device viewing with Live.object

[Fairland]

I've been using the Live.API explorer patch to find various paths.

How would one send a command to view a specific device?

You can make the view jump to a specific track,
but if I have several devices on a track, I can't actually jump to the device that I
want to see?.

The viewing functions for Live.path and Live.object in general are a little unclear to me.
Can anyone help? -Thanks.

[Fairland]

Okay thanks for the response. I'm familiar with the LOM and alot of this is available premade in the the Live.API resoures folder. But I'm still no closer to my solution. If I have this:

<pre><code>
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BTOOVeO
-----------end_max5_patcher-----------
</code></pre>


... I can view a device on a track. But how do I say which device on that track I want my blue hand to land on?
If I have my device id, I can't use that id with any view commands.

[Fairland]

"You have the function select_device in the Song.View class; so just use that one."

Yeah, thats what I'm doing, but then I have to arrow back and forth to control the device I actually want to use.
I was hoping there was something slicker.

[Fairland]

Ah Ha! Thank you kind sir, now I can finally get rid of these darn IAC busses!

[flowdesigner]

I've been using the Live.API explorer patch to find various paths.

I'd suggest using the Live Object Model instead. At least until you have a little more experience with all this.

The LOM will clearly show you which devices you can access and how (either getting values or actually observing them) as well as the path to use.

How would one send a command to view a specific device?

First its important to know the difference between live.object, live.observer and their relation with live.path. Also see the API overview which gives some more details about the way the LOM is setup.

In short; you use live.path to point either an object or an observer to a certain device (better put; a certain class) after which you can then tell it to give you information about said class.

Now, let me take my reasoning step by step here. Normally I'd skip a lot, but that's solely due to experience. So:

First something simple; the name of a track.

I go to the LOM, I click on 'Track' and there I can see that 'canonical path' to reach a track is 'live_set tracks N' (where N is obviously a number).

There I can also see the properties of the Track class; one of them is 'name'. Behind it I see the type ('Symbol') and the access possibilities: get, set and observe.

So what I need to do here is to point live.object to that path. Then tell it to 'get' me the name of the track.

I made a small patch to demonstrate this behavior. This is fully "Max compliant" so it works from right to left

First press the button; this tells live.path to send out the id of the class I want to check (the first track in the Live set). Then press the message object ('get name') which tells the live.object (which now points at the first track) to give me its name. Which is then printed out (check your Max window).

Here you go:

Get the name of a track

Code: Select all

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i+gAUs3R
-----------end_max5_patcher-----------

How to use this: Pull in a Max audio effect, click the edit button, then select all objects (control-a) and remove 'm. Now copy this code block, right click in the patcher and select 'paste'.

Now something a bit harder...

You can make the view jump to a specific track,
but if I have several devices on a track, I can't actually jump to the device that I want to see?.

Yes you can.

Back to the LOM again; one child of the Track class is 'devices', its type is 'Device' and its access get and observe.

So why not try to see what this does?

Load some devices onto track 1. Say an EQ8, grain delay, flanger and obviously a limiter last (so we can make sure that the noise stays down ).

Now, use the patch above; change 'name' to 'devices' and see what happens. Be sure to click the button, then click the message object again.

Now you'll probably see something in the Max window like: "devices id 2 id 3 id 4". iow; it tells you exactly how many devices are on this track, and gives their id's as well.

According to the live.object reference page it can take a message into the right inlet in the form of: "id nn". quote: "Gets object id message id nn to select the object to operate upon.". Basically; all which live.path does is "translate" a path into an id, then you can use that id with live.object to access it. But there are many more ways to get id's.

Quick side-step, proof of concept: We already determined through the LOM that the path of the first device is basically "live_set tracks 0 devices 0" right?

EDIT: Wrong! Sorry, forgot: So, "devices" is of type "Device". "Device" is actually yet another class, like "Track" is. You can see for yourself at the top of the LOM. So; either pagedown from the Track class or go to the top of the page and click "Device".

Now check its canonical path; this tells us the exact path. Keep in mind: counting always starts at 0. So; track 1 in a set is actually "live_set tracks 0". And so on.


So lets ask live.path what its really sending into a live.object:

Check what live.path really sends out

Code: Select all

----------begin_max5_patcher----------
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-----------end_max5_patcher-----------

Only id xx eh ?

Now; care must be taken here since working with id's alone can be tricky. Esp. if certain devices change place and such. But since my goal here is to give some background info on how you could do some stuff we'll ignore this for now. But do keep it in mind!

So... Why not use a new live.object and point it to this device?

Device has a child called 'parameters', type DeviceParameter which we can get and observe. And several properties; class_name and name.

Lets start by doing something simple; like getting the name of the device. Its no different from getting the name of a Track, see the example below. Remember; you need to press all buttons and messages again; from right to left.

Get the name of a device

Code: Select all

----------begin_max5_patcher----------
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-----------end_max5_patcher-----------

As you can see we get a perfect name here.

I'm using the unpack & pack objects to get rid of the 'devices' in the message. So; first I unpack the (for example) "devices id 2" into symbol, symbol, integer. Then I grab the last 2 parts and pack these up again. Now I've re-constructed "id 2".

So far, so good.


Now, I know what you're gonna say (or so I think). So far I demonstrated with only a single device. And your question actually was about multiple devices.

Do you recall when my example checked for devices and we got something like "devices id 2 id 3 id 4" ? And since we already determined here that basically a single "id xx" is enough to point a live.object to a device...

All you'd need to do is pick out the right device you want to use.

So lets take this one step further and set something up to print the name of all the devices on a single track.

We already determined how to get the ID's, we already determined how to get the name for a single device. All we need now is to build something to go over each individual id. For this we have the iter object; to iterate over a list.

Since we already know we'll be using something like: "id 2 id 4 id 1" all we're basically interested about here is processing the numbers. We can always attach the "id" later if we want to.

SO... First we go back to the patch which send out that "devices id 2 id 4 id 5" etc. Now all we need to do is to apply a little Max-fu to extract the info we want.

First we iterate over the info which live.object gave us. Then we'll make sure to only extract the id numbers. You can do that by using, for example, a select object. Simply use something like 'select devices id'. Everything which doesn't match either "devices" or "id" will be send out through the right outlet (iow; the id numbers we're after).

Prepending 'id' will give us a nice list of "id 2", "id 3" and so on.

Now, all we need now is to point a live.object to these id's and tell it to give us the names of the devices. The easiest way to do that is by using a trigger object. Every time a number comes in we tell it to send out the number, then a bang. The number is prepended with "id" and send into a live.object. Then we'll simply create a message with the command we want to give it ("get name") and use the bang to send this into the live.object as well.

And because Max works from right to left we can be pretty sure the sequence will always be met (so: first setting the id, then giving the command).

And here it is:

Get the names of all devices on a track

Code: Select all

----------begin_max5_patcher----------
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-----------end_max5_patcher-----------

Now, this is probably a lot to take in at once so I'm leaving it here for now. As you can see its relatively easy to disect all the device ID's on a track, and going over 'm one by one.

You can even easily expand on this; as soon as you found, say, the "Limiter" (by checking the device names for example) you can then simply start using that one (for example if you need to search for a specific device to control).

The options are limitless... IMO that is

Hope this is helpful to you.

Thanks !