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Registration mess

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naujoks

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Registration mess

PostWed Mar 10, 2021 6:00 am

Why is registration still such an indescribable, complicated mess?
First of all, the floating window is too small and can't be resized.
More importantly, all that I'm looking for is a way to store a combination of stops, on a number from 0000 to 9999 say, to have a way to skip forward and backward by one, and to jump directly to a number by entering a number.
That's how most European organs with combinations work. It's extremely easy and intuitive.
Seeing this registration window in Hauptwerk makes my heart sink. It has so many things I will never need and I can't get it to work the way I want without reading the user's guide. But the guide itself is so convoluted. It's clearly been written by a software engineer, certainly not an organist.
When I read that HW 6 changes the Registration I thought yay they fixed it. But no, the mess just got more complicated.
I really hope that the next version makes this MUCH more simple!
Rant over.
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naujoks

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Re: Registration mess

PostWed Mar 10, 2021 6:40 am

Ok, I actually really need help with this.

I want to program Master Generals and advance from one combination to the next by pressing a button. A couple of dozens of them. Is that possible?
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mdyde

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Re: Registration mess

PostWed Mar 10, 2021 6:44 am

Hello naujoks,

[Topic moved here.]

naujoks wrote:More importantly, all that I'm looking for is a way to store a combination of stops, on a number from 0000 to 9999 say, to have a way to skip forward and backward by one, and to jump directly to a number by entering a number.
That's how most European organs with combinations work. It's extremely easy and intuitive.


That's actually exactly what Hauptwerk's combination stepper does, and is for.

In Hauptwerk v6, please have a look at the 'Combination stepper (all)' control panel (which can be opened via 'View | Larger ... control panels ...' from the menu).

The displayed 'current' frame number is your current step (0-999), and you can use the right-arrow to its right (and/or auto-detect it to a MIDI piston by right-clicking on it) to advance that step. You can also 'cue' steps to jump directly to different steps. Use the setter to store your registrations to the desired steps.

Please have a read through the 'Registration menu: combination stepper (registration sequencer)' section in the Hauptwerk user guide (pages 97-107 in the current v6.0.2 version) for full details.

naujoks wrote:Seeing this registration window in Hauptwerk makes my heart sink. It has so many things I will never need and I can't get it to work the way I want without reading the user's guide. But the guide itself is so convoluted. It's clearly been written by a software engineer, certainly not an organist.


I designed and wrote it myself, and I am a software engineer (as well as an amateur organist/musician/keyboardist), so I'm guilty as charged in that respect. Sorry to hear you find it confusing.

It does indeed have a lot of functionality, since different people like to use combination systems in different ways (and are accustomed to different systems around the world), and Hauptwerk tries to cater for different approaches and preferences. However, as above, you can very easily do exactly what you're hoping for, so you can just ignore the other combination system functions (master scoped combinations, master generals, etc.) if you don't want to use them.

naujoks wrote:First of all, the floating window is too small and can't be resized.


We do have enhancement requests logged for allowing the control panels to be made larger. (Of course, the resulting size does also depend upon your computer screen's size and resolution -- if you have a small but very high-resolution screen then the control panels will appear smaller.)
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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mdyde

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Re: Registration mess

PostWed Mar 10, 2021 6:45 am

Hello again naujoks,

P.S. I see we both replied at the same time.

naujoks wrote:Ok, I actually really need help with this.

I want to program Master Generals and advance from one combination to the next by pressing a button. A couple of dozens of them. Is that possible?


You need to use the combination stepper (not master generals) for that.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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naujoks

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Re: Registration mess

PostWed Mar 10, 2021 2:41 pm

Thank you for the explanation. Sorry for the outburst, I got a bit frustrated here.
I understood the principle now.
I still think it would be much more intuitive for the combination stepper to have up and down arrows above and below each digit. In that way you could also only have number displayed, instead of the two (current and cued). It would also be easy to expand the number of combinations to 9999 without much more clutter. I know you can save combinations, but in my set up it's the goal not to have to ever use the mouse or indeed a screen (incidentally, I'm looking for a tasteful way to have the combination number(s) displayed).
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mdyde

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Re: Registration mess

PostWed Mar 10, 2021 3:53 pm

Thanks, naujoks. You're welcome.

naujoks wrote:It would also be easy to expand the number of combinations to 9999 without much more clutter. I know you can save combinations, but in my set up it's the goal not to have to ever use the mouse


You can use the 64 'favourite combination sets' for that -- think of them as 64 'banks' of all combinations. So 64 banks x 1000 frames gives you 64,000 stepper frames. The range 0-999 is used so that you can jump directly and easily to any of them with only a relatively small small number of MIDI pistons. (If there were 10,000 frames you'd need more pistons to allow direct jumping because of the extra digit, so you might as well just use the combination sets for the purpose, needing only two extra MIDI pistons -- one for 'increment favourite' and the other for 'decrement favourite'.)

See also the 'Registration menu: combination sets' section in the user guide for that (pages 88-92 in the v6.0.2 version).

E.g. you could use the 'Cued favorites (all types)' mini control panel ('View | Mini control panels panels') for selecting combination favourite sets (banks), as well as for selecting organs and temperaments. (That control panel handles all three types of favourites so that don't need to use three times the screen space, or three times the number of MIDI pistons.) Or you could use the 'Combination set load/save/assign' mini control panel (or the Registration large control panel).

If using favourite combination sets as 'banks' use would probably want to make sure that the 'Auto-load favorite combination sets when cued' general preference ('General settings | General preferences') option is ticked.

Hauptwerk is also specifically designed so that you don't need to use a computer screen or mouse once you've set it up -- all of the buttons on the control panels can be auto-detected to MIDI for the purpose (except for the few that browse for files or open/close windows), and you can use MIDI LCD panels to display status information (e.g. the current stepper frame number, and/or the current favourite combination set 'bank' number). Various companies make off-the-shelf MIDI LCD panels designed for Hauptwerk, such as MIDI Boutique:

https://www.midiboutique.com/MIDI-Decoders

E.g. see the 'Displaying the stepper status on an LCD panel' section in the guide (page 107) for an example of setting up an LCD panel to display the stepper frame number.

[The stepper frame number, and the current favourite combination set are also displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the main window, albeit in very small text.]
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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craigpfeiffer

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Re: Registration mess

PostSat Nov 20, 2021 9:53 am

I didn't want to start a new topic just for my little problem which I have now solved, but I came across this topic while searching for answers. I recently went from HW4 to 6, and at the same time added a third manual. In HW4, I had programmed the stepper to use two manuals to play three manual works using coupler changes when manual changes were called for, as well as the usual registration changes. This was over 10 years ago, but I don't recall it being difficult or confusing. When I started to reprogram these same pieces with HW6 and three manuals, I right away got into trouble with things not behaving as they should. I only plan to do sequential stepping, so I was using the current frame window to navigate to a frame I wanted to save to, ignoring the cued window. After much frustration, and realizing I had to be doing it wrong, I happened to read the balloon that pops up when you hover over the trigger. I don't have it in front of me, but when I read it, it dawned on me that perhaps the cued window should contain the frame I was trying to save to, not the current window. I ticked the box in General preferences to cause the cued window to sync to the current window (since I'm not jumping around while using the stepper), and that solved all the issues. I'm posting this to suggest that maybe the user guide could be a little more clear in this regard, although it appears it might just be me as I didn't see that anyone else has had this problem.
Craig
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mnailor

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Re: Registration mess

PostSat Nov 20, 2021 10:20 am

If I understand correctly, you shouldn't need the Trigger beside the cued frame at all in order to save to the next stepper frame. Turn on Setter, press the Stepper + 1 (>) "arrow" beside the current frame, turn off Setter. You don't need the cued frame for sequential access.

Nothing wrong with what you did, of course, just not strictly necessary.
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mdyde

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Re: Registration mess

PostSat Nov 20, 2021 10:38 am

Hello Craig,

Thanks very much for upgrading to v6 and for the suggestion.

v6's stepper works the same as v4's in respect of the functions that v4 had, so if you use it in the same way that you did in v4 then it will work the same as it did in v4 by default (except that the last-used number buttons stay lit by default). There are simply additional buttons/functions for the benefit of people who prefer to use it in ways that weren't possible in v4.

The 'Cued: ... Trigger' button is a new function in v6 that wasn't present in v4. It jumps directly to the cued frame number (not to the current frame number). As in v4, the 'cued' frame (and the functions that relate to it) are for direct random-access jumps between non-consecutive frame numbers. As Mark mentioned, you don't need to use any of them for simple sequential access -- just use the buttons around the 'Current' frame number (not the 'Cued'), i.e. in the buttons in the top row on the Combination Stepper large control panel (or their equivalents on the Registration large control panel):

Stepper1.jpg
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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mdyde

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Re: Registration mess

PostSat Nov 20, 2021 12:30 pm

Hello Craig,

P.S. It just occurred to me that perhaps you were confusing the 'Cued: ... Trigger' function with the 'Combinations: Re-activate current registration sequencer frame' menu function from Hauptwerk v2 and v3, since their names are fairly similar. If so, they're different functions and behave differently -- the former relates to the cued frame, and the latter related to the current frame.

The latter does still actually exit in v4-v6 for exact backward-compatibility with v2/v3, and settings for it would still be present for an installation that was migrated from v2/v3 via v4, but the function isn't on the menu or any of the controls panels (since v4.0.0). However, if did want to set up that function again on a new installation (to use v6 in the way that you might have done in v2/v3) you could auto-detect it via the MIDI settings screens. E.g. you could go to 'General settings | MIDI/key triggers for master pistons and menu functions ...', then find the "Registration: stepper: re-trigger current" in the left-hand list and then use the 'Auto-detect' button for it in the right-hand pane.

Anyway, ticking the "Stepper +/- pistons also synchronize cued frame?" general preference as you did is perfectly valid, and makes the issue irrelevant, since the cued frame number would stay synchronised to the current frame number anyway, as you stepped through the frames. Effectively that preference gives the behaviour of a 'simple stepper' as traditionally found on some older models of digital organ (with the stepper simply stepping through the Trigger: ... x00, x01, ..., x99 pistons.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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craigpfeiffer

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Re: Registration mess

PostSat Nov 20, 2021 2:59 pm

Thank you both for your replies. What had me confused was this sentence from pg.103: "Trigger the stepper frame you want to capture to (for example frame 001), using the navigation procedures described previously". To me this implies you need to hit the trigger button. I just tried it the way Mark described and it does work fine. I still think the user guide could stand to explain this better. Clearly there are two ways (at least!) to program the stepper. I never did this in HW3, only in HW4, and I did not migrate my saved settings to HW6 that I know of (didn't load a thumb drive backup), so I'm just starting from scratch, which is what I want to do. Anyway, it's working, which is all I care about.
Craig
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mdyde

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Re: Registration mess

PostSat Nov 20, 2021 3:30 pm

Thanks, Craig. If I get a chance I'll see whether I can clarify that in the guide.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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craigpfeiffer

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Re: Registration mess

PostSat Nov 20, 2021 5:37 pm

Thank you, Martin

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