Volume — tdlidar_remote

Drive transport and step presets hands-free with the phone’s volume buttons and any headset/media remote.

Category: Touch & Input · Tier: Free · Needs: any iPhone (optionally wired/Bluetooth headset with media buttons)

What it does

Turns the iPhone’s hardware volume buttons and the play/pause/next/previous controls on a headset or media remote into OSC events. The five button channels are momentary — they flash 1 then snap back to 0 on each press — while volume is the current system level 0–1. The clever bit: the app keeps re-centring the volume after each press, so the up/down buttons never hit the end-stop and keep firing forever. It’s a free wireless clicker for running a TD show without touching the screen.

OSC in

address type range rate
/tdlidar/remote/playpause float momentary 1→0 on press
/tdlidar/remote/next float momentary 1→0 on press
/tdlidar/remote/previous float momentary 1→0 on press
/tdlidar/remote/volup float momentary 1→0 on press
/tdlidar/remote/voldown float momentary 1→0 on press
/tdlidar/remote/volume float 0–1 (re-centres so buttons keep firing) on change

Outputs

out1 (CHOP) — six channels named after the addresses without the leading slash: tdlidar/remote/playpause, …/next, …/previous, …/volup, …/voldown, and tdlidar/remote/volume. The node tile previews out1.

Parameters

par default what it does
OSC Port 9000 UDP port to listen on (match the app)

Quick start (beginner)

  1. In the TDLiDAR app, enable Remote Control (Volume).
  2. Drop the Volume op. Press the phone’s volume-up button — tdlidar/remote/volup blips to 1 and back.
  3. Wire tdlidar/remote/playpause into a Trigger CHOP to start/stop your transport (a Timer, a Movie File In play toggle, a Beat reset).
  4. Plug in earbuds with inline buttons and you’ve got a wireless remote — next/previous step your set from your pocket.

Advanced patterns

  • Step a Switch / preset bank: Count CHOP on next (and another, counting down, on previous) → feed the count into a Switch TOP/SOP index to walk through presets, slides or scenes hands-free. Set the Count’s Limit Max + wrap to loop the bank.
  • Volume as a fader: because volume re-centres, don’t read it as an absolute level — instead take its Slope CHOP (or compare against its lagged self) so each up/down nudges a value by a delta. Great for a relative “trim” knob that never saturates.
  • Toggle from a momentary: Trigger CHOP → Count CHOP (Limit Max 1, wrap) turns playpause into a latched on/off you can drive a Switch with.
  • De-bounce / hold: a long press can repeat — a Trigger Re-Trigger Delay gives one event per intentional press.

Gotchas

  • The five buttons are momentary 1→0 — a blink, not a held state. Always go through a Trigger/Count; you can’t read them as a level.
  • volume deliberately re-centres after each press so the buttons never hit min/max. That means its absolute value is meaningless — use it for change (deltas), not as a 0–1 fader position.
  • iOS may also change the actual ringer volume as you press; that’s harmless to the show but expected.