How to create a colour indicator

Question

I would like to intercept channel scribble strip colour messages (Sys-Ex) in MD and have the colour somehow indicated for each channel in my 'Mickie' mixer layout.

My first thought is that I could create 8 panels, set to each of the 8 colours, then create show/hide buttons (with 'Radio' Supercontrol) for these panels, then overlay the panels somewhere on my mixer layout and trigger the eight show-hide buttons based on incoming messages.

I've made a quick test of this, and it works, but this gives me 64 buttons (one for each colour, for each channel) and 64 panels to manage - plus 8 Supercontrols. That's quite a task and it's already a mess trying to organise all of these controls on an already heavily-populated Layout.

Sensible idea? Or is there an easier way?

Comments

would Streambyter help? JK might have thoughts.

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I'm using SB to split the incoming 8-channel block messages into singleton messages. I'm happy to look at other ways to handle this.
Here's my SB code:

# Subroutines
IF LOAD
  SUBROUTINE SEND-COLOUR CHANNEL COLOUR
    SND F0 00 00 66 14 72 CHANNEL COLOUR F7
  END
END

# F0 00 00 66 14 72 07 07 07 07 07 07 07 07 F7

# Split off and send channel colours
IF M00 == F0 00 00
  IF M03 == 66 14 72
    SEND-COLOUR 00 M06
    SEND-COLOUR 01 M07
    SEND-COLOUR 02 M08
    SEND-COLOUR 03 M09
    SEND-COLOUR 04 M0A
    SEND-COLOUR 05 M0B
    SEND-COLOUR 06 M0C
    SEND-COLOUR 07 M0D
    BLOCK
  END
END

Answer 1

No easier way at present.

To show the track colors on the TR managers I stack 13 panels, one with each color, then have color managers as shown.  11 tracks with 13 panels each.  Done it once, and not sure I will do it again.  I really need to adjust the colors to be closer to the hardware, but digging into the piles of panels is not trivial.

Images

TR-8s Manager.png

Screenshot 2024-06-02 at 8.29.36 AM.png

Comments

Where are you hiding those colour manager controls in the second screenshot? If I could have them on a separate page I could do it fairly easily. Mine is a similar layout to yours, and I am ending up with almost everything overlaying everything else in Edit mode. It's a nightmare.

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They have to be on the same page to hook up the relationship, but can then be moved to another page.

If my layout has four banks, for example, i put them on a page in bank 5.  That way they are not normally visible to the user.  

I will usually build the stack on a blank page, then move the visible controls to the appropriate page, move the remaining helper controls into the hidden bank.

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Thanks for this. It sounds a bit of a faff. I'm not sure whether to persevere. I don't understand how to hide a Bank, and Banks and pages don't work well for me - I can never get them in order without simple trial and error. I'll give it some thought...

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I'm going ahead. I'm shuffling controls around on the page to manage the editing. One annoyance I've found is that the show/hide tie-ups don't work across pages - that's made life even more difficult! But I will get it done a few steps at a time while I'm watching the Euros...

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I've done it. I'd like to say that it was easier than expected, but it wasn't. Going into Edit mode reveals an almost entirely full screen, making it a bit of a no-go area from this point.

But it works. I'll be uploading in a few minutes. Thanks again for the advice.

Answer 2

No easier way at present.

To show the track colors on the TR managers I stack 13 panels, one with each color, then have color managers as shown.  11 tracks with 13 panels each.  Done it once, and not sure I will do it again.  I really need to adjust the colors to be closer to the hardware, but digging into the piles of panels is not trivial.

Images

TR-8s Manager.png

Screenshot 2024-06-02 at 8.29.36 AM.png