New 4Pockets app: Surface Builder - MIDI Control Made Easy

Jumpercollins

It’s out now so what are people’s initial thoughts. Just started making a basic keyboard and sliders controller for Speldoza seems to work ok. Haven’t worked out how to scale sizes, panels, change background colours as yet. Learnt a lesson not to try building using the app in AUv3 mode as everything is to small. Yes need to watch the video proper I think and read the manual. Edit pitch to zoom sorted the scaling out.

pedro

Does it have x-faders? Like horizontal faders?

Luxthor

@Gavinski said:

@Luxthor said:

@Gavinski said:
I have bought a few of these controller builder apps over the years and never ended up used them because they weren't auv3, so I'm quite excited about this, even though the UI style is not to my taste. Potentially very useful!

You can import custom PNG (transparency supported) on buttons, finger crossed we could do this with background too.

Will be great for FX chains, take the most relevant controls and use them on one small custom surface. 😎

Yes, the only problem with that is that any knob or slider in an actual app that you play directly has many more than 128 discreet levels. This is why playing on an app itself is better than playing via a midi controller of any kind for certain things - filter sweeps for example. Still, undoubtedly will come in handy for most uses.

Sad, I know, for panning even less because for each side you have only half of it.

Luxthor

@pedro said:

@Luxthor said:

@Gavinski said:
I have bought a few of these controller builder apps over the years and never ended up used them because they weren't auv3, so I'm quite excited about this, even though the UI style is not to my taste. Potentially very useful!

You can import custom PNG (transparency supported) on buttons, finger crossed we could do this with background too.

Will be great for FX chains, take the most relevant controls and use them on one small custom surface. 😎

From the video it seems pictures stay in background, so you probably just have to stretch it to cover the whole canvas

It’s to be or not to be for me. Because I'm going to make one surface for each confusing / weird UI out there. Need background for visual markers.

MrStochastic

@Jumpercollins said:
It’s out now so what are people’s initial thoughts.

So the first thing I tried is a button sending CC. And then run immediately into a problem:
I make the button, I can assign a particular CC, in this case CC 12. But then there's no way I can find to add a value to that CC12. ??
I tested using midi monitor and it works sending out a value of 127. But why can't I assign a different value?
In the button editor under function there's a drop down menu item labeled Data but it says n/a and doesn't work.

So being flummoxed immediately. Wouldn't we want to be able to make a button that sends a particular CC value?

eross

so can you change the start point of the audio clips? also can you have it loop a section of the wav file when you press the button?

catherder

I like the look of it and the fact that it can be run as AUv3. But I do think the surface export definitely needs improving. I don't like apps that require me to use drag and drop between apps. My preference would be that you slide the preset to the left, you then get three popup buttons on the preset: Rename, Delete, Export. This would even add the need for a delete confirmation to the system what I would appreciate.
And it would be good to set up a Surface Builder repository on Patchstorage right from the beginning. Controller apps live from easy sharing of presets. People do not want to reinvent the wheel. I am not sure if Paul is on this forum, but it would be great if he or somebody who has already created patches could file a platform request and upload the five required patches so that we can vote for it.

Gavinski

Curious how people feel this compares with Loopy Pro as a surface controller?

hes

@Gavinski said:

@Luxthor said:

@Gavinski said:
I have bought a few of these controller builder apps over the years and never ended up used them because they weren't auv3, so I'm quite excited about this, even though the UI style is not to my taste. Potentially very useful!

You can import custom PNG (transparency supported) on buttons, finger crossed we could do this with background too.

Will be great for FX chains, take the most relevant controls and use them on one small custom surface. 😎

Yes, the only problem with that is that any knob or slider in an actual app that you play directly has many more than 128 discreet levels. This is why playing on an app itself is better than playing via a midi controller of any kind for certain things - filter sweeps for example. Still, undoubtedly will come in handy for most uses.

I get the concept, but I'm curious to what extent this is a real issue. Even taking a filter sweep, for example. Let's imagine a 2 second filter sweep, from a midi knob sending modulation from 0 to 127. That provides a granularity of 64 values/second. Are you really getting more if you tweak a knob that's directly connected, not having midi as intermediary? Mostly, I'm wanting a demonstration that's not just theoretical, want to first hear a difference in actual sound (and then debate whether 1. the difference is because one side is limited to the 128 levels of midi, and/or 2. whether there's some fix for the midi side of things, e.g., internal smoothing/interpolation).

Luxthor

@Stochastically said:

@Jumpercollins said:
It’s out now so what are people’s initial thoughts.

So the first thing I tried is a button sending CC. And then run immediately into a problem:
I make the button, I can assign a particular CC, in this case CC 12. But then there's no way I can find to add a value to that CC12. ??
I tested using midi monitor and it works sending out a value of 127. But why can't I assign a different value?
In the button editor under function there's a drop down menu item labeled Data but it says n/a and doesn't work.

So being flummoxed immediately. Wouldn't we want to be able to make a button that sends a particular CC value?

Maybe it is just hidden, long tap somewhere, menu dive, slide up/down?

hes

@Stochastically said:

@Jumpercollins said:
It’s out now so what are people’s initial thoughts.

So the first thing I tried is a button sending CC. And then run immediately into a problem:
I make the button, I can assign a particular CC, in this case CC 12. But then there's no way I can find to add a value to that CC12. ??
I tested using midi monitor and it works sending out a value of 127. But why can't I assign a different value?
In the button editor under function there's a drop down menu item labeled Data but it says n/a and doesn't work.

So being flummoxed immediately. Wouldn't we want to be able to make a button that sends a particular CC value?

Just a guess: The button is intended to be an on off switch. 127 is sent for 'on', 0 for 'off'. Why do you want to send a different value, i.e., what are you using it for? What you do with this button is listen for a 127 on CC 12 and that signifies it being turned on. So long as the 'on' state is a static positive integer, it doesn't really make any difference what integer is assigned, thus '127' works. How is it preventing you from doing what you want to do?

I wonder whether you're confusing listening on CC 12 for a range of different values, something that would come from a knob or a slider or fader that's sending CC 12 messages that vary in value. An on/off button always sends the same fixed value.

Gavinski

@hes said:

@Gavinski said:

@Luxthor said:

@Gavinski said:
I have bought a few of these controller builder apps over the years and never ended up used them because they weren't auv3, so I'm quite excited about this, even though the UI style is not to my taste. Potentially very useful!

You can import custom PNG (transparency supported) on buttons, finger crossed we could do this with background too.

Will be great for FX chains, take the most relevant controls and use them on one small custom surface. 😎

Yes, the only problem with that is that any knob or slider in an actual app that you play directly has many more than 128 discreet levels. This is why playing on an app itself is better than playing via a midi controller of any kind for certain things - filter sweeps for example. Still, undoubtedly will come in handy for most uses.

I get the concept, but I'm curious to what extent this is a real issue. Even taking a filter sweep, for example. Let's imagine a 2 second filter sweep, from a midi knob sending modulation from 0 to 127. That provides a granularity of 64 values/second. Are you really getting more if you tweak a knob that's directly connected, not having midi as intermediary? Mostly, I'm wanting a demonstration that's not just theoretical, want to first hear a difference in actual sound (and then debate whether 1. the difference is because one side is limited to the 128 levels of midi, and/or 2. whether there's some fix for the midi side of things, e.g., internal smoothing/interpolation).

A 2 second filter sweep is quite short by the standards of some ambient and experimental music, but yes I get your point. When it comes to something like tuning an oscillator though, the difference is definitely audible!

hes

@Gavinski said:

@hes said:

@Gavinski said:

@Luxthor said:

@Gavinski said:
I have bought a few of these controller builder apps over the years and never ended up used them because they weren't auv3, so I'm quite excited about this, even though the UI style is not to my taste. Potentially very useful!

You can import custom PNG (transparency supported) on buttons, finger crossed we could do this with background too.

Will be great for FX chains, take the most relevant controls and use them on one small custom surface. 😎

Yes, the only problem with that is that any knob or slider in an actual app that you play directly has many more than 128 discreet levels. This is why playing on an app itself is better than playing via a midi controller of any kind for certain things - filter sweeps for example. Still, undoubtedly will come in handy for most uses.

I get the concept, but I'm curious to what extent this is a real issue. Even taking a filter sweep, for example. Let's imagine a 2 second filter sweep, from a midi knob sending modulation from 0 to 127. That provides a granularity of 64 values/second. Are you really getting more if you tweak a knob that's directly connected, not having midi as intermediary? Mostly, I'm wanting a demonstration that's not just theoretical, want to first hear a difference in actual sound (and then debate whether 1. the difference is because one side is limited to the 128 levels of midi, and/or 2. whether there's some fix for the midi side of things, e.g., internal smoothing/interpolation).

A 2 second filter sweep is quite short by the standards of some ambient and experimental music, but yes I get your point. When it comes to something like tuning an oscillator though, the difference is definitely audible!

I don't doubt you could demonstrate an audible difference in some synth. But it's certainly possible to design an interface where you can't. For example, oscillator tuning can be scaled however a synth creator wants. If they give me 128 steps to modulate within a single semitone (or half a semitone, or half of that, or half of that. . . ) I'm pretty sure it quickly gets to the point where you can't discern any difference.

Gavinski

Of course! But try an experiment of setting up the tuning of a one oscillator instance of AUGenX or Fundamental 2 to be controlled by a midi slider and try to sweep the whole frequency range. You're much better off doing this in the app itself rather than using midi 1.0

I know this because I was so frustrated with the touch sensitivity of the Fundamental 2 oscillators so tried a lot of workarounds by using my own controllers. Loopy Pro sending pitch bend messages to it would have been an ideal solution, but there were some issues of scaling that made even this not work well at the extremes of the frequency spectrum due to the way the knobs in fundamental scale. Unfortunately, despite even our own Michael talking to the dev, he was adamant that there was no problem in his implementation, but there is.

Poppadocrock

Yes this looks super cool.

wim

@Stochastically said:

@Jumpercollins said:
It’s out now so what are people’s initial thoughts.

So the first thing I tried is a button sending CC. And then run immediately into a problem:
I make the button, I can assign a particular CC, in this case CC 12. But then there's no way I can find to add a value to that CC12. ??
I tested using midi monitor and it works sending out a value of 127. But why can't I assign a different value?
In the button editor under function there's a drop down menu item labeled Data but it says n/a and doesn't work.

So being flummoxed immediately. Wouldn't we want to be able to make a button that sends a particular CC value?

Paul's apps sometimes have things like this overlooked when first release. Most CC "buttons," such as on a foot switch send 0 for off and 127 for on. He probably just didn't think about other practical uses for them.

He's usually pretty on the ball for feature requests shortly after launch, until he moves on to something else. I'll email him as I think this is a pretty glaring limitation, particularly since he makes it so easy to add arrays of buttons. Having them able to send fixed amounts for each button could be useful for many things.

support @ 4pockets.com is the official support email address.

mistercharlie

@Gavinski said:
Curious how people feel this compares with Loopy Pro as a surface controller?

I was thinking the same. I’d rather use LP than learn another app. And Loopy looks way better too!

Gavinski

Loopy Pro is certainly much more beautiful. I'd love to see 4Pockets step up their UI / UX game. Maybe bring in a designer to rework all the templates. Great ideas but the aesthetics aren't quite there for me.

@mistercharlie said:

@Gavinski said:
Curious how people feel this compares with Loopy Pro as a surface controller?

I was thinking the same. I’d rather use LP than learn another app. And Loopy looks way better too!

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

HotStrange

Nice! Definitely gonna try this out later tonight. I’ve been hoping for something like this for a while, even had a note in the notes app to message some devs about it 😂 what’s thoughts so far?

Also curious, since you can map each button to a different synth could you also do that for effects to turn different effects on and off?

MisplacedDevelopment

I have worked out how to get controls to send MIDI to other controls in standalone, e.g. have a button turn on a light. I have to use something like MidiFire though to send the trigger note out of the standalone and back in again. Is there a better way that anyone has found to trigger controls from other controls?

wim

@Gavinski said:
I'd love to see 4Pockets step up their UI / UX game. Maybe bring in a designer to rework all the templates. Great ideas but the aesthetics aren't quite there for me.

You guys may be overlooking the non-default look options he's included this time:

Jumpercollins

What other surface tools apart from what’s all ready including would users find interested to use inside surface builder? MPE keyboard would be cool, maybe a sequencer that you can self build of some sort. A midi in module to send notes to a keyboard. Automation for controls knobs and sliders. More colour options font types and gradient options. A way to share surfaces.

MrStochastic

@hes said:
How is it preventing you from doing what you want to do?

Glad you asked. I've been using this type of thing for triggering scenes. In LoopBud and other Buds but also Euclidean. There are some Mozaic scripts that do this and I've also used an old app called MidiPads that works pretty well except it's not an AU so I must cobble together routing through Audiobus to AUM. Not ideal. Here's a shot of what that looks like:

@wim said:

@Stochastically said:
So being flummoxed immediately. Wouldn't we want to be able to make a button that sends a particular CC value?

Paul's apps sometimes have things like this overlooked when first release. Most CC "buttons," such as on a foot switch send 0 for off and 127 for on. He probably just didn't think about other practical uses for them.

He's usually pretty on the ball for feature requests shortly after launch, until he moves on to something else. I'll email him as I think this is a pretty glaring limitation, particularly since he makes it so easy to add arrays of buttons. Having them able to send fixed amounts for each button could be useful for many things.

support @ 4pockets.com is the official support email address.

Thank you for commiserating! I will contact him too. I know you've made some decent Mozaic scripts for this sort of thing but I hoped to use more UI customizations this offers.

wim

@Gavinski said:
Curious how people feel this compares with Loopy Pro as a surface controller?

After a short play with it, a few differences come to mind.

• Loopy has got the beautiful look down for sure, but there's only one look.
• Loopy doesn't have a keyboard object.
• Loopy has horizontal sliders.
• Surface Builder is more targeted - less distractions as just a surface controller.
• Surface Builder is lower cost.
• Surface Builder has bank select without having to string together multiple midi actions.
• Loopy has stepped dials.
• Loopy can do OSC, with bi-directional feedback.
• Surface Builder has multiple midi ports available.
• Surface Builder has graphics import (haven't tried this yet).

wim

@pedro said:
Does it have x-faders? Like horizontal faders?

It doesn't have horizontal faders. I'd hope that would be added too.

[edit ... see below]

Gavinski

@wim said:

@Gavinski said:
I'd love to see 4Pockets step up their UI / UX game. Maybe bring in a designer to rework all the templates. Great ideas but the aesthetics aren't quite there for me.

You guys may be overlooking the non-default look options he's included this time:

No comment!

Gavinski

@wim said:

@Gavinski said:
Curious how people feel this compares with Loopy Pro as a surface controller?

After a short play with it, a few differences come to mind.

• Loopy has got the beautiful look down for sure, but there's only one look.
• Loopy doesn't have a keyboard object.
• Loopy has horizontal sliders.
• Surface Designer is more targeted - less distractions as just a surface controller.
• Surface Designer is lower cost.
• Surface Designer has bank select without having to string together multiple midi actions.
• Loopy has stepped dials.
• Loopy can do OSC, with bi-directional feedback.
• Surface Designer has multiple midi ports available.
• Surface Designer has graphics import (haven't tried this yet).

Thorough as ever Wim, thank you! Bank select sounds handy!

wim

@wim said:

@pedro said:
Does it have x-faders? Like horizontal faders?

It doesn't have horizontal faders. I'd hope that would be added too.
ping: @4pockets_paul - just in case you're listening. 😉

Whoops. It does have two horizontal fader styles I overlooked in the Object Styles panel.

hes

@Stochastically said:

@hes said:
How is it preventing you from doing what you want to do?

Glad you asked. I've been using this type of thing for triggering scenes. In LoopBud and other Buds but also Euclidean. There are some Mozaic scripts that do this and I've also used an old app called MidiPads that works pretty well except it's not an AU so I must cobble together routing through Audiobus to AUM. Not ideal. Here's a shot of what that looks like:

Gotcha, thanks. I should have realized, I remember good old MidiPads. So one main use case is a set of buttons for triggering, each of which sends a different fixed value to the same CC number.