the end anymore.
I did screen recording, where I am using your qxw file with the only change that the "midi sent beat" button is triggered via the space key.
You can see that when I do not tap (before 00:15min and after 00.26min) and stick to the configured BPM / duration, the steps run through
but
when I do tap (between 00:15min and 00:26min) the steps are skipped before they are supposed to end.


Coming back to this post http://www.qlcplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8933 I wonder if we might use different versions of QLC+ which have different behaviours.
I am using 4.12.3 in MacOS.

Curious to hear from you!