Remote Control
From mAirListWiki
This page describes the control methods and equipment supported by mAirList. You can enable and customize any (or all!) of these control methods in the mAirList Configuration program.
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Commands
When you configure Remote Control, you usually associate each 'input' (a button press or other signal) with a single internal mAirList Command (on some Configuration pages, this is named 'Action') which you want to happen when that button or input is fired. For example, the keypad minus key might have the Command (Action) AUTOMATION 2 PLAY, which would 'press the Automation Play button' in Playlist 2.
NOTE: In Commands, Playlists and Players are numbered starting at 1, unlike Playlists and Players in the mAirList .ini files and in Scripts (where they are numbered starting from 0).
You can assign a series of Commands to a single input by separating the Commands with semicolons. For example:
PLAYER 1-1 STOP;PLAYER 1-2 START
will stop Player 1 in Playlist 1 and start Player 2 in Playlist 1.
The Commands available will change depending on how many Playlists, Players, and Cartwall Players you have configured, but you can read the full list in the Actions and Commands Wiki topic.
There are a few Commands not shown in the list—and some which are—that you need to enter or complete by typing them in manually. Typically, these are Commands which require a file name as a parameter, such as CARTWALL LOAD SET filename or RUNSCRIPT filename.
Note that you must type all Commands in UPPER case. The only exception is that in Commands which require a file name, you can type the path and file name in any combination of lower or UPPER case.
You can also Insert a COMMAND item into a Playlist. To enter the Command(s) you want to execute into the item, open its Properties dialog, and type the Command(s) into the Command field on the General tab. Like Hotkeys, a single COMMAND playlist item can execute two or more Commands (see above).
TIP: You can add a description of the COMMAND item's purpose by typing the description into the Artist field in Properties, General tab: the description will display in the Playlist.
Hotkeys
You can define any number of hotkeys to control mAirList using the PC keyboard, or any external devices (such as 'custom' keyboards) which generate keystrokes. You can define each hotkey as:
- local—only active when mAirList is the active window, or
- global—works even if mAirList is in the background or is minimized (also known as a 'system hotkey').
Each Hotkey usually performs only one Action (Command), but you can specify multiple commands—or commands not in the Action list—by typing them into the Action dropdown box (see above).
NOTE: By design, Windows does not allow some keys, such as the spacebar, to be used as Hotkeys. However, there is a Spacebar triggers AUTOMATION NEXT checkbox in each Playlist n page in Configuration which you can check to effectively use the spacebar as an AUTOMATION NEXT Hotkey for the active Playlist.
Joysticks and Gameport
You can define any number of 'buttons' on devices attached to your joystick or USB gameport sockets to control mAirList, and you can define whether the assigned Command is executed when the 'button' is pressed or when it is released. Although you would never use a real joystick or gamepad, this method is particularly useful if your mixing desk has a 'fader start' function.
There are two common ways to connect the desk to the PC for this purpose:
- Connect the contact closures on the desk directly to the 4 'button' pins of your joystick port or gameport, and connect two 100kOhm resistors across the 'x and y axis' pins of the port (without these resistors, Windows Control Panel and Gaming Options will not sense your circuit as a 'joystick').
- Connect a cheap USB gamepad to your PC, and connect the contact closures on the desk directly to the button connectors on the gamepad's internal circuit board. One way to do this is to remove the gamepad board from its case, house it somewhere inside your PC case, and cable from the gamepad board button connectors to a proper 'external' connector on the PC case. (More detailed information on this method will be posted here later.)
MIDI
You can define any number of MIDI messages (a 'message' being a status, data1 and data2 package sent by your MIDI-compliant hardware) to control mAirList using any MIDI hardware, such as a keyboard or a MIDI 'controller.'
For data2, you can specify whether the received value should be less than, greater than, or equal to your specified data2 value. This is useful for use with MIDI keyboards with touch response, which send different data2 values depending on how fast you press a key.
Network (SOAP/RPC)
You can enable a network remote interface (implemented using the RemObjects SDK) to control mAirList remotely, using external applications running on other network PCs. As well as the (proprietary) RemObjects BIN protocol, mAirList also supports applications which use the standard SOAP protocol.
At the moment, only one interface is exposed to the network: ICommandInterface. You can download a small Windows client application, mAirListCommand.exe, from the mAirList download page.
Using RPC commands, you can (for example) start/stop split advert breaks across your station's LAN; either by pressing a hotkey, or (in Automation mode) a Command in a Playlist. In the same way, the remote networked PC can send a command back to the main playout PC to resume its automation after the adverts, promos, etc.
This command starts automated playout of Playlist 1 on a remote PC:
RPC http://192.168.0.1:8300/BIN AUTOMATION 1 PLAY
Note that the remote PC's Playlist must already be in AUTO mode! Further more, you can only send ONE Command at a time when using network commands, so you cannot use a semi-colon to daisy-chain multiple actions. You will need to create a separate Command entry for each action. So, in order to start your AM and FM advert breaks on 2 remote machines - You'll need 2 Command entries in your playlist:
RPC http://192.168.0.1:8300/BIN AUTOMATION 1 PLAY RPC http://192.168.0.2:8300/BIN AUTOMATION 1 PLAY
You can use the remote PC's Network name instead of its IP address: the name is usually easier to remember (like fmadverts or studio1). For example:
RPC http://studio2:8300/BIN AUTOMATION 1 PLAY
You can also load remote studio's CartWalls if they are taking your feed as part of a networked broadcast.
RPC http://studio2:8300/BIN CARTWALL LOADSET C:\mAirList\Cartwalls\Split Jingles.mlc
If you wish for this action to be automatic, you can insert it into an M3U playlist (either manually or via a scheduler). The entry would look like this:
#mAirList COMMAND [LOAD SPLIT CARTWALL] RPC http://studio2:8300/BIN CARTWALL LOADSET C:\mAirList\Cartwalls\Split Jingles.mlc
As you can see from the above example, when scheduling Commands in M3U playlists, you can specify a Title which allows a DJ-friendly way of telling you what the Command will do.
IO-Warrior
IO-Warrior is a multi-purpose, USB-based I/O controller manufactured by Code Mercenaries GmbH which is available in 16, 23, or 50 I/O pin models. You can define the input pins as (for example) triggers for fader start commands, and you can use mAirListScript to control the output pins from within mAirList.
Serial Port
You can enable and configure a generic serial port interface, to allow Commands to be literally 'typed in' from any serial device which can generate ASCII text characters (for example, an old-fashioned 'glass teletype' ASCII terminal).
To send a Command, type (or send) it as plain text and end it with a CR character (the Enter key on most serial device keyboards). For example:
AUTOMATION 1 OFF<CR>
would switch Playlist 1 into ASSIST mode.
Note that you must type the Commands in UPPER case. The only exception is that you can type file names (in Commands which use them) in lower or mixed case. For example:
CARTWALL LOAD SET c:\Data\mairlist\Year shouts 1970-1989.mlc
SAS
SAS is a proprietary serial port-based protocol used by digital mixing desks manufactured by Lawo. You can enable and configure this protocol to control mAirList by assigning Commands to SAS Messages in a similar way to Hotkeys.
