Obsession midi learn issue (LFO shapes)

[DerGeist]

Hi all

I have a soundforce SFC-5 controller that I primarily use as intended as a controller for UHE Repro5 but figured it would make a great Obsession controller as well. Turns out I was right and if anyone is looking for a great controller I highly recommend it.

I am having one problem with the midi mapping though. I currently have pretty much all of Ob intuitively mapped my only problem is with the LFO shape mapping. No matter which of the four buttons I map or what button on the controller I map them to, the midi mapping will always toggle between Sine and Step. Mappings to square and SH do nothing (other than, for some reason toggle between sine and step).

So for example, if I map a button to Sine and nothing to anything else it will toggle between sine and step. If I map something to square or SH it will either do nothing or toggle between sine and step. I have unmapped everything and tried a bunch of times.

Beating my head against a wall trying to figure out wither this is user error, a bug, or intended functionality.

All help is appreciated.

[DerGeist]

Ok, problem semi solved.

I can map the shape to a knob which will rotate between the four buttons. This does solve my problem mostly since I can now move between the shapes. Maybe this is a feature request then? All (most) of the other buttons can be assigned to buttons. It is interesting that these four buttons can only be assigned to a rotary. FWIW I think that is a great option (especially for the button deprived) but since I have a controller with more or less these buttons labelled in more or less exactly the same way I would live to be able to map them to buttons.

[Teksonik]

No matter which of the four buttons I map or what button on the controller I map them to, the midi mapping will always toggle between Sine and Step.

I'm getting pretty much the same thing. It almost seems like the LFO shapes are on a dial rather than each on a separate button.

It might be a bug as I don't think this would be intended behavior.

[Kriminal]

Makes sense, as its not an on/off state, you switch from one shape to another (similar to say an osc octave settings)

Does it have a cc# in the manual? I wouldn't be surprised if this is one parameter that isn't meant to be 'automated' as such, hence the problem

[Teksonik]

The thing is the four buttons do have an on/off state. The button is either lit up indicating it's selected or it's dark.

I think the issue may be that only one button can be on at any given time. But still each of the buttons can be midi learned so I think that's where the confusion lies. Assigning a different button on a controller to each LFO button only causes Obsession to jump back and forth between Sine and Step modes here.

It seems like the buttons should be able to be turned on/off individually but if you tried to turn more than one button on at a time then it wouldn't work.

Assigning a knob works fine as you can scroll through the waves but I can see where someone would want a button on their controller to work with a button on the GUI for visual continuity.

I don't see a midi implementation chart in the Obsession manual like there is for the Legend. Perhaps that's due to the dual layer engine of Obsession.

We'll have to see what Rich has to say on the subject.

[Kriminal]

The thing is the four buttons do have an on/off state.

Does one shape always have to be selected tho? Can't remember. I'd that is the case, it's only on/off for type, not whole....

[Richard]

The LFO shapes are not on/off buttons, it is four different shapes, so this is the intended behavior. Thus a rotary controller or fader could be used here. Single on/off buttons won't work, since you could either enable all shapes at once or none at all- it is impossible for a LFO to not have a shape though

[Marcin]

It is possible to set up 4 buttons to remote control the LFO shape, using the proper switch values (note the buttons would have to be routed to the same CC of course, as there is only one for LFO shape).

min/max -> Value
---
0/0 -> Sine
43/43 -> Square
85/85 -> S/H
127/127 - Steps Mode

[Teksonik]

The LFO shapes are not on/off buttons,

They are visually that's what caused the confusion.

It is possible to set up 4 buttons to remote control the LFO shape, using the proper switch values (note the buttons would have to be routed to the same CC of course, as there is only one for LFO shape).

min/max -> Value
---
0/0 -> Sine
43/43 -> Square
85/85 -> S/H
127/127 - Steps Mode

Cool, just for the heck of it I'm going to try that later today.

Even though I have a fully featured midi controller, for most tasks like selecting the LFO shape my mouse is still the most efficient controller I own.

EDIT: Well I tried Marcin's suggestion but the buttons on my Akai MPK 261 controller have two options: toggle and momentary. So they only send two values 0 or 127. There is no way to restrict them to any other values. Knobs and Sliders do work fine to scroll through the LFO shapes. I think the fact that all of the shape buttons can be midi learned may be causing some confusion.