Managing enabled/disabled state of Frame or AudioTrigger

adko · Mon Feb 14, 2022 9:10 pm

I've used QLC for years now and I am a paying user because this software is so great and so flexible.

Now I have a problem that I can't figure out (yet)

TLDR; Can we explicitly turn off or on an Audio Trigger or Frame's enabled state, or is toggle our only option?

I'm starting to control QLC via midi (actually I'm running midi out of my DAW so that I can sync lights and sound).

I need to be able to explicitly say "enable" or "disable" either an audiotrigger or a frame (either would work for my use case). Currently I can toggle either one, but my DAW doesn't know the current state, and say something went wrong or the song got stopped before it reached the end, and now we have restarted the song but the frame or audio trigger is already enabled. So now when we hit start everything is opposite of what we want.

I tried using a loopback device and using a flash button, thinking I could just send a very long midi note from my DAW any time I want the state to be "enabled" but this didn't work. It enables it, but requires another press to disable (rather than just disabling at the end of the note)

GGGss · Tue Feb 15, 2022 3:05 pm

uhu - I know... have you tried creating an input profile and selecting the 'Generate an extra Press/Release' option? https://www.qlcplus.org/docs/html_en_EN ... files.html

adko · Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:24 pm

Ohh this is new to me and looks like it could work.. I'll give it a try and report back.. thank you!

adko · Tue Feb 15, 2022 6:14 pm

Ok! This looks like a very viable solution, thank you so much -- Every time I think I've found a limitation in QLC, I find out there's actually a solution. Thank you Fredje for all you do on the forums and of course huge thanks to Massimo for this incredible software that I've used for years.

crashdox · Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:02 am

Can you clue me in on how you got that to work? I have the same issue; the frame always toggles one way, then the other. I have no external hardware, just QLC, and I want to reset all of my frames to Enabled at the start of a show, *regardless of their current state*. (the frame enable appears to be a toggle, not a state?

I don't understand how a button action like this can change the frame behavior?

thanks

adko · Fri Feb 25, 2022 7:31 pm

Yeah unfortunately it's not a sure-fire solution, as I found out. It did allow me to make the frame or the audio trigger enable only when I'm holding down a midi trigger button -- and disable when I release.. There is a chance things can get inverted though (where holding it down turns it OFF and releasing turns it on) and we have no way to know or recover from it gracefully -- have to go fix it manually in that case. We really need like a separate enable / disable controls on these things.

GGGss · Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:51 am

Changing a state with a toggle is always a problem because you don't know its former state.
Unless you keep track of it. This means you'd need a variable (a loopback channel f.i.) and an arithmetic comparison. QLC+ lacks the ability to do so.

Having 2 controls for the en- and disable isn't a solution because what has happens if both controls are 'on'?
As with effect pedals, you visually have to check its state before you press the EFX-pedal control.

If this is that critical, I would now opt to have some kind of visual feedback about the audio widget's state.

adko · Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:47 pm

I don't want separate controls for enable / disable -- but I want different signals for them. So if the control is already enabled and it recieves an "enable" signal, it just ignores it.. but if it get's a "disable" then it disables it, and vice versa. If for some reason the sender sends both signals at precisely the same time (I would consider this an invalid use case, actually -- and a bug in the sender's program) it's just a race condition to see who wins, but you never end up in a state where "enabled" and "disabled" are both true at the same time.
If we could combine this with feedback about the current state it would solve everything.

My use case is basically a playlist of 40+ fully automated light shows and I don't want to have to be running back to the computer to fix states through the whole show. The only robust way I've found to deal with this use case is just to not use the audio trigger or any toggle-able states. I also start and end every show with a stop-all command and kinda reset things to baseline...

GGGss · Tue Mar 01, 2022 8:38 am

I will let the dev-team to decide, but this alters completely the way (all the) frames work... and I don't think they will change that mechanism only for the audio widget.
but wait a minute ...

Scully · Sat May 18, 2024 8:01 am

adko wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:47 pm I don't want separate controls for enable / disable -- but I want different signals for them. So if the control is already enabled and it recieves an "enable" signal, it just ignores it.. but if it get's a "disable" then it disables it, and vice versa. If for some reason the sender sends both signals at precisely the same time (I would consider this an invalid use case, actually -- and a bug in the sender's program) it's just a race condition to see who wins, but you never end up in a state where "enabled" and "disabled" are both true at the same time.
If we could combine this with feedback about the current state it would solve everything.

My use case is basically a playlist of 40+ fully automated light shows and I don't want to have to be running back to the computer to fix states through the whole show. The only robust way I've found to deal with this use case is just to not use the audio trigger or any toggle-able states. I also start and end every show with a stop-all command and kinda reset things to baseline...

I have the same problem and it would help me a lot to add the option to explicitly turn on/off the frame.