Make it possible to quickly bypass a single plugin

[grammoboy2]

Now it's possible to 'disable' a plugin. It would be nice if you could bypass a plugin in the same fast way.

[falkTX]

I think I'll add some menu options for this and other useful functions as well.

[nilsbecker]

+1. it would be even nicer to have one button that's always visible for this.

[rhetr]

+1, very important and seems pretty straightforward too

[DoosC]

👍 that would be very useful with FX to quickly switch between original sound and modified sound.

[Frikazoid]

+1

[falkTX]

This sorta now possible with the new plugin skins.
Just turn the wet/dry knob fully to the left for a complete dry signal (ie, bypass)

[Frikazoid]

a small "B" button on the side of dry/wet (colored red/green) ?
So you can switch the plugin to complete dry or restores the previous knob value?

[rhetr]

having a knob isn't the same as having a bypass button, it takes more time/precision, it's harder to restore the original wet/dry value and the knob interaction in carla isn't very good to begin with. a bypass button, preferrably next to (or even supplanting) the power button, is still a must. For touchscreen interaction though it shouldn't be too close in case you accidentally press the power button instead of the bypass.

[falkTX]

the current Carla UI is not meant to be touch-friendly.
having a single UI that can work for desktop and touch is a mistake.

I can make the dry/wet knob clickable, so that:
click => full dry signal
click => restore previous value (could be 100% or something else)
click => full dry signal again
and repeat

how's that sound?

[nilsbecker]

is the dry/wet knob visible in the 'rack' or only when the ui of a particular plugin is open? imo, what's most useful is something that can be clicked from the rack. otherwise it sounds good.

[falkTX]

the dry/wet is visible on the rack, yes

[rhetr]

I'm fine with that in theory but I am worried that i will accidentally scroll the knobs instead of clicking then. If you implement this then we can test it.

[Frikazoid]

double click maybe?

[falkTX]

double click sounds good to me.
this is related to #11, when I later rework the knob code I'll make sure to add a double-click option.

[egasimus]

Double click? Ugh. +1 for separate button.

Also, while touch and mouse certainly need different things to be taken into consideration, a rack-type UI where there's a single row of controls per plugin can be accessible to both without much extra effort, can't it?

[falkTX]

I'm not interested on making the default Carla UI usable on touch interfaces.
I can't please everyone, the simplest solution is double-click which is what I'll try first

[egasimus]

Fair enough, it's your call after all. Double click, while generally quite a disagreeable interaction, is still better than nothing :-)

[eqyiel]

Chiming in here rather than creating a new issue, it would be great to be able to change the wet/dry level with a MIDI signal (just like with plugin parameters)!

My use case is guitar + MIDI footswitch, and at the moment there's no easy way to quickly toggle an effect.

[rhetr]

I agree with egasimus. Double-click is better than nothing, but in the future I'd suggest not discounting touch interfaces; having touch-friendly audio apps could end up being one of LAU's most unique points (speculation) and having to develop distinct UIs for each interface is inefficient.

[falkTX]

You can already control the dry/wet via MIDI CC, it's just not documented yet (carla keeps slowly changing so I'm waiting to finish 2.0 before doing any docs).
Set the "MIDI control channel" to whatever channel you want to control volume, dry/wet and balance, and send a "breath" message (CC no. 2).

"breath" (CC 2) controls dry/wet
"volume" (CC 7) controls volume
"balance" (CC 8) controls the stereo balance

activate/deactivate is the only "parameter" that can't be automated because doing so is not RT safe.
setting dry/wet to 0% (aka "bypass") works well enough for most cases, no need to deactivate.

[eqyiel]

@falkTX that works great, but would it be possible to assign different CC messages for individual plugins?

Example: tremolo + delay, tremolo's dry/wet is on CC 12, delay's dry wet is on CC 13, send CC 13 0 to bypass delay and have tremolo still running (rather than CC 2 0 and bypass both).

Something like how it is possible at the moment to specify the channel for breath/volume/balance, but being able to select the CC note for each of those, for each plugin?

[falkTX]

btw, you can now right-click a plugin slot and click "bypass".

[rhetr]

if bypass is checked and you uncheck it, the dry/wet knob is restored to 100% wet. The value should return to what it was before bypass was checked.

[bencrossman]

Just a couple of questions:

Regarding:
"volume" (CC 7) controls volume
Is the value from 0 to 127, linear or on a decibel scale?

Also when bypass is selected does it remove the processing power consumed by the plugin?

Thanks

[falkTX]

bypass does not stop from processing the plugin, because we want click-less dry/wet changes.
if you really want to stop a plugin from processing you need to disable it (via the I/O button on the left)

[bencrossman]

ah ok, yep will use the disable options (unfortunately this crashes all my plugins but that's fine for now)

[bencrossman]

Hi

Got my VST2 plugins to stop shutting down when I "I/O disable" it (commented out the timeout code for now). Probably a strange request but anyway to automate the I/O disable button (some midi message or sysex?)

Thanks
Ben

[falkTX]

there's no way to automate it via midi messages because disabling the plugin is not a realtime operation.
I can add a OSC command for it though.

[bencrossman]

no worries, nah it's not important.

thanks

[RubenK77]

Hello falktx much respect first of all!! You are really making a big difference in linux audio world and, thanks to you I never need windows anymore!!! Whoop whoop.. When I am in Berlin I want to meet you.

Anyway I still have problems controllign the dry wet knob with my midi controller.. I'm shure it's something simple I'm doing wrong.. I patched it up in the bay and set control channel to 2 but don't understand how to link it to a specific controller knob on my midi mixer yet??? Nothing happens

[falkTX]

the dry/wet knob is currently fixed at CC#10 ('breath').

midi-learn for general parameters is not implemented yet, but it's coming very soon.

[RubenK77]

I still don't understand it?? How can I use one knob on my midi mixer for the wet level of one plugin and another knob for the wet level of another plugin?? Already looking forward to the update :)

[falkTX]

you send them to different midi channels.

[RubenK77]

Ok I really feel like a noob now.. Let's see how she goes

[RubenK77]

Lol found it :)

To everyone who has trouble with this watch this vid -->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtDmo4ETH98

EDIT: Only found how to map different parameters but not the dry wet level because my controller doesn't have cc#10 on the knobs where I want it. Well I guess I'll have to live with it until carla 2 comes out :P I tried to use MapCC to get cc59 to control cc10 but didn't work :(

[georgkrause]

@falkTX how does it work in continuous rack mode? if i set the second plugin to channel 2, it does not work. i guess because the first plugin takes it all?

[falkTX]

yes, first plugin takes it. if one plugin has no midi outputs, then the next one will receive the same midi data as the previous one.

[georgkrause]

and if there is a midi output?

[falkTX]

then the midi ouput is the midi data for the next plugin

[georgkrause]

Hm, this isnt working. I have a midi controller, send cc2 on channel 1 and 2 (different knobs). I have loaded two times calf reverb (for testing). First one set to midi channel 1, second to midi channel 2. I use carla in continuous rack mode. When i send on channel 1, i can bypass reverb 1. but channel 2 cannot bypass reverb 2.

[georgkrause]

@falkTX It is working with ZynReverb and TalReverb. So there is only a problem when the plugin has a midi output

[bencrossman]

I can confirm I was successfully able to use the OSC "/set_active" command today on Windows 10.
Worked great!

[klopsi]

falkTX, with all due respect for your fantastic plugin... which is great... audio engineers need to a/b bypass. Audio enthusiasts want to.

It is good to have the bypass function in the right-click menu.
Much better would be a button (and keybinding) for this.

However, since it's not hard to do, and nobody seems to have submitted a patch, it's now on my stack of things to do.

Thanks for this awesome software, sir.