I've kind of done an about face with my DJ set up.  I think I was making it too complicated by adding in too many aspects to the gear.  The Remote was a good idea, but it was not logical for my mindset of DJing.  I think I have a hard time giving up my crossfader, regardless.  So I've scaled down... a lot.  I'm now working exclusively with my VCI-100 and MIDIFighter, using Bome as my translator.  One of the head guys over at DJTT has been giving me great advice on Hexidecimal coding, and I have come to a point where I am finally starting to really understand how the coding works.

I am mapping my VCI-100 to work on 4 decks.  Now that I've made that last Industrial mix I've had a hard time comprehending DJing without access to at least 3 decks.  I have been able to really get involved in a much deeper style of mixing that makes things a lot more interesting for me, so, well, might as well run with it.

So in Bome, instead of working exclusively through global variables, which has been my theme, I've been working with presets.  This makes things easier for coding because it's less numbers to remember.  But it makes it more complicated because it requires me to have more translators to switch between presets and have everything remembered after the fact. (I'll explain this in a sec)

Each deck is broken up into sections that will have their own presets.  The four buttons at the bottom are the Direct Control section, the Jog Wheel (these two might be combined), EQ, Volume, and Load.  The four buttons above the jog wheels will control the preset changes.  By default the direct controls will be play / cue/play / cue/pause and set cue, the jog wheel will seek and I haven't decided on the outer jog wheel yet.

When the Loop preset (by pressing the Loop button) is activated then the four buttons will set Loop In/Loop Out/Loop Size Up/Loop Size Down, the inner jog wheel will activate (or deactivate) the loop, and the outer jog wheel will be a fine move.  I will use the MIDIFighter for more direct Loop control (ie. direct access to sizes).

When the Key button is selected it will give me more direct pitch control.  The inner jog wheel will control my pitch, the outer jog wheel will pitch bend.  This will almost always be used when shifting between DJs.  When not, I will probably just use the Sync button.  I haven't decided on the buttons yet, entirely.  I want one to control the Master state, so I can designate Deck A to the master clock, and have it light up accordingly.  The other three buttons I am unsure of right now.  I want them to be related to tempo, but I don't know what controls I can really map to them.

When the Vinyl Mode button is pressed a whole bunch of things should happen.  First it changes the message the jog wheel is sending.  This COULD allow me to use the other buttons to do other preset changes out of the Vinyl Mode.  This is going to, essentially, act like my Effects controller.  The jog wheel is still going to automatically jump to the Beatmasher effect, and the 4 buttons will give me direct access to lengths (1 / 1/8 / 1/4 / 1/16).  I want to figure out a good, logical way to get me to 1/32... might need to set a variable so once I'm at 1/16 I can just push the jog wheel and it'll hit 1/32.  A shift button wouldn't work because I'd have one hand on the jog wheel, one hand on the buttons, and that leaves me with no other hands :(.  I might scrap the 1 beat preset, and just do 1/8 and lower.  This is for a shortcut, and not for advanced effect control, so it might make sense.

When I press the vinyl mode button is will also turn on the Filter.  Being the filter will be defaulted in the middle when I press this button it won't effect the sound.  The outer jog wheel will control the filter up and down, and when I turn off the Effect Mode the Filter will reset and turn off.

Those are the basic changes now.  I have a few other buttons to work with, so I'm not definite on what to do with them yet.  Now, when I switch between Deck A and Deck C I want to know what status each deck is in.  This is the real pain in the ass to code.  So when I switch from Deck A, in Loop Mode, to Deck C, in Effect Mode, I want the lights and controls to remember where they are at in Bome.  I'm not sure if this will work for Effect Mode, but I'll find out one way or another.

Also, the "Effect" section of the VCI will be programmed so each button activates a specific Chained Effect (three effects in one).  The corresponding knob will be a super knob, programmed to dynamically control each effect together, for a unique experience.  The VCI-100 has three preprogrammed sections (labelled Deck A, Master, Deck B).  I want these to control Rhythmic (mainly beatmasher and gater), Melodic (mainly phasers, delay and reverb) and filters (filters and reverb).  Each preset will have a different feel (an Iceverb with delay activated as opposed to a big Reverb and Delay to make everything get larger).  This is going to be the most complicated part of it.  I might combine them so it's more like the left two buttons/knobs control rhythmic while the right two control filter or something, so I can do more combined effects.  When these are activated I need to find a way to route my buttons to activate FX 1 and 2 on the active decks.  Not quite sure how to handle that yet.  Might require the Effect Mode activated to disengage the Loop and Key from changing presets... that might make it easier, but it also might make it harder.

The MIDIFighter will have four pages, each giving 8 buttons to each deck.

First will be Cue Jumping
Second will be Beat Jumping
Third will be Advanced Loop Control
Fourth will be Grid/Cue

I'm hoping there is a way to have more advanced LED response on the MIDIFighter, like, light up next to the buttons that HAVE cues mapped to them.  I don't think that's possible, but we'll see. :)  Or light up whichever Cue is active.  That could be interesting.

This isn't complete at all, but it's a good start.  And once I get the logic of coding all of this down I can dig into the more advanced commands I'd need.

Wow, this is great with no boss in :