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BCF2000 - Mackie Mode & Cubase Trick

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:53 pm
by RX
I was looking for some time into the issue of how to control my CW stuff with the BCF when it's set in Mackie emulation mode (which is *absolutely* brilliant BTW, it is much much more powerful than the standard BCF mode when working with Cubase - it takes a bit of figuring out but once you get it it's soooo coool). When in XTC mode it is reasonably trivial as demonstrated in another thread (because plugin parameters show up straight away as insert params), but it is non trivial (at least it was to me) when you're using the "normal" (Non-XTC) CW routing, since you just lost the "normal" Midi output of the BCF.

All I really needed was some way to get a VST or Insert controller mapped to a Midi CC output. After ages of looking for a free plugin of some kind, I actually ended up finding the solution within Cubase :

* Set up a Midi Track
* Assign the MIDI out & channel to the CW device you want to control
* In the MIDI Inserts, put in a MIDIControl insert (standard Cubase plugin)
* Select CCs 1 to 8 as the parameters to control

Now go to the BCF :
* Select the Midi track
* Select the "Insert" mode (Learn button on BCF)
* Select the second page for the MidiControl insert (Top right button in the Encoder Groups section)

Now you can use the top rotary buttons (or the faders if you Flip the setup) for generating the CC 1 to 8 values, and you can use the CW Learn functions for the mapping - since normal MIDI CC is now coming in. Add more MidiControl inserts if you need more parameters (but of course map them to CC9-16 and so on)

The beauty of this is that you also get free instant automation facilities - since the MidiControl parameters have an automation track which you can use. If you select the "R" and"W" modes in Cubase for it (Automation Read/Write) you can record the automation as per normal in Cubase... or draw it manually.

Also, you don't need to care about feedback to the BCF, it works out of the box since that is already set up if you have the Mackie mode configured in Cubase.

If anybody has a better way, I'm still interested ! Especially a single insert which allows you to control more parameters in one go (the 8 limit is really not enough, having to switch to a second MidiControl instance is less practical than just switching parameter pages within a single plugin).

By the way, this also means you can control your STM faders this way. Full STM control however would probably be impractical though...

Xeers
Philip

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:06 am
by the19thbear
hi.,.. great post!!! because i have the bcf200! but i dont really understand this..

COPIED:
Now you can use the top rotary buttons (or the faders if you Flip the setup) for generating the CC 1 to 8 values, and you can use the CW Learn functions for the mapping - since normal MIDI CC is now coming in. Add more MidiControl inserts if you need more parameters (but of course map them to CC9-16 and so on) END:

could you explain again?

thanks.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:47 am
by RX
Hi,

Just to be sure : you have to select the Mackie emulation mode for Cubase when you start up your BCFfor all of this to work. Read the BCF documentation for how to do this. You also need to start the BCFView app before you start Cubase.

So to explain this a bit more :

The point is that all VSTi controls - if the VSTi is implemented correctly - are always controllable through the Mackie interface when you select the "Instruments" screen (spend some time with the Mackie emulation mode and try to control a normal VSTi - once you get this, you'll know what I'm talking about).

When the "Instrument" mode is selected, with the "next page" and "previous page" buttons you can step through all the VSTi parameters of the currently selected VSTi (to switch between VSTis, you need to be at the first page, and then the top left rotary controller allows you to switch between all active VSTis).

Normally, when you are on a page which controls VSTi parameters, you can see a short name for each parameter (you have to use the BCFView program to see this, otherwise it is nearly impossible to use the Macki emulation mode). Each one maps to a rotary controller.

The MIDIControl happens to be a VSTi which gives you 8 VSTi controls which you can assign to send MIDI CC parameters - which is what Creamware understands, for external control. And these 8 controls are controllable with the 8 rotary controllers at the top of the BCF. This means that using the rotary controllers, you are sending Midi CC messages to the Midi Output and Channel which you selected on the Cubase MIDI track. If that is connected to Creamware plugins, they will receive the CC messages, so if you right-click on a control in the CW plugin, which takes you into the MIDI control assignment screen, and you move the controller, you should see the CC value in the "new" box.

There is also a "flip" function somewhere (have a good look at the BCF Mackie templates in the BCF documentation - it took me a little while to figure them out). If you select that, whatever was being controlled by the faders (which I think is always the Cubase Mix faders) will now be controlled by the to rotary controllers, and the other way around. So if you feel more comfortable controlling some parameters with the faders, this helps. It means for instance that you can assign the CC values to the faders of the CW mixer, and by flipping, you can use your BCF faders to control them. What's more, the feedback is already implemented in the Mackie protocol, so you don't need to configure that !

I hope this makes the principle a bit clearer... Once you get it, it's a powerful addition to your toolbox, because if you don't use XTC, and you use Cubase + BCF in Mackie mode, it is not trivial to use your BCF for controlling the Creamware plugins as well (at least it wasn't obvious to me !).

Xeers
Philip

thank you

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:57 am
by the19thbear
thank you very much:)
i´ll try it tonight!

thanks..

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:32 am
by the19thbear
thank you!! i can't seem to get any furhter though.... i use bcf version 1.10 and i don't seem to be able to control my vsti's.. i see the blue "mackie" screen (bcfview) and i press tons of buttons, but i never see any vst controller info??

thanks!! the mackie control is SO cool!

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:23 am
by RX
There is an "Instrument" Button - you need to press one of the Shift keys and one other key together - I think it's the button you use to get to the effects.

Then you go into VST control mode. In the first screen (which displays the name of the currently selected VSTi), the top left rotary controller is used to select which VSTi you want to control.

Just try out the shift keys (there's 2 different ones with different functions) together with the other buttons and see what happens :D again, the template in the documentation helps, although I had to do some figuring out since I was new to the whole thing as well.

Xeers
Philip

thanks

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:33 am
by the19thbear
thank you! i'll try it.

Re: BCF2000 - Mackie Mode & Cubase Trick

Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:23 pm
by ailiah27
THanks,i will try this too....

Re: BCF2000 - Mackie Mode & Cubase Trick

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 3:39 am
by Yogimeister
Great topic and seemingly great solution - but its not working for me .... :(. (Help?)

I get to page 2 of the MIDI Control in BCF - but the knobs are not affecting it (they seem to be sending on/off messages instead of "fader" messages according to the LEDs ... I see no knob labels or parameters in BCFview on this page)


Does anyone have a clue as how to work around this ?? (I am also trying to get someway to control SFP synths ... (I am running Cubase 5 and SCOPEPCI)

Thanx

Re: BCF2000 - Mackie Mode & Cubase Trick

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:04 am
by jhulk
try scopesync as thats a vsti interface 32 bit control rather than the 14bit midi cc

Re: BCF2000 - Mackie Mode & Cubase Trick

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 6:00 am
by Yogimeister
Avtually ... My problem seems to be on the BCF side (the "midimcontrol" midi insert is also not responding to the bcf knobs (when viewing the 2nd page of the insert in bcfview) ...

Everything works if I automate the "midi control" insert or draw in the automation in the midi track ....


I am writing this here because it seems rx and maybe others got the BCF to do this with no problems ... :/