4-band 8-channel EQ (controls REAEQ)

Youn · 09-14-2008, 07:48 PM

Something I whipped together this weekend. I know there's no serialization, but I wanted to know if it works alright on people's PC...

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/219352/knobs.zip

unzip, put the JS and images in Effects folder, open the test project and test it out! Hope it works, or at least sparks some other ideas

Despised7 · 09-14-2008, 10:03 PM

Cool idea! It works for me. The only problem I see is that the gain knobs all start at the minimum level. But I'm not sure if it is possible to have them start at the center position.

Youn · 09-17-2008, 05:09 PM

Here's an update with the "serialization part" (it took all of like 5 minutes!)

So, what that means is... now it can save/load settings and default to center! yay

thanks for taking a look Despised7

Youn · 09-23-2008, 05:06 PM

OK, last post on this (cuz apparently I suck, lol j/k)

I had an hour today, so I made another one that's more compact and looks nicer with the default theme:

right-click to control frequency (the labels aren't super accurate, not that it matters too much, right ears!?) and and of course ctrl+ is fine-tune!

btw, if you are confused as to what the hell this is, it's just a way for a JS plugin to control parameters on any other plugin. This is an example of controlling EQ on 8 tracks. There's a limit of 64 knobs per JS plugin, so that's why I don't have more controls. The fact is any UI can easily be made with this plugin to control any plug anywhere...

Art Evans · 09-23-2008, 05:24 PM

This looks very interesting! I suspect it would arouse more interest in another of the forums here as this one is perhaps perceived as geek city. I guess a link would suffice.

tspring · 09-23-2008, 06:21 PM

Very cool Youn. Love the GUI. I bet it gets put in service for lots of things.

T

Dengus Squatburg Jr · 09-23-2008, 07:31 PM

Can you explain to the dumb-arses among us exactly how to get this to work? IE - how do I get it to control the eq on, say 4 different tracks?

Please forgive my ignorance!

schwa · 09-23-2008, 07:46 PM

This is both brilliant, and twisted -- it's in the same spirit as the JS modular synth that ph69 was working on last year.

It's also very pretty!

Art Evans · 09-23-2008, 08:54 PM

Hmm, I can't actually get it to do anything useful - I get the feeling that the knobs should affect the eq but how is it defined which eq is being altered, and should I see something happen in the eq interface?

ed209 · 09-24-2008, 07:07 AM

Very nice both gfx and idea!

But I cannot get it to make reaeq respond. Also I get a lower part of the knob-plug with nothing in it the size of the rest of the plug.
And I would like to do away with the js-meters, don't know if it's possible, though. But that would solve having multiple plugs side by side.

edit:
two more things

is it possible to get labeling? ie either on each strip, or on each control - of course it would be great having both!
secondly, would you mind doing another one with younsoft's gfx in mind? it still holds up, you know

livedead13 · 09-24-2008, 07:34 AM

very cool concept! thanks for sharing.

i'm also having resizing issues. the plugin window is unnecessarily long and not wide enough every time i open the window. if i resize, it won't remember the position. i have "plugin resize up & down" both checked in preferences.

i also get a crackling sound when it's open and high cpu use.

Despised7 · 09-24-2008, 07:47 AM

Nice! I like the gui change.

pixeltarian · 10-23-2008, 11:03 PM

First, this is truly amazing and I love the concept and everything about it really.

second, is this just a mockup or can I actually use it to control 8 channels of EQ? this is something I've never seen in a daw before that should almost be common sense. For the rest of us non programmer types... how can I get this to be functional?

third, I think if there was 8 channels of eq control and 8 channels of compression on the same plugin... well that would be amazing for editing speed! it wouldn't really matter if it had a big interface (although I think it could still be relatively small) because you would be editing 2 plugins for 8 channels in one window!

fourth, another idea... just two aux knobs on every channel to control a parameter (probably wet/dry) of a vst - if a feature like that was user proutable it would be very nice.

pixeltarian · 10-23-2008, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Youn

There's a limit of 64 knobs per JS plugin, so that's why I don't have more controls. The fact is any UI can easily be made with this plugin to control any plug anywhere...

what about buttons? like hpf, lpf, band, notch etc?

Youn · 10-24-2008, 11:33 AM

The demo project included in the download should be setup already so everything should work correctly.

It's actually controlling 8 separate EQ plugins on 8 separate tracks.

So, yeah, I could easily add compressor controls to control any compression plugin. Buttons are a possibility, sure! Along with faders, x-y pads, etc... Visually, there is no feedback directly from the plugin though, so having a reduction gauge from the compressors might be tricky or impossible.

pixeltarian · 10-24-2008, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Youn

The demo project included in the download should be setup already so everything should work correctly.

It's actually controlling 8 separate EQ plugins on 8 separate tracks.

So, yeah, I could easily add compressor controls to control any compression plugin. Buttons are a possibility, sure! Along with faders, x-y pads, etc... Visually, there is no feedback directly from the plugin though, so having a reduction gauge from the compressors might be tricky or impossible.

I'm not a programmer so this might sound stupid as hell, but could you make a transparent and rectangular "hole" in your js interface and the comp plugin pop up behind the interface in a predetermined window position, relative to the JS window postion that shows the gauge when you press down on the compressor parameter? maybe even do the same thing with the eq plugins - like it closes and opens the corresponding plugins and aligns their visual displays as you press the knobs?

I don't know, maybe I'm retarded.

liteon · 10-25-2008, 09:40 AM

Hey Youn,

I gave this plugin a go. But it crashes my computer when trying to load the demo project

Reaper stays for 5 mins at 100% CPU usage.

Athlon 1800XP, 1GB ram
Maybe its too slow for this I dunno.

The source looks tightly coded tho. Maybe some of the loops are the cause for this.

Liteon

Vulkanizer · 12-17-2008, 04:06 AM

This is a truly great concept and I can only pray that there will be more development on it.
It would be incredible to have something resembling complete channelstrips at your hands in this way.

However I do not seem to be able to control the EQ paramters with the buttons in the test project and I cant for the life of me figure out whats going on. Looking through the patching it all seems right, but every track still has the EQ bands gain starting at -150 DB and I cant control them (or the frequency faders) from the knobs window. Also if i try to manually adjust the reaeq instance the faders jump back to the -150db position.

Anybody experienced something similar?

Cheers

Youn · 12-18-2008, 10:31 AM

thanks for taking a look. I probably won't be doing anymore work on this though, as I think I've taken it as far as I can with the tools that are available.

I considered doing a channel strip but the only thing I couldn't figure out was how to show compression gain reduction, which I think is essential for most people.

Concerning your problems: You may be controlling the wrong EQ! The strip on the very left controls the first track's EQ, and so on down the line. If you rearrange any track on the TCP it'll mess up this relationship. There's no way in reaper for track's labels to be shown in the JS plug, so I think it's kinda unavoidably confusing.

You will not be able to control ReaEQ using it's actual VST plugin interface. This is because the JS plugin is constantly sending each ReaEQ a stream of data which updates the vst. So, this is normal, but obviously not good. I couldn't figure any way around it.

A final note: this is extremely high CPU intensive, because the JS plug is spitting out 64 channels of audio. So it's possible it may not work on a system because of this. The comp i build it on (and seems to run fine on) is a Intel 2.4GHz, 480RAM, winXP.

ps. I think I overheard Schwa mentioned they are thinking about some type of configurable plugin controls, so I'd rather just wait for that to be implemented instead of trying to use this plugin

Vulkanizer · 12-22-2008, 03:20 AM

thanks for the feed-back.

I have also read about the Schwa post and I am looking forward to such a solution. That would be just another feature to set Reaper way above the competition. Especially if it came with support for the most common control surfaces.

Reg. my specific problem I dont think its a matter of which EQ I am controlling - I've tried them all. However since the solution is CPU intensive, lacks instance naming and also cannot follow track movements I guess I wont go further into it yet.

I think your basic idea is brilliant Youn and I really hope it will be implemented in some way.

ugh · 04-17-2010, 08:08 AM

Hmm, I tried it as well, but the knobs do not influence the ReaEQs and also not vice versa ?
Great idea though

ubergod · 04-19-2010, 12:16 PM

Just downloaded and it works... load up the example testt.rpp and you should see reaEQ open with the JS plugin... move the knobs on the far left, you should see the ReaEQ change... the only problem I see is the frequencies depicted in the JS plug don't match ReaEQ, perhaps they did before, when this plug was made?

musicbynumbers · 04-19-2010, 12:42 PM

you could also now just have a screenset where you expand the mixer up to the top of your screen and have an fx chain consisting of just reaeq but with all the relevant controls assigned to the mixer (using "show in track controls").

You could then add this fx chain to all tracks you need this for and even save it as a track template (or better for this job, an sws snapshot).

It will give you all the same control and even allow you to have your dynamics plugin and pan width plug in there too