Subject:Control Surface on Busses?

Posted by: Illogical

Date:5/2/2006 7:00:13 AM

I just got the Behringer BCF2000 Control Surface, and I've got it set up to control individual tracks in banks of 8, but it seems like there is no way to get it to control bus levels. Is that right? I route all my audio through busses before it goes to the master, so it would be much more helpful for the faders to control the bus levels than the individual track levels. I looked through all the routing options and didn't see busses listed anywhere...thanks in advance if anyone knows how to do this.

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:5/2/2006 7:13:22 AM

You can control all of ACID tracks and buses with the BCF2000.

How did you set up to "control individual tracks in banks of 8"?

Are you using the Mackie Emulation Mode?

Peter

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:5/2/2006 8:02:45 AM

Hi Peter, I was using the generic control surface setting, it let me route a pot and fader to each channel for pan and volume, and then i configured one button each for mute/solo...got all that to work but no bus options listed in the drop-down menus. I just tried the Mackie setting and that has even less options. I must be doing something wrong, I removed the Generic Device in preferences, added it as a Mackie emulation, hit scan...it shows up now in the devices list, but when I click it, the channel mapping thing is greyed out and the only options I get in the drop down menu of available host functions is:

Project, File, View, Tools, Options, Transport, Track View, Mixer, & Video Preview...the channel and audio channel listings seem to be missing, along with the bus options.

I haven't been able to get Acid Pro to send any data back to it either, does that only work in Mackie mode?

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:5/2/2006 10:33:26 AM

The generic driver is input only. That is, it does not send information back to the device. (The MIDI output port selection will be removed in the update.)

All tracks and buses are refered to as "channels" When you set up channels, for control, all channels are used for control of tracks and buses. This means there are no specific "bus" or "track" settings.

What you need to set up is a channel bank up/down or channel inc/dec. This reassignes how the faders/knobs/buttons on the device are used.

The Behringer units are not autodetected or scanned as they are only emulating Mackie devices. That is, they don't respond to the SYSEX request for identity. You need to tell the Mackie driver that it is talking to a emulated MCU device.

There is a number of threads here and in the Vegas forum that discuss how to set the Behringer up as a MCU emulate device. We are also prepareing a document to assist in this for the update.

The Mackie implemenation is as we defined it. It permits some function reassigments to expose things that you may want to control. However, it is implemented to control channels as we have defined it. That is, you cannot reassign faders strips and such to arbitrary.

Peter

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:5/2/2006 11:06:04 AM

Hi Peter, thanks for the info, I'll refer to the other threads. I see that some developers have written custom maps/patches for the Behringer BCF2000 to work better with their software (eg Logic, Sonar, Reason), any chance you guys might create one for Acid Pro?

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:5/2/2006 11:57:35 AM

A native driver for the Behringer is always a possability.

However, there is very little - if anything - that the MCU mode of the Behringer limits in ACID or Vegas. It provides all the functionality that we could provide by developing native drivers for the unit.

Peter

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: MarkWWW

Date:5/2/2006 12:55:24 PM

You can use the BCF2000 to control the bus levels. pans, etc, just the same as you can control the tracks, so long as you are using it to emulate a Mackie Control Universal.

When using a BCF2000 emulating an MCU you will find that the tracks, master, and buses are allocated according to a fixed, but quite workable, scheme: all the tracks, followed by the master, followed by all the buses. This means that if you have, for example, a ten track project with three buses then the tracks will appear in order as channels 1 to 10 on the BCF2000, the master will be on channel 11, and the three buses will appear as channels 12, 13 and 14. (The BCF2000 only has 8 physical fader channels so you need to use the bank shift buttons to slide these between channels 1-8 and channels 9-16 for this example, of course.)

You will probably find the Behringer BCFView utility very useful when using the BCF2000 to emulate a MCU in this way. It displays on the PC screen a copy of what would be displayed on the MCU's built-in LCD display - the track names, etc, and the control adjustments as they are made.

Mark

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: MarkWWW

Date:5/2/2006 1:03:36 PM

Indeed.

The only thing a native driver for the BCF2000 would really offer over and above the capabilities of the current MCU emulation would be that it would be possible to arrange things so that the more commonly needed buttons for use in Vegas or Acid would be more easily accessible. The two that one needs most often I find are those for switching between Video and Audio mode (not applicable in Acid, but needed in Vegas) and the one to toggle Automation mode on and off. Both of those are a bit awkward to select as they require a combination of two buttons to be pressed and it would be nicer if it was just one. But other than that small point there isn't really anything missing from the funtionality of the BCF2000 with Acid or Vegas.

Mark

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:5/2/2006 3:18:26 PM

Mark,

Does the BCF map the Display Track|Buses on the Mackie?

On the Mackie, this permits the user to choose to display tracks+buses, tracks, or buses.

Peter

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/2/2006 5:28:35 PM

Also, a while ago I found an alternative BCFView program that was aesthetically modified by a user to make the LCD much easier to read and use. It displays numbers and line separators so that you don't have to count to what fader you're on each time. I'd very much like to credit the author for this wonderful enhancement, but since the B-Control forums were hacked, I can't find his name, and that makes this link the only place to get it now. Mirror it so others can take advantage.

BCF View Modified

- Nick

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: switchman

Date:5/3/2006 9:50:15 AM

well i finally got it set up, but have a question about a possible glitch. when i hit the assigned play button on the bcf it will play fine one time. if i try to stop and replay however, it locks everything up and nothing will work. weird.

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: MarkWWW

Date:5/3/2006 10:35:53 AM

Ah, sadly no it doesn't.

I was forgetting that those top two "Display" buttons on the MCU (marked as Meters/Values|Tracks/Buses and Time Format|Set Zero on the Vegas lexan overlay for the MCU) are the only two that are not mapped in the BCF2000's MCU emulation mode.

Which means that there is after all an opportunity for a Vegas/Acid specific native driver for the BCF2000 to improve on what is provided by the current MCU emulation mode.

Mark

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:5/3/2006 1:51:35 PM

Cheers for all the info guys, I got it up and running like a charm but I can't get the freaking lil app that creates the virtual scribble strip to work at all. Oh well, that's between me and Behringer. Acid Pro is so much fun with real faders though, holy smokes I was like a giddy little school girl yesterday once I got it up and running. I wish there was an easy way to modify the assignments, but for now I'm quite happy.

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: switchman

Date:5/3/2006 10:11:56 PM

hey logic check out nick'slink and download it. unzip it once you've opened 6 and run it. when you start to move your faders, it will show you your values AND the strip names you've programmed into the tracks- VERY helpful and much better than the official version- thanks a lot for sharing nick.
by the way, anyone got alink where i can download a template that shows all the assigned mackie controls for acid? for example, i still don't know how to punch up the record mode, etc.
thanks!

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/3/2006 11:11:54 PM

This link should give you what you need. The author said that if you print this out, you should be able to cut it out and lay it on top of your BCF. I haven't tried that yet.

- Nick

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: switchman

Date:5/4/2006 12:20:48 AM

hey thanks again-
still rather cryptic, but a step in the right direction. any other input would be helpful!!!

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: MarkWWWW

Date:5/4/2006 5:36:51 AM

Was the one I pointed you to earlier no good for you? This one.

If you let me know what's not to your liking I can maybe improve it somehow.

Mark

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: switchman

Date:5/4/2006 7:42:16 PM

hi nick-
this is helpful, but i am VERY ignorant of the bcf2000! as i stated, i can get "play' out of the lower right button, and it helps to know through your diagram that it also can be record and some other function. however, i'm still unclear on how to change the functions, and simple button mashing hasn't gotten me too far yet. is it one of the shift buttons youhave listed a couple of banks above this group?
thanks again!

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:5/5/2006 6:16:57 PM

Thanks a bunch, Nick...that other app works a charm. Still can't get Behringer's to work, but this one is cool.

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: switchman

Date:5/6/2006 2:15:19 PM

nick-
i finally got it straight. thanks!

Subject:RE: Control Surface on Busses?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/6/2006 4:04:46 PM

Glad to help guys. Control surface setups are intimidating, but I've found they're seldom as complicated as they look.

- Nick