Select Channel by Name ?

[AWRontheRISE]

Hello All,

I have a feature request, but wanted to ask if anyone knew of a command I may have overlooked. See my feature request below:

I would like to see a command created that would be called "Select Channel by Name" that would bring up a prompt there user could enter the name of channel. The channel name entered would then be selected. Alos, any prviously selected track would remain selected. I would use this with my Stream Deck device and its associated Auto Hotkey script. The AHK script would send the "Select CHannel by Name" hotkey to Studio One, then type in the name of the track, then hit enter in my use case.

Thank you,
Aaron

 

[lokeyfly]

Check with Lukas. He has some nifty scripts for such things. He or someone will chime in and send you the link. I'm currently in transit.

 

[Lukas]

Hi and welcome,

The Find Channel command does exactly what you describe, except that it will exclusively select the specified channel rather than retain any previously selected tracks or channels.

You can assign it to a keyboard shortcut, trigger it from your Stream Deck, and have AHK type the desired channel name. Alternatively, you can create macros for the Find Channel command and bake a fixed channel name into each macro. You can then trigger the macro directly via a shortcut.

My upcoming add-on will include a Select Tracks command that can select one or more tracks by name. It will also have an option to retain any previously selected tracks, and also some additional wildcard options for advanced search. However, because this command searches for tracks, it will only work for channels that also have a corresponding track.

 

[AWRontheRISE]

Hi Lukas,

Thank you for responding. You are doing some amazing work here!

I’m using the Find Channel command with a work around for not being able to retain selection of previously selected channels.

Another quirk is that Find Channel will show a channel that was previously hidden. I have a workaround for that too. I suppose my perfect Select Channel command would also be able to select without affecting visibility.

Best,
Aaron

 

[Lukas]

That's interesting. The command I'm currently working on has an option for hidden tracks as well. (Again, it's tracks, not channels, but adding the same command for channels would be easy to do in the future.)

I'm not sure, however, whether this is exactly what you're trying to do. Do you want to ignore hidden channels so they aren't selected, or do you want to select hidden channels and edit them without making them visible?

I suppose my perfect Select Channel command would also be able to select without affecting visibility.

This sounds more like the latter that I suspected...? Could you provide some more details about your use case? Once the channels are selected, what do you do with them?

 

[AWRontheRISE]

I would like to have the ability to select hidden channels without making them visible.

 

[Lukas]

I understand that, but what are you going to do with these hidden channels once they’re selected?

 

[AWRontheRISE]

Once a hidden channel is selected, I have buttons to arm, mute, and solo. I also have buttons to show and to hide channels.

The stream deck buttons help to dynamically build scenes. There’s an AHK script with some json and csv files involved. It’s already working pretty well, but would work a lot better and faster with the select command I’m describing.

 

[Lukas]

Once a hidden channel is selected, I have buttons to arm, mute, and solo. I also have buttons to show and to hide channels.

So these are channels that are still used in your session but you still keep them hidden?

Or do you just mute / solo them in order to save these states to a new scene?

I'm just trying to understand the full use case / workflow. Sounds like something I can add to my script...

 

[Lukas]

Another question: Which kind of channels are these? Audio channels or instrument channels that also have a (hidden) track in the arrangement, or busses/FX/VCA/AUX channels that (usually) don't have a track?

 

[AWRontheRISE]

Mostly audio channels, but would be nice if “Select Channel” could work with busses and fx channels also.

Depending on what I’m working on, I like to hide the channels I’m not using. Instead of creating scenes in Studio One, I like to hit a Stream Deck button to hide all channels and then start building a scene myself using the Steam Deck. Maybe I’ll show the bass guitar channel, which would also show a track recorded from the bass guitar. Then hit another stream deck key to show a drum condenser mic channel. Then I hit a third stream deck button to arm my entire “Drum Channel Group”, so my AHK script loops through all those drum mic channels arming them one by one (this is how it works now with find channel). Then I record all the drum channels along to the bass track although I’m only looking at one drum channel/track.

 

[Lukas]

Okay, thanks. So an additional option "Keep hidden tracks hidden" or "Don't show hidden tracks" would probably do the job.

 

[AWRontheRISE]

That sounds great!