BCF/BCR2000, a girlie cry for help...

make sure you have a driver that is specifically for 64 bit.  once you download that (if they have one) then double-click it and the install should happen automatically

I don't have a BCR, so I don't know what happens when you try to use them together.

And I only have a BCR, so I'm not sure how they work together, either. I'd expect them to show up as separate MIDI devices in SONAR. The BCR is identified as BCR2000[1], which leads me to think other devices should have different IDs.

@Karyn: Have you tried the BC Manager from Mountain Utilities (http://home.kpn.nl/~f2hmjvandenberg281/). That automatically detects the BC devices you have installed (plus it does lots of other good stuff!).

There's also a way to chain them, but I've never looked into it so I don't know if it would help in your case.

-Susan

I have  both, and when installed with the AJ's surface you basically end up with 2 similar control surfaces.  They're kind of redundant.

I had thought, "okay, lemme 'downgrade' the BCR to an ACT surface just for plugs..." since it has more controls than the BCF.  Well, ACT's limitations make most of the BCR useless, so much for that.

So now I just use the BCF and I use the controls on my Edirol unit for ACT functions. The BCR? Well at the moment it's just hanging out.  I'll prolly use it for my laptop rig.  I kind of hope for ACT 2.0 that might make it worth hooking back up again.

As far as drivers and whatnot, for reasons I can't determine sometimes the BCx units get installed as "USB Audio Device" when there's just one of them.  When that happens only one unit can work at a time. More than one and they get confused. If it installs like Susan said, as "BCx 2000[1]" then you can layer your multiple installs on each other.  For some reason my Trigger Finger is also susceptible to this oddity and doesn't play nice with my other controllers.

i had simaler issue and i gave up and just go withthe BCF with the mackie controling but have to reset the contros surface threw midi devices and control surfaces offten and 2 was also ussless for my apps

Correct me if I'm wrong, I was under the impression that the BCF in mackie mode (as I use it now) worked chanel vol, mute,solo,pan and then the BCR under AJ's CS (which I've not managed to make work) provided the other controls for the chanel such as eq, fx send, etc.

I don't know about the BCF in Mackie mode, but AJ's CS provides much more functionality than what you describe. This is from his release_notes.rtf:

How to use it

There's quite a lot of functionality tucked away here, so please read carefully. In summary, here's what you'll be able to do:-

Control as many tracks, busses and masters as you have in your project (gain,mute,solo, record arm, pan, send #1 gain, send #1 pan)
Get immediate full-duplex feedback to the control surface; if you change something in Sonar, the control surface immediately reflects the change.
Set parameters for track inserts and track EQ.
Control Sonar's transport
Scrub the transport
View 'scribble strips' for all controls so you can work out what's controlling what.

-Susan

I'll go look at the yahoo group.

Thanks Susan

BCF is used with the basic mackie controls at the bottom of the list of contol surfaces. if it show in midi devices then use mackie contol and selrct the device in the in and out puts and it starts right up every time good lock with the BCR i use the Axium for pads

oh, a hub!!  they should put warning stickers on them at stores: WARNING: MOST THINGS YOU PLUG INTO THIS WILL NO LONGER WORK!

   ps: i have a couple hardware devices that require 64 bit drivers for them (as they offer both x86 and x64 versions of the drivers

Susan,   he's using 1 usb cable for each BCx unit,  it's just that he has a lot of them ( I think 7 )

I think my problem is the two usb sockets on the side of my laptop are actually just one usb port,  but there are more on the other side so if they're not all linked together as a hub I should be ok.

Gonna go try it in a minute or two.

Back soon.

@Blades

Took a look at your vid, very good and informative.  Just what I use my BCF for atm, and prolly everyone else as well.  Nice vid.
I want to do the same with my BCR for synths and plugins, specifically Guitar Rig 4.  This is where I'm having problems.

@Everyone else reading (and hopfully offering sujestions)

I've come to the conclusion that there is a minor bug in either the BCR/BCF firmware or in the generic usb driver that windows uses.

Let me work through my thinking then you can correct anything I get wrong...
The BCx units comunicate via midi only. That can either be by physical midi sockets or by the built in USB/midi converter.  When you connect with USB Windows simply sees a standard USB/midi interface and loads its own generic usb audio/midi driver.
So far, so good. Everything works as expected with ONE BCx unit.

Connect a second device and Windows recognises it, loads a new driver instance and correctly reports the hardware in device manager.
The two devices are named corectly (BCR2000 and BCF2000), each correctly shows the path to the port it is pluged into and each reports the correct data without any conflicts.

Loading BC manager, both units are correctly found and can be accessed.
 HOWEVER,  the midi in/out port NAMES as reported by BC manager both show as the same.  Through experimentation I determined that this name was always the last unit to be connected.

So turning on the BCF then the BCR would show in BC manager as two midi interfaces both named BCR2000.  BUT BC manager CAN TELL WHICH IS WHICH, so I guess it is ignoring the actual name and maybe using a process id or something similar that will differentiate one from the other.

Switching to Sonar and the midi devices list has exactly the same problem, two midi interfaces both called BCR2000. So far, so good, Sonar has recognised both the units even if they have the same name.  But when you try to actually use them in (say) selecting CS midi interface, or setting the interface to use on a chanel, only ONE BCR2000 shows in the list.

This is not a bug as such with Sonar, as it is clearly using the reported name in the selection list and there's nothing wrong with that as long as everything is working as expected. But by not being able to differentiate between two interfaces with the same (mis)reported name, it can't use both units at once.

If BC manager can use both devices with the same reported name then there should be no reason why Sonar can't as well.

If anyone can think of a workaround for this I'm all ears. (and eyes and fingers)


Karyn

Look up Fastbikerboy and Blades...they are both excellent with these CS...do a search for either one...they helped me immensely!

Someone in this thread mentioned that they just "plug in the BCF2000" and it works every time.

I am seeing that, if I close Sonar 8.53 and turn off the BCF2000, then the next time I try to use the BCF as a control surface in Sonar I have to first delete it and then re-add it as a control surface.  It seems that I shouldn't have to do this.  What is wrong?

Note: I do start the BCF2000 in Sonar emjulation mode (by hitting the 4th button in the top row while turning on power)    prior to starting Sonar.

System:
Windows 7 64-bit
Intel I7 930 processor    

Karyn, I don't have a BCR and now have a MCU and a spare BCF. I did try bitman's adaptation of AJ's BCR CS dll for my BCF and reached the conclusion after some email exchanges with Bitman that it doesn't work in a x64 environment.

That may be the root cause of your woes. If AJ's BCR surface dll is x32 only (which I don't know for a fact BTW) then you'll never get it going. Sorry.

Having said that search for BCF/BCR posts by adrian4u. He got several units working together although I can't remember whether that was under a x64 environment or not.