Very often controlling plug-ins directly via Fader events does not work as expected, especially not with plug-ins that feature more than 128 parameters (e.g. Sculpture or Ultrabeat).
Exactly what I found...
I am able to create faders for some other instruments (I didn't try them all) but failed with Sculpture.
I found that Sculpure "lies".
As the original post: the y axis of the "material" generates "F 2 60 vv" but does not respond to the same message generated by a logic object (fader or joystik).
Well, Sculpture tells the truth, but the Environment is not able to display it properly (it was never meant to do so). As I said: The Environment is only able to create/process Fader events with 7 bit numbers, means numbers between 0 and 127. I assume (however I don't know for sure) Logic internally uses (at least) 14 bit format for parameter numbering, which allows parameter numbers from 0 to 16383.
(Note: The parameter
resolution can be even higher, Logic can write automation with a resolution of up to 32 bit float. The actual resolution depends on the respective parameter).
Now MIDI (and similar) implementations split up the 14 bit data range in two 7 bit messages. These are called MSB (most significant byte) and LSB (least significant byte). You can say 14 bits in MSB/LSB are 128 data blocks with 128 values each. The first byte names the data block, the second byte names the actual value inside this data block. The LSB will count from 0-127 repeatedly, while the MSB increments by 1 with every full pass of the LSB. Just think of it like a mileage counter
🙂
Now if a device (or in this case the Environment) cannot read the full 14 bit message, it will respond only to the last byte, the LSB. Means you have the LSB value, but you don't know from which of the possible 128 MSB data blocks it comes from. Is it from the lower 14 bit value range, or from the upper? Without the MSB you simply don't know, because a single LSB value can be from anywhere in the possible range of 16384 values.
Or to take the mileage counter again: Think of a 20 year old car that has a 5 digit counter with 20.000 miles on it. But most likely the car has run 120.000 miles, maybe even 220.000 or more. But you cannot say for sure because the leftmost digit for the 100.000 miles is missing.
And I guess this is exactly what happens with Sculpture. If you record automation for the material pad, you'll see in the automation event list that the actual Fader event numbers are not 59 and 60, but 443 and 444. Now subtract 128 (the MSB) as many times as possible. This is 3x128 (=384) in this case. The remaining rest (or the LSB value, the right digits of the counter) is as much as 59 and 60. There you go...
My intention was to recreate (with a joystick object) the "Material" behaviour of sculpture and to control the joystick object with the Korg Wavestation's real joystick.
Better use the Wavestation joystick with controller assignments directly. What's the point of using a vector fader object in the Environment to mirror the Wavestations joystick movement?
Best...
Manfred
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