On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 11:46 AM, Stefan Gofferje <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hi list! > > I found the NON suite while looking for Jack mixer on the web. Compiling > went painless and so far, I'm pretty impressed! Cool stuff! > > I'm about to piece together a small studio for podcast productions and > maybe live-broadcasting on events. The whole thing is related to my > wolf-protection website and online magazine at susilauma.fi. > > I'm a veteran Linux user (started playing with Linux in 1995 and since > 1999, it's my primary desktop OS) and I do know a bit about studio, > recording and broadcast stuff, although that knowledge is 10+ years old. > > Right from the beginning, I have a few specialized questions, as I'm - > as I told - yet in the process of planning the studio equipment. I > haven't even decided yet if I want to go fully digital. > > I'm undecided between a fully digital solution with a MIDI controller, > an interface box and suitable software and a half-digital solution where > I use a BC mixer like the Allen & Heath XB-10 with stereo-sum out via > USB and use the computer only for recording and supplying music. > Money-wise, both would turn out pretty similar, so it's the usability > and flexibility I'm looking at. > Sounds cool. I know there are some podcasters out there using Non Mixer. Maybe someone with experience will chime in. You might also ask on the linuxmusicians forums. > > I understand that NON-mixer can be remote controlled via MIDI, however, > I'm not sure about the assignment and learning process (I don't have any > MIDI controller at hand). I did notice, however, that not all control > elements turn pink when you enter learning mode. Particularly missing I > found the PAN regulator (that's also missing in the fader view, s. > below). Is there a plan to include more control elements into the MIDI > control? > You have to 'bind' module parameters to controls first. So open the module parameter editor for the monopan (or whatever) right click on the control and choose 'bind'. Then, on the 'controls' view, you will see that the controls listed there are enabled for learning. Over complicated you say? Maybe, but there has to be *something* to associated the learning to and this is how it works currently. > > How hard is it to write modules? Is there some kind of API > documentation? How welcome are feature requests? > For instance, for broadcasting, a huge "Select" or "On" button at the > bottom of an input-strip would be mandatory and that should be > controllable via MIDI too. I know that can be similarly achieved with a > mute button but for once, it's broadcast-typical and then the logic is > inverted, i.e. the Select-button is illuminated when the channel is active. > Not hard, but no documentation as it's an internal API and subject to change. If you are using a hardware MIDI controller, it should be trivial to reprogram it to invert the meaning of the LED for the mute button. I believe one can do this on e.g the BCF2000. But it sounds like maybe what you're really looking for is a 'solo' button? If so, it's already on the TODO list... > Is there really no integrated method of assigning Jack channels to the > input and output strips or did I just miss it? At the moment, I use the > patchfield from qjackctrl to assign e.g. the mic input of my USB > interface to the respective input strip in NON-mixer or the output strip > to the output channel of the USB interface. It would be really helpful > if e.g. a double-click on the jack input module would open a list of > channels to choose from and if that choice would be saved in the project. > Connections will not be saved in the project. If you use NSM and jackpatch, then jackpatch will save the connections. There are two methods of making/breaking connections in non-mixer. Drag n' drop from the connection plug icons on the JACK modules, or using the auto input/autoconnect rules (found in the context menu that comes up when you right-click on a strip). I'm afraid this is not documented yet. For anything really complex you're better off managing it in Patchage or similar anyway (but the auto connect feature works quite well for most mixes). > > I would like to also suggest that for the Mono Pan module, a knob should > appear in the fader-view of the strip - which should also be > MIDI-controllable. > Yeah, I've thought about doing that. I rarely use mono pan myself, preferring ambisonics. Feel free to submit a feature request here: https://github.com/original-male/non/issue Otherwise I'm likely to forget about it. > > Is there a list of MIDI-controllers which are known to work with > NON-mixer and NON-timeline? How about feedback? Does NON-mixer know how > to send values back to a MIDI-controller to control e.g. motorized faders? > Yes it sends feedback. I only have a BCF2000 (which works wonderfully). MIDI is MIDI though, so pretty much anything should work.
