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OSCar taking multiple xml formatting files?

OSCar
#1

Hi Thibaut!

How high on your to-do list is it making OSCar taking multiple xml formatting files? :slight_smile:

For your information: I find OSCar very useful in a setup with Reaper and Panoramix, where the global formatting file is fine. But there could be other uses of OSCar where individual formatting files would be better. For instance when targeting many different Modalys Instruments (in Max) with many different parameter layouts and many different parameter ranges. Yes, Reaper itself can send OSC so what’s the issue? Well, OSC values from Reaper are always normalised to [0,1] which makes it hard to set exact values from envelope panes in Reaper. OSCar sends actual values directly (avoiding subsequent scaling and aiding in setting values correct from the sender). Also there is no such thing as the instance ID, which is immensely useful to distinguish parameter targets.

OSCar is made such that it could be a general production tool for many different targets other than Spat. Multiple formatting files is the only thing missing. I hope you see my point, and will nudge up this request.

Kindly Hans Peter

1 Like
#2

Hello Hans Peter,

Unfortunately that is not on the todo-list.
ToscA, the predecessor of OSCar used to support multiple formatting files. Which was useful (as you can imagine), but also was quite problematic for a number of reasons
(for proper configuration of the plugin, the DAW needs to know which parameters are exposed when the plugins are loaded/instantiated – so loading multiple formatting files “on the fly” was quite hacky and not working so well on certain DAWs)

So, unfortunately, OSCar is using a single, hard-coded, configuration file.
If you want to change configuration, you’d need to manually replace this file, and restart your DAW.
I know it’s not 100% user friendly. But that’s the only viable way to workaround the constraints of the DAWs.

Sorry about that.
Best,
T.