That is why I need a large Touch Screen on my left hand side of MODX, to switch quickly between different MODX Synths and other MODX sounds.

I play Montage, a relative of MODX, on stage on a regular basis. My performance requires quickly changing between sounds during any given song. I cannot deal with touchscreens, no matter how big or small they are in this setting. The touschscreen is too hard to target and depends that the screen is on the right "menu" - which is not ideal at all for changing sounds.

I keep my touchscreen in Live Set mode and this is my primary way to interface with the touchscreen. To locate and recall the next Performance. Between songs - I have ample time to fiddle with the touchscreen in this manner.

During a song - when changing sounds - I can't fiddle with anything. There's no real time for this - as there is between tunes.

What I use are the SCENE buttons. Although Montage has more scene buttons available at once (8 at once) - I hardly use all 8 during any song. I would be able to deal with MODX's 4 scene buttons. There is a button to "page over" to the next set of 4 - so during rests or one-handed parts of a piece - I could deal with pressing a page button if I really needed to switch to the next set.

Use of scenes (and mute) has the issue of cutting off any sustained sound from the currently non-muted PART(s) when switched to mute. I deal with this by selecting the time to switch in places where there would be no cutoff.

I also use keyboard regions of dedicated splits so that I do not have to use scenes OR mute OR change sounds OR ... I may have a synth sound only in an upper or lower extreme to cover the range I need for that sound and other sounds in other regions of the keyboard. When I had a smaller keyboard - I would use the OCT+/- buttons to shift the keyboard to a different range of keys where I may have placed some sound.

In my live performance - there are too many alternative choices available that are better suited for my playing and hand acrobatics than anything offered by the touchscreen. I would, and do, develop strategies apart from the touchscreen in nearly every live performance interaction with the keyboard.

Others may use a footswitch to switch between sounds. Either by the footswitch activating the A.SW1 (or A.SW2) or by footswitch activating Live Set +

Investment in a MIDI pedal with programmable CC assignments to footswitches can have your feet press scene buttons or activate performance changes (if supporting MSB/LSB/PC - or even just PC).

There's quite a large pool of alternatives.

Hi, Jason:

Thank you !
I am still in my steep learning-curve phase.

A foot-pedal is a good suggestion from You. But which one is the best for MODX8, the FC3 with half-pedaling,
or the FC4 with simple ON/OFF ?

As back to Touch Screens, I see that MONTAGE is better with its large number of right-side push-buttons.

But I am still entrapped in the TouchScreenCave, like this:

On the left side of my MODX8 there is my Dell E2014T Touch Screen which works perfectly with MODX8.
Now I decided that I will not throw out my VievSonic TD-22202-2 Touch screen, but i will use it on my right side my MODX8 switching through different organ-stops dispositions by touch of my HAUPTWERK Bovenkerk Hinsz sampleset (see picture below).
HAUPTWERK is designed for use withf Touch Screen (connected to Windows 10)
for changing organ stops dispositions.

Because just above of my MODX8 I have another Keyboard M-Audio Keystation 61 MK3 using as a second organ manual, this case my MODX8 used as a MIDI controller (Local Control . OFF) as the first (aka main) organ manual.

So actually I need those 2 Touch Screens for fast switching.

Best regards

My Response to Bad Mister on Audio Routing:

Yes, I am using “Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver”.(MODX Connect 106 win)

But my big Yamaha Monitors HS8 (Speakers) in my Home Theater are NOT connected to the MODX8 L&R, output,
but to my extra strong Windows 10 music computer's Asus STX II sound card.

That is why I am suspecting that I am doing something wrong. I will further study your description.

Best Regards,

Prof.Emer.JH

I used two phrases intentionally.

"Footswitch" is a simple on/off. There is a Foot Switch port on MODX and the GUI often will shorten references to the foot switch as "FS". This is not to be confused with Foot Controller (FC1 and FC2 ports) where expression pedals (with marketing name Yamaha FC7 as the supported accessory) can be plugged in.

"MIDI pedal" was used - and this is usually a button board with 8-10 buttons and perhaps a built-in expression pedal.

In both cases mainly the on/off switches would be leveraged for this.

Using a foot controller (expression pedal) like the FC7 would be difficult to use with any more than 2 values (all the way heel=one setting, all the way toe=another). And in this type of usage it would be more difficult to physically use than an on/off switch.

Use of expression pedals is not recommended for this application. You could use it, but it's a can of worms overshooting or undershooting your intended middle values. Or needlessly making a pedal travel a large distance for just "on/off".

Ultimately what you decide to do is your decision - certainly. I just can't say how much I personally dislike interacting with a touchscreen during a song so I am biased in that manner to try to lead you away from that. I have found scene buttons to cover everything I need without the need to use foot switches - but you have more going on and foot switches on a MIDI pedal board may benefit you. Each switch of 8 switches selecting a scene would be how I would use such a board.

My Response to Bad Mister on Audio Routing:

Yes, I am using “Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver”.(MODX Connect 106 win)

But my big Yamaha Monitors HS8 (Speakers) in my Home Theater are NOT connected to the MODX8 L&R, output,
but to my extra strong Windows 10 music computer's Asus STX II sound card.

That is why I am suspecting that I am doing something wrong. I will further study your description.

Best Regards,

Prof.Emer.JH

Yes, you want to use the MODX alone, as your sound card. It takes over all Audio duties for the computer. This means choose the MODX (Yamaha Steinberg USB) as the “Output” for all plugins, etc. Connect the monitors to the Audio Outputs of the sound card — which is the MODX!!!

HELP, PLEASE HELP! Janos, you state that the "trick" is to use a Hot Key combination when starting the MODX. I am at that stage, everything is properly hooked up. But instead of just revealing the hot key combination to get the calibration ritual to happen on the Dell 2240T you say it's on "Page 52 of the MODX manual." There is no mention of any of this on page 52 of the MODX manual. PLEASE help. I spent a bunch of money on the Dell and periferals to get this working and now I'm screwed because nowhere in the inter-world can I find the damn hot key combination to start the calibration sequence on the external monitor, which means I have no touch functionality. So incredibly frustrating. Sorry to seem so desperate, but I AM> THANKS!!!!!
jimj@tracktown.com

Let me see if I can help. If someone referenced a document - there should be the document title, version, and page so you can find the same thing. Maybe you're looking at a different document. Here's my approach - there's only 4 or so documents for MODX to look at. I have them downloaded already on my hard drive. I'm going to open up the documents one-by-one starting with the reference manual, then owner's manual, ... and search for "calib" to cover both "calibration" and "calibrate". Then I'll document here what I find.

... it's not in the reference manual. That documents the touch-screen-non-shortcut-button way.

... it's in the owner's manual:

modx6_modx7_modx8_en_om_a0.pdf

Page 52.

This matches what seems to have already been documented - were you looking at that exact file (modx...en_om_a0.pdf)?

This is the relevant data from that document:

Touch panel calibration

Calibration of the touch panel may be necessary if the touch
panel seems occasionally unresponsive of the response is
erratic.

1 Hold down the [UTILITY] button and press the
[PART SELECT MUTE/SOLO] button.
The Utility display appears, with the [Calibrate Touch
Panel] selected.
2 Press the [ENTER] button.
3 A white square appears. Touch the square to
calibrate the touch panel, and continue with
subsequent white squares until the operation
is finished.

NOTE
Alternately, you can touch [UTILITY]  [Settings]  [System] to
call up the System setting display and touch [Calibrate Touch
Panel].

The "NOTE Alternately" part at the end is the non-button way since it involves using the touchscreen to call up some menus. The first instructions holding down UTILITY + PART SELECT MUTE/SOLO is what you need.

Page 15 of the same owner's manual documents what that "PART SELECT MUTE/SOLO" button is. It's button number 42 (circled) in the front panel diagram on page 14 (top of right column). You'll find that button physically on your MODX to the right and down diagonally from the [UTILITY] button. So the two buttons you have to press are almost right next to each other.

There's no different buttons or steps to follow to calibrate the external vs. internal touchscreen. When you use an external touchscreen (and it's working - meaning you have the right USB adapter) - the internal touchscreen will be blank and your external touchscreen will have video. The calibration menu applies to whichever screen is NOT blank. Whichever is showing the screen contents. If your external monitor is properly hooked up - then it will be displaying.

Note that it's possible that your touchscreen is being used NOT as a touchscreen because you didn't hook up the additional USB cable needed for touchscreen function. If this is the case - then you will see an image on both the external monitor and internal touchscreen. This is because your external monitor is not functioning as a touchscreen at all - just a mirror monitor. Once you properly connect the USB connection for touchscreen and turn on MODX then the external monitor should function as touchscreen and shut off the internal touchscreen.

Today I succeeded in finding a cheap solution for the external touchscreen "problem".
I didn't even had to buy things, I had it all laying around in my spare parts bin. (a left-over from some RaspBerry Pi projects)
It's good that the ModX runs on MontaVista Linux, sourcecode is freely available for download:
https://download.yamaha.com/sourcecodes/synth/

It runs with tslib 1.14, some googling around on github revealed a lot !
You simply need a screen with a touch-panel in front of it, the 4-wire variant, and a simple 4-wire to USB converter in between !
Wait to buy one until my how-to is available, those things are cheap, but it doesn't work with every converter.
Ooh well, I hope this opens up a whole new world for some of you, MODX fans … (this should also work on a montage, but I can't test this, I don't own a montage)

look at my proof-of-concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjelA23g-Sc

Works perfect ! Tomorrow I will post a detailled how-to on my personal blog: https://www.digitalplayground.be

Very cool. I've done some "gadget" work w/Linux before which shows promise for emulating the touchscreen. Looking forward to your how-to article.

Article and How-to is online at https://www.digitalplayground.be/?p=4678

I hope that this gives a solution for everybody in need 🙂

... looks like escaping the "?" to try to fix the link doesn't work. You have to cut/paste the link rather than clicking on it (FYI - to others).

BTW: I couldn't find a datasheet or a part I could order for the controller IC on the "good" board. Do you have a datasheet and/or location to purchase the IC?

Hi Jason,

I added the info you requested to the article on my blog.
(it's marked in orange, so you don't have to read trough the whole article again)

The IC on this controller is a 4078HM011

What I see is 4U78HM011. Still, no datasheet for this part found.