Unit Idea : DAE - Driven Attribute Editor

Hi all,

The relationships between unit attributes are a big power of the 301. We have the custom unit that allows us to take attributes from other units and put them in a single place where we can get at the final values. However, what about the relationships that determine those values? To see those relationships we must track the attributes back to their individual starts, where we can edit those relationship changes (offset/scale/revers etc). This is done on a on a per attribute, per unit, basis, each within its own location.

For example, we have a 0-1 value coming in as an input to the 301, from a control knob. When we move that knob from 0-1, many things in the 301 can be using it, they could be turning something on, reversing something else or making a slight value change somewhere else. How can we track this attribute’s relationships though the 301?

More than tracking, how can we create these relationships and modify them quickly in one place?
How can we make it more simple to do complex relationship curves (rather than straight scale/offset/reverse etc)?

This is the DAE unit proposal:

The idea comes from wanting to more easily create relationships to morph attributes on the 301.
What if we want to do something like the Octactracks scenes? or MI Frames? – these devices have set up their own way to create and manage the relationships of attributes.

On the 301 we have these great screens, so we can use them to visualize the value relationships as curves on a graph.

To start, we have 2 lists of attributes, the Drivers and the Drivens.

Driver attributes will usually be the input of that control knob or fader etc. Each Driver attribute can have many Driven attributes. After selecting a Driver, its Driven attributes will be show in the Driven list. After selecting a Driven attribute, the relation ship between the two is show on the graph. the value of the Driver on the Yaxis and the Driven on the Xaxis.

Now you can adjust what the Driven values will be by (holding the buttons on the smaller screen and using the big knob ) editing the START and END portions of the graph tab (Xposition and Yposition to reverse, offset, scale, etc as you position each point on the graph) and with the IN TANGENT and OUT TANGENT tabs, you can control the shape of the curve between the 2 values. On the small screen in the tangent tabs, hold the buttons and rotate the big knob for : Twist to rotate the tangent back and forth, and Pull to stretch out or compress the tangent.

In this design of the interface, we see only START and END, a 2 point graph, but there is no reason why there cannot be multiple points on the graph allowing for more complex relationships to be created/edited while being visualized.

This concept is straight out of computer animation, the way we can setup the types of relationships with a graph editor.

There are many different ways to do this, what’s not here is a way to see all the values of the driven attributes at once, so that you can change the Driver and get a nice overview of what its changing, in real time as you change it. Then you could make edits to any of those attributes in the same place. Very fast and easy to see it all.

I probably did a horrible job explaining it, but I hope this could get the ball rolling on a way to do attribute morphing and keep it organized.
What about that?

6 Likes

Sounds interesting!

Only caveat is the name. DAE reminds me of Protools DAE errors and instantly makes me ragey and full of dread! :slight_smile: