Display custom text on controllers LCD Display?
Hello,
is it possible to send custom text on controllers LCD Display, like NOVATION SL MKIII, Behringer X-Touch or any controller with LCD Display for knobs/endless encoders?
It depends on the controller and what information is available about it.
Available info
Sometimes a company will release a programmer’s manual that contains info on how to construct SysEx messages (which is called “send Raw Data” in the “Action >> MIDI Controller” menu of a Reaction in CSS); these are an older form of MIDI messages that can go more in depth than the more common MIDI messages because SysEx messages contain constructions that navigate through the internal menu of the controller. Not all companies release this info and I found forums of people trying to figure out the SysEx messages, coming from or going to the machine, that they could intercept with 3rd party software.
I found such Programmer’s Manual for the NOVATION SL MKIII online.
If you don’t find this information, you could always try contacting the company. I wanted to be able to change colors on my Nektar Pacer and reached out to Nektar about it and they gave me a whole bunch of documents. I still needed to put all of the pieces together but in the end got it to work.
Controller dependent
This all being said, you’re still dependent on how the controller acts. For example: on the Pacer, there’s also an LED display that can only show 5 characters. Using the received docs I’m now able to change the characters whenever I want. Howver, whenever I press a pedal, an automatic message is displayed which CC number was sent, which removes my messages because it doesn’t revert back. That’s because those five characters only represent the name of the preset, which the controller only displays when you select or reload a preset.
I was also able to create moving text on the display, for longer text, but whenever the Pacer receives a SysEx message it displays a LOAD text inbetween, making the scrolling text not that interesting to use.
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