TouchPlayer and TouchMixer Tips

Presets

The easiest way to explore a synth is to play its presets. Under Segments, the grey-colored boxes are presets and the colored boxes are full segments, A preset is usually a one-moment snapshot, and a segment is a pre-recorded group of controls over a time-range.

Click the presets and move the sliders and buttons. To create your own presets, press the Ctrl key and click the REC (record) button. You will see a new preset name. To save the presets, you need TouchMixer, which can save a "Track" into a Touch .tot Track file. Double-clicking a .tot file causes TouchPlayer or Mixer to first run the synth and restore what is in the Track file.

On some synths, the presets are wired to the ASCII keyboard, startng fom the top row: 1 2 3 ... Q W E ....

Synth Help Page

When you play a synth, click Help -> About This Synth... on the top menu bar to see a listing of the controls for that specific synth. Below are the features that all synths share. When using the the TouchArt CD, the same help file appears on the bottom left when a synth is selected in the SYNTHS window.

Sliders

When the sliders are arranged in a row of 16, they are called S1 to S16 on the Help -> About This Synth help page.

Where presets are not used, slider hot keys normally start on the ASDF row on the ASCII keyboard. If you put your cursor over the slider, it will display the slider number, the current value, and the hot key for that slider. (This pop-up feature is currently disabled for speed reasons. See the synth's help file instead.)

To operate the slider as a hot key, press that listed key and move the mouse left-right. You will see the slider value increase and decrease.

To operate two sliders at once with the mouse, hold down one hot key and press another hot key so you have two down at one time. If you move your mouse left-right, it will change the first hot key's slider. If you move the mouse up-down, it will change the second hot key's slider.

Over-Driving the Sliders

You can adjust the numbers in any sliders or on the Beat tracker by clicking your middle mouse button on the number and move the cursor up and down the ladder to select scale, and left-right to adjust value at that scale. You can drive the sliders below and above the slider's lower and upper limits and get some bonus crazy effects.

Buttons

The buttons are frequently arranged as a row of 14. (15 and 16 are reserved for "listen" and "tap" for tapping the beat in.)

In the synth help page, buttons are called B1 to B14. If you put your cursor over the button, it will display its button number, its current value, and its hot key. (This pop-up feature is currently disabled for speed reasons.)

Full Screen

TouchPlayer can expand the camera port to a 800x600 resolution image full-screen by pressing the Esc key. Pressing Esc again returns to the full interface. TouchMixer goes up to the full resolution your hardware allows.

Beat Tapping

To sync to music you are hearing, you will use the "comma" and "period" (, and .) keys on your keyboard OR the on-screen "listen" and "tap" buttons.

Hold the comma key down (listen) and then press the period key (tap) once every four beats. Press the period key several times before you let comma key up. (Tip - count the beats - "1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4" and tap the . key on the count of 1.)

You should see the rotating beat counter at the bottom right of the player sync up. The number below it is the beats per minute. You can also change this value by selecting it and typing a new number, or clicking and on the .1 1 10 buttons and dragging left-right.

(Hint: When you hit . (tap), the rotating radar should jump to 12-o'clock. If not, your timeline is pre-synced so that when the current time go back to frame 1, you restart your sync to music. Select Dialogs -> MIDI Device Mapper -> Timing and turn OFF "Reset on Frame".)

If your animation cycle drifts off a bit from the music, repeat the procedure, or just hit "tap" once to re-align the cycle.

Play, Stop, Step - The Transport Controls

• The Up Arrow key causes Touch to play forward and stop alternately.
• The Down Arrow causes Touch to stop.
• The Right Arrow goes ahead a single frame and stops.
• The Left Arrow goes back a single frame and stops.
• Pressing the Ctrl key and the Left Arrow causes it to jump back 4 beats. If it's done while it's playing, it continues to play.
• Pressing the Ctrl key and the Right Arrow causes it to jump ahead 4 beats.

Hiding the Cursor over the Viewport

You can turn the cursor off when it is over the viewport (to avoid it being seen by your audience) by selecting the option in the Options menu.

Status Bar

The status bar at the top right informs you when TouchPlayer or TouchMixer has paused to pre-load textures, geometry or other data.

Synths containing Music Tracks

If a synth has a music track listed under Dialogs -> Audio Panel -> Synth List, you can select the track and sync the music to the synth. You can select your own music track through the Path selector.

Output Quicktime Movies

You can output the image in a TouchPlayer camera window as a QuickTime movie with a watermark superimposed. TouchMixer doesn't have the watermark.

Green-Screen Backgrounds

Many synths use the F2 function key to fill the bakground of the synth with green (RGB = 0 .6 0), which can be used by downstream video keyers to fill the background with some other video.

Wide Aspect Ratio Image

Many synths use the F3 function key to crop the top and bottom of the viewport with black to allow an approx 2:1 aspect ratio to the image, which can be sent to a standard 4:3 or 5:4 projector.

Window Placement and Always on Top Option

The Dialogs -> Window Placement sets where and how TouchPlayer starts up. You can set the size and placement of the Player window. When you run TouchArt it always starts TouchPlayer with the "Always on Top" options set, and TouchArt lets you either start full screen or in a fixed bottom-right position.

Performance Monitor - Analyzing the Synth

You can analyze the synth and the time it is taking to create and draw its graphics by selection Dialogs -> Performance Monitor, playing the synth, and pressing Batch on the Performance Monitor dialog.

Level of Detail

This adjusts the subdivision of NURBS or Bezier surfaces and other curved surfaces. Increasing level-of-detail by 1 makes them more smooth (4 times the polygons), but it may display slower. This doesn't affect polygon surfaces.

TouchMixer Features Only

Output Quicktime Movies

You can output the image in a TouchMixer camera port as a QuickTime movie, increasing the quality if you want. Go to File -> Create Movie.

Snapshot the Viewport

You can snapshot an image of your camera port by pressing Alt-V. By default, a .jpg is saved in the folder with the .tos synth. You can change the image resolution and location by pressing Alt-U.

MIDI Input/Output and MIDI Device Mapper

TouchMixer allows MIDI In and Out of buttons and sliders, and its timing can follow MIDI clock.

The control panels of many synths are arranged as a row of 16 sliders and 16 buttons, like a Peavey 1600x MIDI input box. TouchMixer allows you to map any MIDI devices to the 16+16 synth controls. A synth can have up to 96 buttons and 96 sliders.

When using a CM Labs Motor Mix, which has 8 motorized faders, TouchMixer moves the faders when you move on-screen faders, when you start the synth, and when you select segments and presets in the synth. TouchMixer also drives the Motor Mix's buttons' LEDs.

Dialogs -> MIDI Device Mapper... allows you to teach Touch which MIDI channels and controllers/notes a synth's sliders and buttons are mapped to. The settings are saved on your hard drive and will apply to all synths you run. You can save and switch Touch mappings for different MIDI devices, and you can have MIDI devices attached to one or two USB ports.

Making Presets

A preset is a snapshot of your synth at a moment in time. Create a preset by holding down Ctrl and pressing the Rec button at the same time. You will see a new preset called "seg" at the bottom of the Segments panel. Click another preset to go to that state, then press your new preset to go back to the new preset state.

You can rename, reorder and delete the presets by pressing the right mouse button over the preset and selecting from the menu. The menu item Edit/Compact will put you in a detailed edit mode where you can rename the preset.

You can scroll the Segment panel by clicking/dragging with the middle mouse button.

Recording Multi Segments

Segments are like presets but they normally are recordings over an interval of time, and they are usually locked to a part of your soundtrack or timeline. In contrast, presets are intended to be recalled at any time. See the TouchPlayer/TouchMixer Guide for details on how to record segments.

Save Your Work in a Touch Track File

File -> Save Track saves a Touch Track file (suffix .tot), which contains your presets, your edited performed-sequences, and your texture/movie replacements. You can start the synth later and then read in your .tot file to continue.

In TouchArt, when you save a track, the next time you play the synth, the track file gets automatically loaded, you can play your saved presets, segments and you get your replaced textures. Outside TouchArt, you can start the synth later and then read in your .tot file via File -> Open Track.

• Saving Presets in a Track File - All presets and segments get saved in the .tot track file.
• Recording Multi Segments into a Sequence - See the TouchPlayer/TouchMixer Guide for details.
• Replacing Textures and Movies - If a synth is set up to have its textures and maps replaced, TouchMixer will allow you to access them through File -> Show Images... and Edit Images...

Dual Screen Monitor Support

TouchMixer can display any Touch camera port on the right monitor. You control the resolution, aspect ratio and other render parameters. This is suitable for leaving all your controls and other applications on the left monitor, and placing the beauty-shot on the right monitor which is directed to a projector, monitor or scan converter (feature in beta test). Go to Dialogs -> Window Placement.

TouchMixer also has higher-resolution full-screen windows on the primary monitor under the Options menu.