Reaticulate - articulation management for REAPER - 0.5.13 released (2024-02-19)

[tack]

Originally Posted by PrimeEagle

Any chance of having more than 4 groups? I've come across some instruments that need up to 6, but when making user banks that are multis, the required number could be 3-4 times that.

This is much harder than you think it should be.

Increasing it above 4 to even 6 requires a major overhaul of how this information is transferred from the JSFX to the controlling Lua script (the UI). I know how to do it (via a kludge I dare not speak further on), and probably will do said overhaul for other reasons, but even then there are performance implications to raising the number of groups. If I raise the limit, I might go to 8, but I can't see going to 20 or higher.

[tack]

Originally Posted by SymboliC

I wish we were able to manage articulation in the main TCP arrange window.

I do plan to make it possible to insert articulations by (probably middle-)clicking on the articulations in the UI from the arrange view. But this isn't exactly what you're looking for, which is more of a complete way to view/edit articulation changes from the arrange view. I'm not quite sure how best to do this, as envelopes clearly aren't suitable. If there's no existing Reaper UI construct to leverage, I don't see myself building an entirely different UI for it, which ultimately, as a Lua script, probably wouldn't work that well anyway. Maybe you have some ideas?

[tack]

Originally Posted by PrimeEagle

I have one that goes from 0 to 136, and it looks like it's working. Am I missing something? Because I didn't expect that to work.

Hah! Interesting!

I never even bothered to try this before. Yes, it does seem to be the case that Reaper allows 8-bit values for the program number in the stuffed MIDI event. And the JSFX can see the 8-bit value as well.

This is about as far as you'll get, though. The MIDI events in a MIDI item limit this to 7 bits, so you'll find if you step-input these programs above 127, it doesn't work (it won't show properly in the MIDI editor, and it won't play back properly). Also, Reaticulate itself makes many assumptions that the program number is 7-bits, not the least of which is how it encodes the current program in the JSFX sliders. So while superficially it may seem to work, it'll fall apart pretty quickly.

[PrimeEagle]

Originally Posted by tack

Hah! Interesting!

I never even bothered to try this before. Yes, it does seem to be the case that Reaper allows 8-bit values for the program number in the stuffed MIDI event. And the JSFX can see the 8-bit value as well.

This is about as far as you'll get, though. The MIDI events in a MIDI item limit this to 7 bits, so you'll find if you step-input these programs above 127, it doesn't work (it won't show properly in the MIDI editor, and it won't play back properly). Also, Reaticulate itself makes many assumptions that the program number is 7-bits, not the least of which is how it encodes the current program in the JSFX sliders. So while superficially it may seem to work, it'll fall apart pretty quickly.

Hmm, yeah you're right. It essentially just wraps around to the beginning of the list.

[tack]

Originally Posted by tack

(e.g. if you have program 42 listed multiple times and you activate program 42, it can't know which articulation you intend to activate) [...] If you have any other ideas on how to overcome that limitation, I'd be curious.

I should clarify this, because it's non-obvious: Reaticulate largely ignores the bank changes. The only use of the bank MSB/LSB is so the program name comes up correctly in the MIDI editor.

Technically if the bank change was taken into account, you could have conflicting program numbers as long as they appeared in different banks. The bank change would disambiguate the program conflict.

The reason this isn't considered in the design is that it's a core part of my workflow to activate articulations by only program number. I have buttons on a control surface configured to emit program changes on specific numbers to activate common articulations, regardless of the track I'm on. It wouldn't do to require a bank change as well (since the bank is very track dependent).

It might be possible to satisfy both cases just by changing the semantics of the various "activate articulation" actions to activate the articulation on the last switched bank if there's a conflict.

But this would require such a drastic overhaul of how program data is stored and accessed that I'm not sure I could do it in a backward compatible way. Will need some serious thought.

Edit: gave it thought. No easy way without drastically increasing memory usage [~32MB per track] or brutalizing performance. Or coding a hash table in EEL.

[SymboliC]

Originally Posted by tack

I do plan to make it possible to insert articulations by (probably middle-)clicking on the articulations in the UI from the arrange view. But this isn't exactly what you're looking for, which is more of a complete way to view/edit articulation changes from the arrange view. I'm not quite sure how best to do this, as envelopes clearly aren't suitable. If there's no existing Reaper UI construct to leverage, I don't see myself building an entirely different UI for it, which ultimately, as a Lua script, probably wouldn't work that well anyway. Maybe you have some ideas?

Since I'm not an experienced programmer nor I do know the structure behind the Reaper or its MIDI usage/handling, it's quite hard for me to suggest a nice solution for that.

OTOH, from POV of an end-user/arranger, I look for a functionality just as you've also described. Like, when you mid-click the articulation, it would integrate that articulation for the track selected at the point in the timeline where the playhead is! This would be awesome.

Fingers crossed =)

[Cinemascore]

Hey Tack,

Great work, man! Loving the new workflow. Keep up the great work!

Quick semi-related question: what Windows text editor are you using shown throughout your video?

Thanks!

[PrimeEagle]

How would I handle an instrument which requires multiple keyswitches to be triggered simultaneously? This is for a pipe organ, and each keyswitch is a different stop, but to open multiple stops at the same time, the keyswitch for each has to be hit together.

I know I can send multiple commands using the slash, but there are 22 stops, so I can't possibly create every combination.

[tack]

Originally Posted by PrimeEagle

I know I can send multiple commands using the slash, but there are 22 stops, so I can't possibly create every combination.

Not familiar with pipe organs. Each of the 22 stops can be activated independently? So theoretically you have 2^22=4194304 possible configurations of the stops?

I don't think there's a way to solve this problem currently. I'll have to give it some thought.

[tack]

Originally Posted by Cinemascore

Great work, man! Loving the new workflow. Keep up the great work!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Cinemascore

Quick semi-related question: what Windows text editor are you using shown throughout your video?

It's Visual Studio Code. A surprisingly good editor considering it's from Microsoft. Pulled me away from Atom.

[PrimeEagle]

Originally Posted by tack

Not familiar with pipe organs. Each of the 22 stops can be activated independently? So theoretically you have 2^22=4194304 possible configurations of the stops?

Yes, exactly. Each one can be on or off, in any combination. The VST I'm looking at has 22. Some real pipe organs have upwards of 500!

The one I'm looking at is Spitfire Audio Union Chapel Organ, by the way.

[tack]

Originally Posted by PrimeEagle

Yes, exactly. Each one can be on or off, in any combination. The VST I'm looking at has 22. Some real pipe organs have upwards of 500!

Interesting problem there. From a user experience perspective, how do you see that working?

[PrimeEagle]

Originally Posted by tack

Interesting problem there. From a user experience perspective, how do you see that working?

Well, these would all be the toggle type articulation. So there would have to be some way to trigger several of those at once. Perhaps when doing step recording to place the program changes in the MIDI editor, if there was a way to stack or layer several program changes to happen all at once? I don't know if that's something Reaper supports. If it does, then there would need to be a UI solution for Reaticulate.

One idea is a button or something in the Reaticulate UI to indicate that the next articulation you click on should be stacked on what's currently there, as opposed to replacing it. I'm guessing there would be issues actually displaying this in the MIDI editor, too. Another idea is to have a somewhat more complex UI that lets choose and stack existing articulations, and then adds that to the MIDI editor all at once for you.

If Reaper doesn't support multiple program changes simultaneously, though, then I'm not really sure how to approach it. That situation would likely necessitate not sending the articulation as a program change at all, but just as a chord made up of the keyswitch notes directly.

[tack]

Originally Posted by PrimeEagle

If Reaper doesn't support multiple program changes simultaneously, though, then I'm not really sure how to approach it. That situation would likely necessitate not sending the articulation as a program change at all, but just as a chord made up of the keyswitch notes directly.

Reaper doesn't support multiple program changes simultaneously, no. It will only chase the last program change on a given MIDI channel. We already run into this limitation with groups, where even though a bank can have up to 4 groups with independent articulations, only the last program in the last group for that channel will be chased.

So, we must live with those limitations.

To address your problem, I'm thinking about two new output event types: one that's a more extreme version of note-hold -- maybe call it note-pin or something -- which, unlike the note-hold output type which simply defers the note-off event until the next program with a note or note-hold output event, will keep the pinned notes (within the given group) held until the presence of a note-clear output event, which would then send note-off events for all currently pinned notes in the group.

Then you would have each of your stop programs use the note-pin type, and another "end stop stack" program (with more appropriate language that an organist would understand) that uses a note-clear output. It would require the use of this "end stop stack" program before any new stop configuration.

A bit obnoxious, perhaps, but I think it should work (notwithstanding the chasing limitations I described), and I'm not sure how to make it easier given the constraints of program changes. Thoughts?

[PrimeEagle]

This sounds good enough as far as I'm concerned. It wouldn't let you clear one of the stops from a stack, without first clearing them all and rebuilding the stack. But honestly, I don't think that's a big deal. It should be fine.

[PrimeEagle]

Would those held notes trigger all at once? I notice the VST doesn't trigger the keyswitches unless they're hit like a chord. "Strumming" them doesn't work. I don't know what the threshold is for how close they have to be together.

[tack]

Originally Posted by PrimeEagle

Would those held notes trigger all at once? I notice the VST doesn't trigger the keyswitches unless they're hit like a chord. "Strumming" them doesn't work. I don't know what the threshold is for how close they have to be together.

Yeah, that's how it would work. Basically it would send all note-on events before sending any note-off event.

[PrimeEagle]

Originally Posted by tack

Yeah, that's how it would work. Basically it would send all note-on events before sending any note-off event.

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing, but just in case, I'm referring to all the note-on events triggering at the same time. If they're not together (for example, if they're arpeggiated), then the keyswitches don't trigger.

[tack]

Originally Posted by PrimeEagle

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing, but just in case, I'm referring to all the note-on events triggering at the same time. If they're not together (for example, if they're arpeggiated), then the keyswitches don't trigger.

Even if you held all notes during the arpeggio? Well that's unfortunate. And a bit weird too, frankly.

What's the delay sensitivity? i.e. what's the maximum amount of time between consecutive notes where it would stop treating them as part of the same group of stops? Basically you'd need to make sure that all program changes are crammed into this interval in the MIDI editor. If it's like 20ms, that isn't the most approachable.

[PrimeEagle]

Originally Posted by tack

Even if you held all notes during the arpeggio? Well that's unfortunate. And a bit weird too, frankly.

Yes, even if you held them. It is a weird design choice.

Originally Posted by tack

What's the delay sensitivity? i.e. what's the maximum amount of time between consecutive notes where it would stop treating them as part of the same group of stops? Basically you'd need to make sure that all program changes are crammed into this interval in the MIDI editor. If it's like 20ms, that isn't the most approachable.

How can I measure that? I can go do it if you know how. How quickly would they trigger if several were triggered at once using slashes between them?

[kotsaris]

Thanks for this excellent script!It's really nice and responsive.
In what state is the development of the GUI for creating banks?Some libraries have a complex keyswitching to make a bank.

[tack]

Originally Posted by kotsaris

In what state is the development of the GUI for creating banks?Some libraries have a complex keyswitching to make a bank.

I'm afraid it's not progressed beyond the basic skeleton I put together last month. I need a good solid few days of hacking time. Unfortunately I've done a real number on my back, and after I put in my standard work day, my back just isn't able to cope with the requisite hacking sessions needed.

I seem to be improving, at last, but I don't think I'm able to give an ETA.

So if you have any questions on how to construct the bank by hand, I'm quite happy to answer them.

[kotsaris]

Hope that you recover soon!
Mostly I have difficulties with instruments like Shakuhachi from ISW with multiple sustains.I think if I see one made,I can copy other similar.But when I try to make it by myself there many errors.
Also,I have a request and a question for you:
Is it possible to make a pdf with the articulation icons,so we don't need to look online for that.
And if later you add a collection of user banks to the factory menu,will they be lost if already assigned to an instrument?

[PrimeEagle]

Originally Posted by kotsaris

Mostly I have difficulties with instruments like Shakuhachi from ISW with multiple sustains.I think if I see one made,I can copy other similar.But when I try to make it by myself there many errors.
Also,I have a request and a question for you:
Is it possible to make a pdf with the articulation icons,so we don't need to look online for that.
And if later you add a collection of user banks to the factory menu,will they be lost if already assigned to an instrument?

Here's how I do it. This is the mapping for Musical Sampling Trailer Strings:

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
//! g="Musical Sampling/Trailer Strings" n="Trailer Violins (Full)"
Bank 30 116 Trailer Violins (Full)

//! c=default i=phrase g=1 o=@1
1 Adventure
//! c=long i=note-whole g=1 o=note@2:26
4 Sustain, Full (Xfade)
//! c=long i=note-whole g=1 o=note@2:27
5 Sustain, Soft (Xfade)
//! c=short i=spiccato g=1 o=note@2:24
2 Spiccato/Staccato (Xfade)
//! c=short i=spiccato g=1 o=note@2:28
6 Spiccato (Velocity)
//! c=short i=staccato g=1 o=note@2:29
7 Staccato (Velocity)
//! c=short-dark i=marcato g=1 o=note@2:25
3 Marcato (Xfade)
//! c=short-dark i=marcato g=1 o=note@2:30
8 Marcato (Velocity)
//! c=default i=list g=2 o=cc@1:12,127/cc@2:12,127
9 To Silence On
//! c=default i=list g=2 o=cc@1:12,0/cc@2:12,0
10 To Silence Off


For the website, you should be able to just print the web page to a PDF file. I went ahead and attached that for you.


EDIT: Hmmm, on second thought, it looks like the icon images aren't showing up in the PDF for some reason. Maybe just screen capture them?

[kotsaris]

Thanks for the help PrimeEagle!
I'll follow your bank to make others alike.
And you're right.Just a screenshot would be ok...

[seymour22]

Originally Posted by tack

Hello REAPER users,

I'd like to announce an alpha preview release of Reaticulate: an articulation management system for REAPER.

Hi, wow!
I spent few hours to define a custom bank for some of my toys . Works nice. First value I can see is the clarity. In VSTis all articulation stuff is sometimes scattered on many pices of a plugin but here it is not. It is consistent. The idea of having bank/program's bars as articulation symbol is great!

By the way (I am sorry if this question has been asked somewhere among the thousand of posts
- how do you activate bank/programs (besides Reaticulate GUI)? Remote controller configured as certain MSB/LSB/Program setings mapped with what you configure in custom Reaticulate bank settings? I am just wondering how to record/insert them... in an efficient way.

Thank you for sharing!
kr!
Tomek

[kotsaris]

If anyone is able to share a bank for Joshua Bell violin,I'll be endlessly grateful!
I try desperately,but just losing my time.Coding is not my thing...

[tack]

Originally Posted by kotsaris

If anyone is able to share a bank for Joshua Bell violin,I'll be endlessly grateful!

I have the JB. It should be a good challenge for Reaticulate actually. I'll put one together this weekend. The challenge there are all the various control presets and the sheer customization available. I'll have to pick one of the presets to build the bank for.

[kotsaris]

I feel relieved that you call it a challenge.Thought I was just dumb and couldn't make it

[Saf14]

Hello! Forgive for clumsy English. Help to understand. Reaper and Reaticulate has established a week ago. I have a midi the BCF2000 controller. I want to switch articulations by means of buttons on this controller. At the same time there 24 buttons are available and if to switch preseta that 24 * quantity of preset. But I have faced 2 мя problems. 1. The wrong display of names of an articulation in a midi the editor. 2. In the mode a step a record when pressing buttons of the BCF2000 controller of an articulation don't register.
And now is more detailed. I appointed to 1 button of the BCF2000 controller - 10.1.1, to the second button - 10.1.2, etc. to 24. I have established a path of Albion Strings Hi on 1 midi, and in a text editor of Reaticulate appointed to her bank 10.1, to the second path - Albion 2 Strings Hi also appointed bank 10.2. All articulations regularly switch by means of controller buttons. At record of articulations with the help of the controller on the first path of the name of articulations are displayed correctly, but at record on the second path - names are displayed not correctly - (with Albion 1, but not with Albion 2). What do I do incorrectly? Something not so with settings of the controller in Reaper?

The issue is resolved.
I already found the answer to my question in the cross-forum It turns out that it was necessary to assign to the controller not a modification of the program, but the CC and activate in the actions "Reaticulate_Activate articulation by CC on channel 01"

[thevisi0nary]

Reaticulate Rules. Got it set up and working today.

I don't quite understand how to install the user banks. Is there a layman's guide for users who are not very adept?

Also, just a recommendation (unless it's already possible), is there a way for the menu to dock into the piano roll itself only?

[tack]

Originally Posted by thevisi0nary

I don't quite understand how to install the user banks. Is there a layman's guide for users who are not very adept?

Not a lot, seeing as the goal was to have this all workable from the GUI I didn't want to spend a lot of time on documentation for hacking the user banks (apart at least from the actual specification of Reaticulate's special markup for reabank files).

I walked through it in the video but I do appreciate it takes a certain special kind of individual to sit through 20 minutes of me yammering.

So the short version is: click the pencil icon in the UI, click Edit (or Open if you have .reabank files associated with an editor of your choice), make the changes in the file according to the Reaticulate reabank spec, save the changes, and then click the little reload icon in Reaticulate's UI after to refresh the changes.

Apart from the examples in the doc, you can also draw inspiration from the factory banks.

Originally Posted by thevisi0nary

Also, just a recommendation (unless it's already possible), is there a way for the menu to dock into the piano roll itself only?

Unfortunately this isn't possible. All the docking stuff is implemented natively in Reaper. Lowly plugins like Reaticulate have no control over extending that.

[thevisi0nary]

Originally Posted by tack

Not a lot, seeing as the goal was to have this all workable from the GUI I didn't want to spend a lot of time on documentation for hacking the user banks (apart at least from the actual specification of Reaticulate's special markup for reabank files).

I walked through it in the video but I do appreciate it takes a certain special kind of individual to sit through 20 minutes of me yammering.

So the short version is: click the pencil icon in the UI, click Edit (or Open if you have .reabank files associated with an editor of your choice), make the changes in the file according to the Reaticulate reabank spec, save the changes, and then click the little reload icon in Reaticulate's UI after to refresh the changes.

Apart from the examples in the doc, you can also draw inspiration from the factory banks.

Unfortunately this isn't possible. All the docking stuff is implemented natively in Reaper. Lowly plugins like Reaticulate have no control over extending that.

Whew okay so after some educating I was able to do this haha. Your video is very helpful it's just hard to digest if you have no knowledge of scripts at all, I didn't realize I am just editing the file itself in a note pad. I think the other thing that was confusing me was that the reabank file that you have to edit does not have the factory banks in it. I probably should have just watched the video a few more times!

Reaticulate is an excellent tool.

[thevisi0nary]

One other question I'm sorry. Is there a way to quickly hide and show the reaticulate tool bar? When I close it and go to reopen it it asks if I want to terminate the instance and start a new one. Is there anything problematic about doing this?

[BrianL]

Thank you for your hard work on Reaticulate! I am anxious to try out your new code so I pulled the package down from Github. I must be jumping the gun because I can't seem to enable it on a track

-Brian

[tack]

Originally Posted by BrianL

Thank you for your hard work on Reaticulate! I am anxious to try out your new code so I pulled the package down from Github. I must be jumping the gun because I can't seem to enable it on a track

This should work in principle as it's exactly how I do it during development (i.e not using reapack).

Without more details about how you installed it manually and what specifically problem you're experiencing I can't say for sure what's going on.

Did you copy the jsfx file into your Effects directory to replace the one that was already there?

[BrianL]

Thanks Tack. MY BAD! I don't know how I did it, but the reaticulate.jsfx file in my effects folder was about 340K and the correct version is around 50K. I think I lost track of Notepad++ that keeps saving multiple tabs that I forget are open.

F A N T A S T I C !

My multi-note articulations are working great! Your work is much appreciated I think it will be a while before I approach eight simultaneous articulations.

I will be editing my Palette bank to use the new capabilities and re-submit it to Github.

=B

[tack]

Originally Posted by BrianL

I think it will be a while before I approach eight simultaneous articulations.

Wow, someone actually reads the code comments?

Very happy to receive this successful feedback, Brian. The extra testing will make me a bit more confident going into the next release.

Cheers!

[Oberheim]

Hello I discover this interesting plugin.

I have problem to understand what are then numbers with the technique name?
1 legato
1 = program change?
If yes how to not use program changes? I use libraries where I don't use program changes for changing articulation. If I wrote only
legato
I got error after refresh Reaticulate

Another questions are:
2. can Reaticulate create arpegio effects? For example I create chord and when arpegio is used, it deley each higher or lower notes.

3. can Reaticlate follow notation articulations and dynamics(crescendos and descrescendos too)?

[tack]

Originally Posted by Oberheim

I have problem to understand what are then numbers with the technique name?
1 legato
1 = program change?

Yes, those are program numbers.

Originally Posted by Oberheim

If yes how to not use program changes? I use libraries where I don't use program changes for changing articulation.

The basic unit of articulation in Reaticulate is the program change, but this doesn't mean that's what your libraries have to use. Reaticulate translates program changes into arbitrary MIDI events to control the libraries. I call these "output events"

It's documented here: http://reaticulate.com/reabank.html

Originally Posted by Oberheim

If I wrote only
legato
I got error after refresh Reaticulate

Yes, that's not syntactically valid for .reabank files.

Originally Posted by Oberheim

2. can Reaticulate create arpegio effects? For example I create chord and when arpegio is used, it deley each higher or lower notes.

No, that's not really a problem Reaticulate tries to solve.

Originally Posted by Oberheim

3. can Reaticlate follow notation articulations and dynamics(crescendos and descrescendos too)?

It can't follow notation yet. I'm waiting to see whatever becomes of articulation maps before I do anything related to notation.

Cheers!