Hog 4PC faders

i have been searching for some time to try and understand if MT will work for Hog4 PC faders from High End Systems

Hi,

I’m afraid you will need to be more specific on what you are trying to do. If Hog4PC sends or received MIDI to the MIDI ports then it is likely that MT Pro can help translate those MIDI messages to different MIDI message on devices you wish to control. I would suggest you download and test the demo software from the web site and experiment. You can download demo version for free. It is fully functional but you have to restart your project every 20 minutes. You should certainly be able to build and test some basic functionality within that time. Once you have a specific function you want to do and with a specific device or application, feel free to come back here and describe in more detail. If you know what the MIDI output of Hog4PC fader is and what you would want to covert it to. I can help there too.

Steve Caldwell

Bome Q&A Moderator and

Independent Bome Programming Consultant/Programmer

bome@sniz.biz

 

Thanks for the reply Steve.

Hog for PC is a PC software based off a console design for concert lighting design and theatre cue stacking. Essentially it allows you to map, on the PC version, the buttons that you would access on a console to midi controllers as long as you purchase a proprietary widget.

The software allows for you to use faders and Jog Wheels with a mouse or touch screen but it does not allow you to map those features to a controller unless the PC version is connected to a proprietary console or command wing.

Now, I can still use virtual faders and Jog Wheels in the software with a touchscreen and or my mouse, but can’t access the midi routing options unless there are their proprietary components available.

Is there a way to take the information the touch screen/mouse utilizes and translate that to midi? So I can control the virtual faders with a midi controller without having to access the internal control of the program?

https://www2.highend.com/support/controllers/documents/html/en/sect-midi_notes.htm

Here is a link to the info Hog4 gives regarding it’s mapping.

Again, I’ve seen BOME map out grandMA, a similar software regarding attributes, yet I’m unsure if it’s just unavailable in Hog or if I need another product to make this work.

So essentially what you are trying to do is get a standard MIDI controller faders to move the faders on the screen of Hog4PC? Looking at the links you provided, it looks like they have disabled this feature from a MIDI standpoint (they probably want to sell their consoles).

With that said, MT Pro is capable of converting MIDI messages to mouse movements and clicks, so if Hog4PC recognizes a mouse, theoretically you should be able to get this to work.

Keep in mind since MT Pro is not aware of the current mouse (or fader) position, you would first need a mechanism to initialize and track all of the current fader positions within MT Pro. You could do this with global variables, however if for some reason you move your fader on screen, MT Pro would not be aware of the movement so you would have to resync the actual mouse position in MT Pro with the actual fader position in Hog4PC.

Also, there would need to be a way to communicate when to click and release when you are dragging a fader. You could do this with a separate button on your controller, or possibly set it up that when you start moving a fader, the click down happens, and then a timer set up so that if no movement in a given time period, you release the click down (assuming the drag operation is finished).

Finally, you will need to make sure that you do not move your screen layout around once the fader positions are initialized.

So to test this all out I suggest you try it with one fader (at first).

First, open up Hog4PC and establish the permanent position you want on the screen. Set fader 1 to the full down position with your mouse and make a of note the mouse x,y position.

Now in MT pro, have a translator set up that upon project opening, has rules to save x to global variable ga and y to global variable gb. Every time you start Hog4PC, you will need to ensure that, your screen, actual fader position on your controller, and the values in MT Pro all are in sync with this position.

Then set up a translator with incoming action of a button on your controller (push down) and outgoing action will be to move to that screen position and click down.

Another translator to with input of your fader movement with rules to track gb as it moves, and then moves the mouse position.

Finally, a translator so that when you release the button on the controller that you clicked for mouse down, it sends a mouse up message to the application

This is probably the most simple implementation for testing purposes. If you can get that to work, then you might want to refine it so that the fader movement handles both click down and click up movements (with a timer) for the drag operation, eliminating the need for the extra button.

Finally, since this is on a PC, I have a program I wrote called MIDIBuddy that can communicate actual mouse pointer positions to MT Pro. This could be handy in keeping the global variables in MT Pro in sync with actual mouse position. You can find more information about MIDIBuddy here.

If you want me to set up a Proof of Concept for the above for you, I could do this for a fee. Just drop me an email if interested.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz

 

Hopefully this gives you some idea

 

Hey Steve, Im just attempting this again as im in my down season, how much is the fee for proof of concept? im very interested!

Hi, drop me an email at the below address and we can handle it there.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz