Stream Deck

Here are some of the KM actions that I use often.  These are useful for all kinds of scenarios.

If Then Else
Switch/Case
Click at Found Image
Move Mouse (or Move Mouse and Click)
Pause
Execute Macro
Type a Keystroke
Set Variable to Text (be sure to read about how to do these properly on the KM Variable Wiki)
Use Variable
Select or Show a Menu Item
Insert Text by Typing
Insert Text by Pasting

There is also a great KM Wiki for each and every action that exists.  It does a good job of providing info on these.  There is also the KM Discourse forum, where people discuss all of this stuff and offer up macros as solutions for anything you can imagine.  It helped me to just read discussions on things that seemed related to what I was trying to do, and then take a look at the example macros being provided in that thread.  It really helps to just look at those macros and sort of try to understand the logic behind the actions they've strung together to make it all work.  Those macros are also downloadable right there from the thread, so you can also just import them into your KM and then modify them from there.  No need to reinvent the wheel. (Be aware that macros you import from the forum, or anywhere else, are disabled by default, so you'd need to two finger click on them to enable them)

It's fairly easy to make a macro work for things that stay 100% static.  It's for things where they don't stay 100% static, that you need to build the macro in a robust enough way that it can account for those different scenarios in a manner that will still provide the same desired output.  That's where you may encounter some head scratchers that require some creativity to solve.  If Then Else actions and Switch/Case actions are helpful for those situations, because you can then have different actions for different scenarios, but all triggered from the same SD button.

Same thing with variables.  You can have KM set variables (that you name) to a specific value and then have other macros only work or only do certain things if/when a particular variable is set to a certain value.  For example, I have one macro that I built to be used for opening up inserts.  Rather than make eight macros, one for each insert, I just built one macro, and told it to click at a different location (eight different locations for each of the eight insert buttons in Luna) based on the current value of a variable that I created.  The value for that variable is assigned depending on which button on the SD I pushed.  I have eight buttons on the SD permanently set up as buttons that open/close plugins in a given insert.

One other thing to be aware of is that using the mouse/click and image stuff is sort of the least robust way of doing this.  Mackie MCU actions are going to be the most robust because they have direct communication with your DAW, and don't require any third party translation.  Keystrokes are nearly as robust because they similarly directly talk to the DAW and/or the OS.  The only difference here is your DAW has to be focused and on top for the keystrokes to work, where as with Mackie/MIDI they don't.  The same can be said for menu actions. You can tell KM to click on a menu item that's available on your menu bar at the top of the screen, but your DAW will need to be focused for this too.

After that, things like mouse click and image find are the least robust because now you're adding another layer, where the mouse and images are being used as a back door workaround or "translator" of sorts, and screen elements that dynamically change can cause issues in ways that aren't a problem for Mackie/MIDI or keystrokes because they actually talk directly to the DAW, regardless of what's on the screen.  The mouse and image methods don't talk directly to the DAW.  So you have to be more careful with those to make sure that they will work in all situations in which you might attempt to use them.  So I'd try to use Mackie or MIDI commands first, keystroke and menu actions second, and mouse click/image stuff third, when you can.  There are times though that the only way to do it is with a mouse click or image search.  You can, of course, also create macros that combine all of these different types of actions into one macro.  It's up to you.

Yeah, I bought, but for some reason, I think I've got some kind of loop going on. I see constant midi signals in the little meter down on the right hand side of Cubase. I've triple checked and redone the settings exactly like the video and instructions, and when I get to the Midi Controller's Tab in the Midi Remote Manager, My Midi Out Port is reading the wrong thing - In and Out are both "StreamDeck2DawTrack." The Out should be "DawTrack2StreamDeck." I assumed it might have been because I got the checks wrong in Midi Port Setup - but I've checked them multiple times and they're correct. When it opens in the bottom pane of Cubase with the Streamdeck mapping thing on the screen, I see something blinking like it's in a loop. This video should start in the place I'm talking about...or maybe back up about a minute.

I'm about to throw this mother f***** out the window

I can now finally figure out how to ham fistedly get the macro going with KM, but I have absolutely no idea how to get Pro Tools to recognize Stream Deck...there's literally nothing on Youtube about it that I can find. There are videos, but it's people just showing what it can do - not how to do it.

OK...you might be watching the realtime love affair starting to commence. I have I/O setup (bane of my existence), play, stop, record, FF, REW and Undo all programmed.

I have entered genius territory.

Correct.  You don't have to set it up as anything in Pro Tools.  PT will have no idea that you're doing any of this.  As far as PT (or anything else) is concerned, it still thinks a human is on the other end moving the mouse or typing on the keyboard.

It's a one time deal.  Yeah, it can be a little painful going thru the process of getting the macros set up to work 100% of the time but, man, once you do it, it's pretty nice to not have to think about it anymore, or to have to continue to go thru various tasks that can be laborious or tedious.  You just push the button and let it do its thing. AND, if you ever want to further customize it to meet your exact needs, or deal with something that has broken because PT (or another DAW) has changed something around, you can go in right away and get it working again, instead of having to wait on someone like Soundflow or Sideshow to implement it or fix it at some later date.

One other thing to keep in mind with the trigger stuff...

I would use the KM Link instead of the USB trigger, when you can.  The reason why is that KM Link is tied directly to the macro instead of using a SD button identifier.  That way, when you move buttons around on the SD, the macro still stays linked to the button because it's not using the row and column to identify things.  Also, the KM Link plugin has the "parameter" field which can be used to pass specific info to KM.  

As an example, this is how I tell my plugin insert macro to pull up the right plugin when I go and push the button.  I have a different plugin name in the parameter field on each button, and then the KM macro takes that %triggervalue% and pastes it into the plugin search field in Luna, followed by a "return" keystroke.  So one button push on the SD can then automatically load up a plugin into an insert of my choosing.

A reason why you might want to use the USB Device Key option is because sometimes there are things that the KM Link plugin can't do, such as pass dynamic title/icon info back to the SD button.  But if your button name and icon don't ever need to change, that won't matter to you.  Also, some macros depend on being able to know when a button is pushed, and then when it is released.  Short press/Long press actions are an example of this.  The KM Link plugin can't work in that manner, but the USB Device Key can.  So you'd want to use the USB Device Key trigger option when you want to have buttons set up to have dual functions, such as is possible with short press and long press.

Does anyone know if streamdeck can work with melodyne? Am I correct in thinking this can basically work with anything? I’m thinking of trying streamdeck when moving between daws to make life easier.

Been thinking about one for a couple years now. This isn't helping.

So - Quint - I'm noticing that when I setup a move mouse and click script in KM, it's going to a certain location every time...so if I set it up to go to a certain coordinate, the next session that PT opens - the Mix window might not be lined up with that coordinate. It has the "set to front window's left corner" thing...so I thought it would be the same every time. If it's relative to the front window's corner, then the coordinates should be correct every time...it's not doing it, though.

Are you sure that it's recognizing that window as actually being the front/focused window? Just thinking out loud here. Is the little "x" in the top left corner of that window greyed out, or is it white?

It took me a while to figure out that sometimes, windows that I thought were in front/focused were not actually in front/focused, even though I could see them. An example of this was when plugin windows would open in Luna. Even though the plugin window appeared on top, and I could see it, the Luna mix window was actually still the active window behind it.

There are different ways to deal with this. You can use a "bring a window to the front" action, and then tell it to do that action on a window with title "X". Also, I imagine there is some kind of keystroke that can be used to do something similar, so you might be able to build such a keystroke into your macro as well.