Navigating through the master general combinations

We are contemplating a 3-manual console for a church, in which there will be 12 generals, duplicated on MIDI pistons and toe studs. We are thinking that these generals would be 1 - 12 of the 100 available master general combinations. It would be good if something like a NEXT / PREV or + / - pair of MIDI pistons could navigate up through the 12 MIDI piston generals into the remaining 88, or down from within the remaining 88 back into the 12 MIDI piston generals. I believe there is already an LCD display available that would indicate which of the master general combinations is operative.

Is there a way to navigate sequentially through the 100 available master combinations, using a mechanism similar to what the stepper does with frames?

If there is, could some sort of toggle control cause the NEXT / PREV or + / - pair of MIDI pistons to control sequential navigation, either through the master combinations navigation mechanism, or through the frames via the stepper?

There isn't a way to cycle through banks of 12 master general pistons using the same MIDI pistons over again.

But you can do it with the stepper easily. Assign your 12 (or up to 100) "general" MIDI pistons to some of the stepper's "trigger cued" x00 - x99 buttons -- see page 98 of the v 6.0.1 user guide. Don't use the xx0 - xx9 buttons since you need more than 10 of them in this case.

Then assign two pistons to jump the cued frame by +100 and -100 to change memory banks. Now you have 10 memory banks on the same 12 or more "general" pistons.

Also assign another two pistons to trigger frame +1 and -1 to step through the pistons if you wish.

I'm assuming version 6.

[mdyde]

[Topic moved here.]

Yes -- to confirm mnailor's reply (thanks, Mark), that would definitely be the way to do it, and is how the functions are designed to be used.

[micdev]

Hi Psallo,

You can download the Hauptwerk Installation and User Guide https://hauptwerk.com/documentation if you don't already have it, and read the section about the "Combination stepper" - page 97+

Thanks, François, I had already downloaded the new Installation and User Guide, and read the sections regarding frames, the stepper, and master general combinations.

Mark, please forgive my lack of understanding. It has taken me a while to figure out what to ask next. With your suggestion implemented, would the MIDI general pistons on the console correspond to something like this:

General 1 = Frame 010
General 2 = Frame 020
General 3 = Frame 030, etc.

so that, with +1 and -1 pistons, each MIDI general piston would effectively enable access to 10 frames?

General 1 = Frame 010, 011, 012...019
General 2 = Frame 020, 021, 022...029
General 3 = Frame 030, 031, 032...039, etc.

Then, with an additional pair of +100 and -100 pistons, the MIDI general pistons on the console could jump to

General 1 = Frame 110, 210, 310...910
General 2 = Frame 120, 220, 320...920
General 3 = Frame 130, 230, 330...930, etc.

If that's correct, then would the MIDI general pistons each be performing the same function that a +10 or -10 MIDI piston would perform when associated with the inner double arrows described in Navigating stepper frames non-sequentially (random-access); Method 2: 10-based cueing and triggering, on page 100 of the Installation and User Guide?

[mdyde]

Hello psallo,

Not quite -- as I understand, Mark was suggesting that you use the stepper in the way described in the 'Navigating stepper frames non-sequentially (random-access): Method 3: 100-based cueing and triggering' section in the guide (see pages 101-102).

I.e. you would assign your 12 'general' MIDI pistons to these functions:

- Registration: stepper: trigger x00.
...
- Registration: stepper: trigger x11.

Then your 'next'/'prev' MIDI pistons would be assigned to these functions:

- Registration: stepper: trigger +1.
- Registration: stepper: trigger -1.

Those '+/-1' pistons could then be used to step forwards or backwards through your 12 'generals' (frames x00-x11) and beyond.

You could then optionally also have a pair of MIDI pistons for '+/-100' to access additional 'banks' of 100, assigning them to these functions:

- Registration: stepper: cued 100s digit +.
- Registration: stepper: cued 100s digit -.

I.e., in total, these are the functions on the 'Combination stepper (all)' large control panel to which you would have dedicated MIDI pistons assigned:

Also, you would probably want to keep the following options ticked on the 'General settings | General preferences' screen:

- Last-used master generals and stepper trigger pistons remain lit.
- Stepper +/- pistons also synchronize cued frame.
- Stepper cue digit +/- pistons wrap to higher digits.

If you try ticking those options, then (with any organ loaded) using the above functions on the 'Combination stepper (all)' large control panel ('View | Large ... control panels'), I think you'd quickly see how it would work in practice.

What Martin explained above is exactly what I had in mind. To use something like your notation:

General 1 (x00) = frame 000, 100, ... , 900
...
General 12 (x11) = frame 011, 111, ... , 911

where the first digit ("bank") numbered 0 - 9 is changed by pressing the cue +100 >> and cue -100 << pistons.

So when range 5xx is cued, your twelve physical pistons trigger frames 500, 501, ... , 511 as if they were real generals and you'd selected memory bank 5.

To set the registrations, cue the bank number 0 - 9, turn on the stops etc, then turn on the setter and press the general piston and turn off the setter, just like a general piston.

I dare to think that with your kind help, Martin and Mark, I might actually be getting it.

Since the number 10 relates better to the 1,000 frames system of 1's, 10's and 100s than does the number 12, maybe I should be thinking more in terms of 10 "generals" with a pair of 100's pistons, engraved something like this:

[Swell keyslip]

Code: Select all

-100  x00  x10  x20  x30  x40

[Great keyslip]

Code: Select all

      x50  x60  x70  x80  x90 +100

with PREV being -1 and NEXT being +1. The 100's pistons, the 10's "generals" and 1's PREV / NEXT altogether constitute a sort of keypad system for random or sequential access to the frames. Some variations on this principle would be possible, such as having 10 100's pistons somewhere, so that one doesn't have to punch -100 or +100 several times.

Does that accurately represent what you guys are thinking?

WIth that hopefully settled, I still wonder about the master general combinations. Short of actually having 100 MIDI pistons assigned to each of the master general combinations (which would pretty much fill up 4 manuals worth of keyslips), do any options exist for accessing all 100 of these combinations using MIDI pistons? Or, is the intention really to only access a small subset of them in most cases, and leave the rest unused?

Thanks again for all the help this close to Christmas!

It would be easier to work with if you don't leave gaps like the 10 difference you showed between your trigger ("general") pistons. A contiguous range of numbers makes it easier to understand what frame number is next, rather than jump around. And it fits the documentation better for other HW users to learn and troubleshoot it later.

Also, you can have 100 "banks" instead of limiting yourself to only 10, when you use 10 trigger pistons instead of 12.

With 10 pistons, now you should follow Martin's 100 banks of 10 scheme, Method 2 on page 100 of the 6.0.1 user guide. This is cleaner since the stepper +1 and -1 pistons will work as documented because the "general" pistons xx0 - xx9 are an adjacent sequence. There's no advantage to leaving gaps between them, and it could confuse someone maintaining it in the future.

The cue +10 and -10 buttons change between the 100 "memory banks" in this scheme.

I've used this exactly this way, and it works intuitively after you set it up.

On your other question, 2 Novation Launchpad Minis would give you more than 100 pistons. You might need to label the buttons with numbers to avoid confusion, since it's an 8 x 8 array of MIDI buttons...

P.S. I'm changing mine to 15 "general" trigger pistons x00 - x14 with stepper +1 and -1 to step through them and cue +100 and -100 to change memory banks. This suits my console better and leaves room to use some toe studs as more "generals" if I get bored.

My wife calls this activity "moving the furniture"...

[mdyde]

Thanks, psallo.

To add to Mark's replies:

If using 10 trigger pistons, thus giving 100 'banks', (as described in 'Method 2: 10-based cueing and triggering' on page 100), I'd recommend having pistons dedicated for these functions:

- trigger xx0 (e.g. label the piston as 'xx0')
- trigger xx1
- trigger xx2
- trigger xx3
- trigger xx4
- trigger xx5
- trigger xx6
- trigger xx7
- trigger xx8
- trigger xx9

- trigger +1 (e.g. label the piston as '+1' or 'Next')
- trigger -1
- cue +10 (e.g. label the piston as '+10')
- cue -10
- cue +100 (e.g. label the piston as '+100')
- cue -100
- [Maybe also '000'.]

... i.e. these:

WIth that hopefully settled, I still wonder about the master general combinations. Short of actually having 100 MIDI pistons assigned to each of the master general combinations (which would pretty much fill up 4 manuals worth of keyslips), do any options exist for accessing all 100 of these combinations using MIDI pistons? Or, is the intention really to only access a small subset of them in most cases, and leave the rest unused?

Unlike the stepper (which is designed for the purpose), there's no functionality for paging/stepping through the master generals. They're very basic, and are there just for assigning individually to MIDI pistons dedicated for the purpose, i.e. for having fixed and constant registration-to-MIDI-piston mappings.

Most people only use a small subset of them (or none at all, and just use the stepper instead, which is much more powerful). However, there are 100 since a few people have MIDI consoles with very larger numbers of 'spare' MIDI pistons (or lots of Novation Launchpads).

If, after assigning all the pistons your need to the stepper, you still have some 'spare' MIDI pistons you could perhaps consider using them for master scoped combinations (pages 114-118). They're more flexible than master generals since you can 'scope' any of them at any time to be generals or divsionals (or to control any other subsets of the stops).