I have a QL5 and am looking at ways to extend the physical buttons and feedback on the console. We use it for theatre and I would love to use a stream deck as a DCA assignment remote. Something that would show the DCA status for the selected channel, then let the user assign and unassign DCAs. Of course these change scene by scene.
I can see how to get feedback from the console and can see how to set or unset DCA assignments. Is there any way to combine those to implement a toggle function?
Sounds doable, if I understand you correctly. I use a similar idea to do patching.
Let me know if you’re looking for something similar and I can help you create a layout.
First, let me say that patching system is pretty impressive.
I’m looking for something very similar with DCAs. The problem I’ve had so far is that the stream deck is not the only device that can change a DCA assignment. The console is also changing them as I recall new cues. Is there way to update the latch state on the stream desk when a new state is detected on the console?
I know what you mean. It’s a slight failing of Companion the way the latch function works. It’s fine if you don’t use feedback, but IMHO, companion without feedback is kinda pointless, especially as you say, when settings are also changed on the console or by scene changes.
So, what you want to do will work, with latches, but there will be the scenario where the button is out of sync with the DCA’s true state. Turning off the highlight bar on the button will help, but you still might have to push a button twice occasionally to change the DCA state. Not a big deal, but I agree that for it to be perfect, you wouldn’t have to do that.
I can show you what I mean if you’d like. Do you have a specific way you’d like to select channels? Do you want the SD to show assignments on whatever channel is currently selected or do you want to select channels on the SD? Do you have an XL or do you want to do 2 pages of 8 for the DCAs?
That would be great. I would use the QL to select the channel. Honestly I don’t even use all 16 DCAs, 8 - 10 is enough to cover most shows. I would be interested to see how the pages work though. At home I’m playing with a 6-button mini but at the theatre I’ll have the 15-button standard size.
Is it also possible to pull in the name of the DCA and label the buttons?
Ok, understood.
The names can be done, but ATM it’s just pulling in the first 4 characters. I have an update due in the near future that should put all 8 characters on the button.
Ok, so to start, then, just DCA 1-6 on the 6 buttons? Once you see the layout, you’ll see how to add more DCAs or expand it to the 15-key.
Yes, that’ll work great
Grab today’s build and then try this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gd68b2b0p76r4wb/DCA-6.companionconfig.zip?dl=1
Let me know how it works for you. If it works as you expect, you can see how to expand it to more DCAs.
Thanks Andy. I see how it’s supposed to work. The feedback isn’t working as well as I’d like though. Seems it will only update the button status if I make a DCA change with a channel selected. Just switching back and forth between selected channels it doesn’t update the button feedback. It also doesn’t change for recalling cues.
What causes the data flow between the console and Companion? Is it only when the parameter is changed? Is it possible to pick certain parameters to constantly query?
Did you grab the new build first?
Yes, I grabbed the one from 4/2/21, v2.2.0-22f6d8b8-3155. I am using with the editor, not sure if it works differently with the console.
Ah. Well, there’s no feedback with the editor, so yah, it’s not going to give you a true indication of how it will work with a mixer.
Give it a try with a mixer and let me know.
Got it. It’ll be a couple weeks until I’m in front of a console but I’ll check it out then
I finally got a chance to try this on a console. The feedback certainly works better on a console than the editor.
The way toggle is implemented with latch is a little annoying though. The feedback is correct, but the latch status doesn’t change as new channels are selected. I realize this would be a major re-write of Companion, but is there the potential for using feedback to determine the on/off status of the down button event?
Ya, feedback doesn’t work AT ALL with the Editor.
Well, one workaround would be to add a “toggle“ option in addition to the on/off.
I don’t think that’s going to be easy as it has to know what state the item is currently in.
I’ll take a look though and see.
Good news!
I have updated the latest Yamaha-MIDI module to include “toggle” in addition to On/Off. Now you shouldn’t need latching and this should fix the feedback-out-of-sync issue you were experiencing.
Give it a try and let me know how it works, if you find any bugs or problems.
That is amazing, thank you! This will unlock all new potential for Companion with QL/CL consoles.
I got a chance to try this out today on a QL5. I think something wasn’t working with the feedback system. I could issue commands for on/off commands, but only if I specified a channel. Toggle didn’t work, and it wouldn’t work on the selected channel. I couldn’t pull in the channel names via feedback either. Any ideas? I could still get it to work with the latching buttons in the April release.
Might have been an issue with feedback. Try today’s build and let me know.
If things are still weird then attach your config and I’ll check it out.
I don’t think I can make it back to the console for another week, maybe two, but I’ll try it next time I’m there.
I downloaded the latest mac binary and I’m getting a new error though:
Whoops! That’s embarrassing. Not sure what caused that error, but when I recompiled and tested it, the error doesn’t appear.
Sorry about that!
Link and build has been updated. Even though you can’t test it, do you have the configuration exported? If so, attach it here so I can test it for you.