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Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

Building organ consoles for use with Hauptwerk, adding MIDI to existing consoles, obtaining parts, ...
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Ellsworth

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Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostWed Jan 20, 2021 5:35 pm

I am looking for a custom alternative to the stop displays on the touch screen monitor that come with the sample set. With age my eyes are having trouble negotiating large stop lists on the console mockups with their small print, even with full screen and individual screens for each jamb. I am rather envious of the stop displays of the touch screen on some Hauptwerk Content organs such as Gert Van Hoef uses in his YouTube videos <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2WKp9yy7Uk&t=17s>. These fill the entire real estate with labeled touch tabs. The alternative is Novation, or I may be missing something in the manual; but does someone know how to do this, or a source for such after market software?
Many thanks.
Ells
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larason2

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostWed Jan 20, 2021 6:34 pm

There are some apps like Lemur or Touch OSC for the IPad that allow you to make your own custom labels. I have experience with Touch OSC. I am not aware of any software like that for PC or Mac, but you could look for it. It would be a midi controller app. If you have some programming skills, you could make custom Hauptwerk instruments using the CODM with labels being whatever you choose, but that’s a bit more work. There may be others who are willing to program a custom ODF for you for a fee. There may be other methods I’m not aware of.
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mdyde

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostThu Jan 21, 2021 4:31 am

Hello Ells,

To add to larason2's reply, aside from whatever virtual console display pages/tabs the relevant sample set may include natively, and aside from the inclusion of the Custom Organ Design Module (CODM) for creating your own organ definitions (which is moderately technical and requires some programming in XML), Hauptwerk doesn't currently have functionality to allow you to design your own custom screen layouts, I'm afraid. (However, it is logged as an enhancement request.)
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Ellsworth

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostFri Jan 22, 2021 6:54 pm

To both responders to date, thank you for the help and I will look into these routes.
Best
Ellis
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ns_organist

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostSat Jan 30, 2021 12:48 pm

Hello,

I use Touch OSC with my Windows7 setup. (I'm not a Mac person, so I can't comment how it works with Mac/Apple products, although I expect it would be a bit easier with Mac/Apple). With Windows, it must be wired (it doesn't work on Wifi) to transmit Midi signals from the PC running Hauptwerk to the iPad and visa versa. (The both send signals back and forth, so the PC can turn on/off a stop on the iPad, and the iPad can turn on/off a stop on the PC/Hauptwerk). In order for it to work, you must also install the Touch OSC Bridge (which I have setup to run when the PC starts up). You can download the Touch OSC Editor, which will allow you to create your 'screens' on the PC, and then transfer them from the PC to your iPad. You can transfer the screens (from a PC to the iPad) via Wifi, or through iTunes. The App will not transmit midi signals to a PC over Wifi, though, so it's important that you have the Touch OSC Bridge running before you connect your iPad.

I took me a few attempts - experimenting with colors (there is a limited number of colors you can use for the controls - and the labels) and fonts to get it looking right, but I like being able to control the location and size of the stops. It also gives you a bit a flexibility if you're using multiple sample sets - for example, I chose to name my couplers consistently (Swell to Swell 4, instead of Swell Super, Swell Octave, etc). It also has allowed me to have consistency in layouts - for example, my couplers are always in the same place, regardless of which sampleset I'm using - and it allows me to use the master couplers with HW instead of the sampleset couplers seamlessly.

You can have multiple screens (or tabs) on each iPad - for example, on my left iPad, I have stops for the Pedal and Swell divisions on the main tab. On the alternate tab on the left hand side, I have some HW controls - transposer, recording options, registration sequencer, etc. Each control (stop, coupler or function) must have a unique midi channel and event number. (I use channels 13,14,15,16 as those channels aren't in use by the rest of my console). Each channel can have 127 events. If you decide to use this for multiple samplesets, it would be advisable to have some kind of numeric scheme, as to which stops/controls for which divisions correspond to a channel and/or group of events.

Touch OSC is not expensive - under $10. The main investment will be your time. I would suggest you start with a simple sampleset (St. Anne's is always a good starting point), and see what you can do with it. There's not alot of documentation on the hexler website (https://hexler.net/products/touchosc), but once you see how a single button can be configured to control a stop, it's just a matter of repeating the same process throughout the entire sampleset (many, many times). Try putting just one stop on the screen, transfer the screen to you iPad, connect (using a USB cable) the ipad to HW (making sure Touch OSC Bridge is running) and try to auto detect the stop. You may have to modify your midi interface for both input and output to allow HW to 'see' your iPads. Just make sure you indicate TouchOSC Bridge as your midi interface for input and output (in addition to whatever midi you're already using, of course).

I tried launchpads first, but wanted something that didn't have a physical label component (just a personal preference). I enjoy being able to swap sample sets, and simply load the new screens while the sampleset loads on HW. It makes playing multiple samples during one practice session very easy and enjoyable.

There's also http://www.organassist.com/. I've read about it on the forum, but haven't looked into it, as I'm happy with Touch OSC.

Hope this helps.

Kevin
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larason2

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostSat Jan 30, 2021 2:35 pm

I have used Touch OSC on a Mac and an old iPad, and I was able to get it to work wirelessly without any problems. There is a trick to getting it to work however. On the Mac, you have to set up the iPad as a midi device in the Audio/Midi settings program. Both the Mac and the iPad also have to be connected to the same wireless network. I used it for a few years, but I got a new Mac, and the iPad was getting old, so I recycled it. I found it did work very well, however. If anyone wants to try that, I can guide you through the process of setting it up.
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organassist

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostSun Jan 31, 2021 5:46 am

I realise that I am coming a little late to this discussion but noticed that Kevin mentioned OrganAssist.

If you are using Windows with a touchscreen then OrganAssist can act as a customisable overlay to your sample set. By editing the organ layout you can resize individual stops and the copy and paste this size to highlighted (even all) other stops. You can also drag stops to change the layout to use all of the screen area. [Edit] You can also highlight all stops and change the shape from Round to Rectangle which gives more space for the names [/Edit] Additionally in normal mode, without even editing the layout, you can easily use the plus(+) and minus(-) keys to change the font size on the stop labels. You can increase the font size by a large amount and OrganAssist will automatically abbreviate names on an individual basis if they exceed the size of the stop. OrganAssist saves the font size (and typeface) per organ so you can have different fonts for different organs.

Hope this may be of some help.

David
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ludu

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostSun Jan 31, 2021 7:06 am

Ellsworth wrote:I am rather envious of the stop displays of the touch screen on some Hauptwerk Content organs.

For your information, Content uses this system: https://www.domidi.nl/domidi.html.
I hope it may help you.
Luc
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dancingKitty

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Re: Custom stop display on touch screen monitor

PostMon Feb 01, 2021 2:46 pm

I am just beginning with a 10" Android tablet and touchOSC (on Windows machine).

Overall the experience is good, although as pointed out there are limitations in terms of colours etc. I am able to use WiFi for this, although I'd probably prefer a USB connection. I have very low latency over WiFi, so that isn't a concern.

I have found that it's neater to use the multi button matrices for stops, they give each division a nice, clean grid layout. My bugbear has been not being able to link/join/group labels to individual buttons, to allow resizing of both together.

Has anyone been able to receive the sysEx messages that Hauptwerk puts out? It's all well and good having a tablet with buttons for the combination stepper - but if it can't tell you what the current combination is, you could find yourself in a right muddle quickly!

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