[Ardour-Dev] ardour3 and tranzport?

[Paul Davis]

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 5:45 PM, Harry Van Haaren <harryhaaren at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 8:42 PM, Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> with ardour3, this is a bit pointless. a MIDI binding map for the
>> alphatrack, and its all done.
>
> The magic of the Alphatrack is that one fader, and one set of each button
> can control an infinite amount of "Ardour Tracks".
> A MIDI binding map would not suffice here, as when one button is pressed,
> every other button should be sent to the next track.

no, the MIDI binding maps can handle this without any problems as long
as the unit sends a message when it switches which tracks it will
cover OR changes the messages it sends when it switches tracks. this
is just called "banking".

http://ardour.org/a3_features_midi_binding_maps

as i noted, binding maps do not cover feedback to the h/w, so the LED
display won't be lit correctly using this method.

> arrays that are needed to provide full support for the unit.
> Ok, you got my intrest in code now... is there an "explaination" /
> "tutorial" or good example code to look at for coding alphatrack
> into ardour?

adding a control surface is at once simple and deeply complex. there
are several examples in the source tree already under libs/surfaces.
if they don't make any sense, its probably a sign that you shouldn't
continue on with it.

one of the examples is the tranzport and AFAIK the alphatrack is
extremely similar. there are, however, two versions of tranzport
support - one via user-space I/O (c/o libusb) which is unreliable and
one via mike's kernel driver.

--p