midi or osc controller for playback?

• Jul 2, 2016 - 19:28

Can a midi controller be used to control the playback functions on the play panel: tempo, set loop-in, set loop-out, loop, play repreats?

I use Musescore extensively for learning to play piano for a year now, using the KXstudio distro (Ubuntu-based linux with real-time kernel). My computer display sits on top of my electonic piano.

So while practicing I read the music score from Musescore directly, seeing the same layout as when I would be playing away from my computer from a printed sheet of paper. And playing along with Musescore, repeating a few measures in a loop at a time, at slow speed, increasing when I can, and sometimes with left- and/or right-hand muted and just hearing the simple drum and bass track.

Midi communication in Musescore 2.0.3 is set to use Jack, and my cheap Korg nanoKontrol midi controller and my piano are linked to Musescore midi input. All available midi-input functions in the Midi preferences are linked to my nanoKontral and work fine.

Unfortunately the square-formed play panel - that I need to use - takes a lot of display area so I can only see one page of A4-sized score at one time, and page scrolling is quite distracting.

Therefore I like to use my small midi controller to control playback, rather than having to reach for the computer keyboard and mouse, open the play panel, and fiddle with the mouse for speed and other controls, select small single notes to set loop-in/out (setting loop-out on a selected measure rips the loop-in marker from its position on play-start).

The limited OSC input of Musescore (2.0.3 from distro) seems to be of no use: the commands that I need most (loop, set-in-out, next-prev-measure) are not available (that I can see), and '/tempo' is not useable (3 values: normal, double, lightning fast). Commands volume, track volume, track mute do function as expected.

Does someone has an idea how to control playback from an external midi controller? (using intermediate software like OSC bridge, midi tools or python programming is no problem)
Thanks in advance.


Comments

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

Thank you. I hadn't seen /Action and the shortcut.cpp source, quite interesting features. Bug report has been filed. Discovered that when Musescore set as Jack transport client and Hydrogen drumsequencer as master, Musescore follows the tempo changes (and start/stop/position) in Hydrogen; it might be possible to handle the controls in e.g. Ardour DAW and have Musescore show the score and song pointer in sync.

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