Music production and assistive technology. Introduction. Im writing this post to provide some additional background information about the Talking Windows Pre installation Environment TWPE project, and to tap the collective brainpower of the community for overcoming some of the remaining limitations. If you have feedback about this post, please send an email to bryansmartbryansmart. Twitter. Overview of Windows Pre installation Environment. Windows Pre installation Environment often abbreviated Win. PE, is a minimal version of Windows. Reaper Pro Tools Key Commands For Logic' title='Reaper Pro Tools Key Commands For Logic' />Get unlimited viewing access to stream the entire Groove3 library. The AllAccess Pass gives you access to over 1100 hours of professional audio tutorials for your. ShuttlePro v2 Workflow reimagined. Contour ShuttlePRO v2 is the perfect productivity accessory for video, audio or photo editing applications on PC or Mac. Viewers of BBCs News at Ten were entranced last night when a glitch in its system produced over four minutes of surreal beauty. There are a lot of reasons not to stare at your phone while youre driving. Commview For Wifi Cracking Wpa With Kali. A little kid might jump into the road, a car in front of you might have to stop. Purple6/v4/c9/ab/d2/c9abd231-c668-ea74-0168-9c9242537546/screen800x500.jpeg' alt='Reaper Pro Tools Key Commands For Logic' title='Reaper Pro Tools Key Commands For Logic' />The Pre installation Environment portion of the name is due to the typical purpose of Win. PE to serve as a minimal operating system for use by Windows installationsetup and recovery features. When installing Windows, the Windows installation disk normally loads Win. PE, and then loads Windows Setup. Windows PE is used for tasks other than installing Windows, though. Many computer manufacturers create special partitions on the computers hard drive, or else provide special disks, to restore the computer to the state that it was in when it originally was purchased. Only at Sweetwater 0 Financing, FREE Shipping, and FREE Tech Support for MIDI ControllersIn most cases, this recovery software uses Win. PE as a basic operating system. Many companies that make hard disk imaging software also use Win. PE as the operating system for powering their restore disks. Microsoft distributes Win. PE as freeware. That means that it is free to use and to share, but it can not be sold. The license for Win. PE also includes restrictions that prevent it from being used for commercial products. Win. PE also contains many technical limitations. It is not able to operate in a multiple user mode. It will not run for extended periods of time without rebooting. It is also missing many components normally found in Windows. Most significantly for the blind user, the version of Win. PE found on Windows installation disks does not include most components required for sound, drivers for sound devices, Microsoft text to speech voices, or Narrator. For more about Win. PE, go here. Overview of Win. Builder. Win. Builder is a system for creating customized Windows boot disks. Since customizing Win. PE to add any particular feature can involve many steps, including copying several files to multiple locations, modifying configuration settings in INI files, modifying the registry, and others, users on the Win. Builder Forum collaborate by creating scripts to implement each feature. For example, a script might add a system component like Direct. X or an application like Firefox. Scripts also perform tasks related to the building of an image, such as copying the base Win. PE files from a Windows install disk, creating an ISO of the modified files, or setting up a boot loader. Scripts for performing various tasks are combined in to Win. Builder projects. Win. Builder projects produce bootable Win. PE disks or disk images as their products. Many Win. Builder projects are available. Most Win. Builder projects are intended for tasks such as removing viruses and OS repair. Most projects do not include sound support. Problems and Solutions. As is the case with many blind Windows users, when setting up Windows, Id either use an unattended setup file, or else install over an existing copy of Windows. Neither of these approaches work particularly well. Unattended setup files provide no spoken feedback during installation, and so the process is to usually start setup, wait half an hour, and hope something happens. If nothing happened, you must carefully check over your file, consider what might be wrong, make your changes, and wait again. Even if you have an unattended setup file that you know to be valid, it is difficult to create unattended setup files that handle atypical situations, such as computers with multiple hard drive partitions, storage devices that require drivers before they can be accessed, and so on. You can always install Windows over itself. In this approach, the user starts Windows, inserts the Windows DVD, and runs setup. This approach has the benefit of speech feedback, but it includes limitations. Since youre running setup from an active operating system, you cant repartition the hard drive. It also isnt possible to install Windows for a different architecture for example, if youre using 3. Windows, you cant re install as 6. Windows. Finally, you cant install an older OS. If youre running Windows 8, and wish to downgrade the computer to Windows 7, setup will not permit it. I began this project to remove all of the above limitations. My goal when beginning this project was to create a simple talking Win. PE desktop that could be used to install or repair Windows. If a talking version of Win. PE was available, then a blind user could start this talking Win. PE boot disk and proceed to run Windows setup from the stock Windows install disk without any further modifications. Creating the Talking Windows Pre installation Environment TWPEWhen researching possibilities for creating Win. PE boot disks, I quickly discovered Win. Builder. Many Win. Builder projects were listed on the Win. Builder forums, but few of them had any sound support, and I wasnt sure how I would easily get Narrator or NVDA integrated. I eventually stumbled across a thread where some blind users had been asking Aljo, an expert forum memberproject creator, to help with NVDA support that briefly had been present in an old Win. Builder project. After that work didnt lead to any success, Aljo decided to simply add NVDA support to one of the projects that he maintained. You can read more about Aljos Win. PENVDA project in this thread. I attempted to use Aljos project, but ran in to some issues. First, his projects were only based on the 3. Win. PE. This was fine for the projects original purpose of antivirusOS repair, but wouldnt permit 6. Windows to be installed. Second, the project was full of apps that were mostly inaccessible to NVDA. Third, the Win. Builder system isnt particularly screen reader friendly NVDA cant see check boxes in the scripts tree view, most controls dont support keyboard navigation, etc. I knew that, if I simply told people about this project, beyond the complexity of getting it to build at all, the screen reader issues would mean that most novices wouldnt have any success. Further, most people wouldnt want to tweak and re tweak their boot disk they would just want something that they could burn to media and use to installrepair Windows. TWPE Release 1. Originally, I wanted to distribute both a 3. The user would simply boot the disk that matched the architecture of the Windows that they wished to install, and they would then be able to run setup. Windows install disk. Even though TWPE is based on Windows 7, it would still be able to install Vista, Windows 7, Windows 88. Server 2. 00. 3, Server 2. The 3. 2 bit boot disk was relatively simple to create. Install Mac Os X Virtualbox Ubuntu Screen'>Install Mac Os X Virtualbox Ubuntu Screen. I removed anything from Aljos original project that wasnt accessible, added a large set of audio drivers, and updated NVDA. The 6. 4 bit boot disk was a greater challenge. Aljo was able to assist me by creating a 6. Win. Builder project. However, many computers are still unable to start Windows setup from the 6. When they attempt it, they receive an error indicating that there has been an unknown error when initializing COM. COM is certainly present on the 6. NVDA uses it extensively. Ive asked Aljo to assist with troubleshooting this error, but he says that he is unable to reproduce it. Boot disks that he builds with his 6. Shuttle. PRO v. 2Shuttle. PRO v. 2 for Music Applications. The Contour Shuttle. Pro v. 2 is well known in the video editing community, but its not the first thing that comes to mind when youre trying to streamline your music production workflow. If youre not familiar with the Shuttle. Pro v. 2, its a table top input device, connected via USB, and devoted to scrolling, navigation, and keyboard shortcuts, courtesy of a jogshuttle wheel, and 1. There is a level of immediate support for music software, thanks to the supplied presets for Apples Logic Pro X, Garage. Band, and Main. Stage, as well as other popular music applications such as Ableton Live, Audacity, Bitwig Studio, Reaper, DJ 1. Izotope RX, Digital Performer, Studio One, Reason, Reaktor, and Traktion. A free editor application gives complete control over the Shuttle. Pro v. 2s assignments, so you can use the dial and buttons for keystrokes, scrolling, clicking, opening files or folders, or for selected system commands such as volume and display brightness. For each keystroke you can add modifiers ctrl, option, shift, or cmd, then enter a qwerty character, or a function key, or a system key such as tab or enter. If youre already aware of the benefits of using your DAWs keyboard shortcuts, this should already be planting little idea seeds in your head Im an Ableton Certified Trainer, and my entire day is spent with Live related activities running classes, creating videos, writing tutorials, and the like, so naturally, here Im using Live as my set up example. Not everybody uses Live, but hopefully itll give you some inspiration about how you can use the Contour Shuttle. Pro with your own favourite DAW. As Ive already mentioned, theres an Ableton Live preset included in the Contour Shuttle editor application, but I decided to create my own assignments instead. Live has a fixed array of keyboard shortcuts, which arent user editable, but what makes all the difference is the fact that Live also has something called Key Map Mode, where you can assign qwerty characters to many of Lives functions, including transport controls, clip launching, software instrument parameters, and so on. This means that we can go deep with our chosen assignments for the Shuttle. Pro and if necessary you can save more than one set of assignments for the same DAW, perhaps for studio and performance use. I set it up with buttons toggling the Browser, Detail View, SessionArrangement View, and Mixer. Other buttons were put to work for Stop Clips, scene launching, and effect activation, while the wheel was used to scroll up and down through scenes in Lives Session View. For more complex tasks, the Shuttle. Pro can send macros entire chains of key commands and characters from one button push. Imagine combining this with OS Xs Automator for ultimate one click control chain power I know what youre wondering now can the Shuttle. Pro send MIDI The direct answer is no, but if you use an intermediate application like Bomes MIDI Translator, thatll bridge the gap very effectively. Despite being an Ableton Live user, like most producers I know, I rely on more than one DAW to get everything done, so I pair Live with Logic Pro X from time to time, and I appreciate the way the Shuttle. Pro automatically detects which application is foremost and provides the correct settings. Very smooth transition. Thanks to the included presets, you can use the Shuttle. Pro immediately with your favourite DAW, which is great when you dont have time to mess around, but if you put in a little extra effort to customise the settings, youll have an even more helpful addition to your studio. Shuttle. PRO v. 2 for Photographers. Think its just for videoPicture this Shuttle. PRO v. 2 has pre set configurations out of the box. Adobe Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, Auto. CAD, Manga Studio, Maya, Apple Photos Aperture and more are already included in the Mac PC drivers program. Connect to USB, install the software and you are ready to edit. Are you already using Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Paint Shop Pro, Google Picasa or Paint. Shuttle Pro V2 can be easily configured to use with ANY photo editing application for Mac PC. Wacoms perfect partner. Precision editing from your graphics tablet, combined with unlimited access to shortcuts and keyboard functions via Shuttle Pro V2 give you the optimum photo editing power. Actions, auto fixes, filters and effects can be at your fingertips whilst you edit, saving you valuable time and enhancing your creativity. Working in tandem with any computer pointing device, Shuttle. PRO v. 2 will save you time and frustration. Watch your edit. Tired of looking away from your screen as you look for keyboard shortcuts Shuttle. PRO v. 2 keeps your commonly used tools and shortcuts at your fingertips so you can concentrate on the on screen action. Why look away when you apply your adjustments or filters Stay focused and create amazing photos instead. Tools and effects. Shuttle. PRO v. 2 is your on hand selector, allowing you to choose tools, brushes and effects, resize and apply them with the click of a button or a flick of the jog shuttle control. Why navigate on screen menus, or take time looking for keyboard options when you are already have control of your editing in your hand For example, Photoshop CC has an amazing array of brushes and pens that you can now select and adjust on the fly using Shuttle Pro V2. Repetition Repetition Repetition Batch editing can be a pain, especially when you need to work using keyboard shortcuts or onscreen controls. Shuttle Pro V2 makes life easier by allowing you to automate tasks in any editing suite. Why adjust white balance, colour correction and sharpness manually, when the Shuttle can apply all of these with a single click of a button Create your own Photoshop style actions for any program using the Shuttles flexible software and focus more on your creativity. Using Sliders On screen adjustment tools have made life easier in many editing suites. Lightroom CC is a great example where this method of working is at its best. Shuttle Pro V2 now gives you the ability to adjust exposure, contrast, clarity, saturation and many others in such programs, simply by using its highly responsive buttons and jog shuttle controls. Keep the cursor where you need it and click and rotate instead for a much more intuitive experience. Master of organisation. Shuttle. PRO v. 2 can help you organize your photo collections. Whether reviewing your Macs Photos library, checking your holiday snaps in Adobe Photoshop Elements or reviewing your latest professional shoot using Adobe Lightroom CCs powerful library tools, Shuttle. PRO v. 2 will allow you to zoom, rotate, proof and even apply auto fixes without necessarily having to move to your keyboard to make changes. Quickly open, preview, adjust and save, speeding up your workflow and allowing you to concentrate on the interesting parts of your creative work. Unlimited potential. Because Shuttle. PRO v. Mac PC, and features 1. Why have one setting for Photoshop or Lightroom, when you can apply a profile for organizing, for editing, for opening and saving files, or even for different sets of tools While you will point with your tablet pen or mouse, Shuttle. PRO v. 2 can make available any tool or adjustment that normally requires a key press, in any software you choose to use. Contour Shuttle. PRO v. Organize, edit publish like a professional.