Sneak Peek - Cantabile's Integrated Web Server

Thanks everyone for the feedback - exactly the kind of input I was after.

I’m probably going to do a release with minimal functionality (yet to be determined) fairly soon and then let feedback and demand further drive what else gets added.

2 Likes

That’s what I was thinking of as well. It would be great if I could have Cantabile automatically show me a song’s lyrics (and chords using the Cordpro format) on my Android Tablet!

3 Likes

This is interesting. I haven’t yet used cantabile live, only for practice at home. I have a small nanokontrol controller and I stab the buttons or faders to switch sounds.

I have been thinking I’ll have to have my laptop up where I can see it but this would allow a small dashboard to be shown on an old phone or tablet - what sound is on what slider, what positions are the faders in when I switch songs, which sounds are on and off.

I looked at the two way control in the top cantabile edition but it didn’t look like it would work quite right with the nanokontrol.

For me that would be a really interesting use.

1 Like

Great feature and the possibilities seem to be endless. Especially for me who tries to build a keyboard around Cantabile (and in the end sell it to you :slight_smile: ), this is huge! This would save tons of bindings (that I already made…).

Let me know if you need someone for beta-testing!

1 Like

I’d love API to expose whole song structure for reading - basically what’s stored in song json file incl. plugin preset names (not content of course) within racks.

My use case would be to see which plugin and preset is each zone on the keyboard going to in particular song (state) based on a MIDI channel it transmits on (each zone always transmits on same channel).

And since I don’t use rack states but rather plugin presets inside racks, I could use such granularity.

1 Like

Are you thinking of including a variable based system for the web pages? So that the default pages can be customized relatively easily? i.e.
$SongName<\br>
$BPM<\br>
$Length
<\hr>
$ShowNotes

1 Like

I must admit the first thing I thought of when I saw the announcement is 'Wow - that is going to be a huge attack vector.

Having said that, I think it is great that new things are developed and tried.

Ahhh - wonderful! One step closer to my Cantabile-run Smart Home becoming
a reality. :wink:
Terry

4 Likes

I’m not quite sure what my use case would be yet, but it sounds an interesting feature!

Not really. The approach I’m taking is a JavaScript API to get the data + notify of changes and then use a client side reactive frame work to actually update the on-screen display. ie: no server side scripting. Take a look at the technical video - you’ll see similar templating using Vue.JS but it all runs client side.

This is definitely something I’m aware of, but this can be locked down with the local Windows firewall. If anyone has ideas on what other security measures should be included, please speak up!

Love it. I use Cantabile 85% for just playing backing tracks and now getting into controlling lights via MIDI. (Cover band, maybe 48 songs in a night). 15% of the time it’s also a synth VST host. So for our band, it would allow control of starting/stopping the backing tracks, moving to the next song, etc by members other than the drummer on the main computer.
My first thought was that even the drummer could be the main user, using an ipad instead with a simpler interface, and the computer within reach, but out of the way. Once again, i know i’m only one use case, but a very very simple interface with the setlist, stop, start, next… a few others is what i would like to see (it’s how i configured the performance view, but it’s still a bit busy live).
Great work! Thanks Brad
-jim

2 Likes

The problem is you need Wifi to get it working, right? That’s a problem at many gigs! Or can you connect a tablet with an UTP cable to the Cantabile PC? And set the network addresses by hand eg 192.168.1.1 and 195.168.1.2? Would that work? If so I’m definitely interested!

For anyone interested in the JavaScript API to Cantabile, it’s getting there and I’ve put together some examples, and this quick walkthrough which you might find interesting:

Hoping to release it soon.

Brad

5 Likes

Absolutely stunning! Can’t wait to put my hands on this new feature!

1 Like

I’m still not certain what I might use it for, but it looks a pretty amazing feature to have! great work!

1 Like

So I’m not entirely sure where brad is going with this - but assuming you’re right and it needs wifi, on Windows at least there’s already a solution for this.

So I use TouchOSC on my android phone for fly gigs where I can’t take a keyboard controller but still need a couple of sliders. To accomplish this, I have a batch file set to run when my pc boots up that creates an ad-hoc wifi network. While generating an ad-hoc network, a computer can still use a regular wifi network but on most wifi adapters it will be painfully slow - so if the computer you use for Cantabile is also used for other things (or during plugin or Cantabile updates), you may not with the ad-hoc network to run. In this case, instead of running the batch file at startup automatically, you can place it on your desktop or something and run in manually.

To make a batch file, just make a plain text file and change the filetype to .bat. Here’s the contents of mine:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=WhateverYouWantYourNetworkNameToBe key=WhateverYouWantYourNeworkPasswordToBe & netsh wlan start hostednetwork

1 Like

I have a wifi network on stage anyhow - that’s on account of our Mackie DL32R mixer. It has no faders - only controllable via iPads / iPhones (Android and Windows coming in Winter…).

For this, I have an Apple Airport xtreme set up - no connection to the internet, simply my local mixing network. Would be easy to integrate my Cantabile laptop in that network - just worried about the additional processor load from keeping wifi active

Cheers,

Torsten

1 Like

Looks sweet! Building on this, it would be pretty easy to code e.g. a Cantabile remote control for your smartphone, showing your set list on one side of the screen and some volume faders on the other - all you’d really need during a gig (assuming that you wouldn’t want to do state changes on your smartphone, but rather via some MIDI controller…)

Great stuff!

Cheers,

Torsten

Wow! Definitely going to be making some crazy custom hardware for this! I’ll get cracking :slight_smile: Is it ready to use with the current version?

Hi Mark,

No, it’s still in the works, and by the way Welcome to the forum!

Dave