Custom Version of Mackie Control Surface Plugin [to use the QCON]

200bpm
Fantastic!  I recently bought a QCON Pro that I was planning to return because it does not work well with SONAR.  I'll see if I can get this working.
 

200bpm

RogerH

200bpm
Fantastic!  I recently bought a QCON Pro that I was planning to return because it does not work well with SONAR.  I'll see if I can get this working.
 

Can you describe the problems ?

The Qcon is not exactly a Mackie Control.  It has a few less buttons and a different arrangement.  That said, each of the profiles which you pick from at startup, makes available a subset of MCU commands that are both useful and implemented/tested in the DAW you choose.   (For instance, Reaper is one of the profiles, but you will notice many of the buttons are unused, probably because Reaper does not implement the full MCU protocol.)
 
That said, there IS no Sonar profile, so at startup the best you can do is pick one of the OTHER profiles.  The first problem is that the QCON does not respond to the Cakewalk plugin, so it does not startup.  You have to have sonar send a sysex message which you route back to the MCU plugin, just to get started working.
 
The second problem is that the QCON is sending a subset of MCU commands that are useful for ANOTHER daw; there is no guarantee that the commands it sends are particularly useful or even implemented in SONAR.
 
In my brief testing, I loaded the Cubase profile and sent the sysex to trick the MCU plugin.  The faderbanks work, the track options, arm/mute/solo/rec/pan work, the navigation and jog wheel work, but the majority of other buttons were not useful or did not work well in sonar.  
 
In order for the QCON to work well with the host sequencer, there needs to be an ability to remap commands sent from the QCON to the desired action in the sequencer.  
 
In my other DAW (Samplitude), there is a Samplitude profile and Samplitude works well with the QCON, although many of the buttons were mapped to operations that I don't use frequently.  NO worries because Samplitude's Mackie Control "plugin" gives you the ability to remap MCU commands into whatever you want in Samplitude.  With a few small tweaks in Samplitude, I had to QCON working very well.
 
In sonar, the MCU plug-in offers only very limited ability to remap commands.  So even once you've tricked the MCU plugin with the sysex, there is no abillty to remap commands in sonar, so the majority of the surface is useless.
 
I think the bigger problem with MCU in general is that its ability to modify plugins is hit or miss -- so compatibility with plugins, the ability to tweak parameters using the encoders, is limited.  I think the reality is that Mackie Control is nearing the end of its useful life as touch screens and other more powerful, better integrated protocols (eucon) present themselves.
 
This plugin from Stephane potentially solves those problems.  While it won't allow someone to remap the MCU commands from within SONAR, he modified the source to do this. (And presumably anyone can tweak the source to make it work how they want.)  
 
Using the QCON in sonar will never be as flexible as (say) using the QCON with Samplitude, because SONAR does not give the ability to remap most of the commands.  This is a limitation of SONAR and will be a problem using a "real" MCU, so this is not the QCONs fault.  That said, AZ* has developed a plugin off the Cakewalk MCU source, but his is more ambitious as it allows you to remap MCU commands, much like the Samplitude plugin, however it does not address any quirks specific to the QCON.
 
I really like the QCON design and if I only worked in Samplitude I would keep it for sure.  To get QCON Pro working well with Samplitude will require Stephane's modified plugin, but you will be at the mercy of the command mapping that he has implemented (or not implemented) and if you want it to behave differently, you will need to modify the source yourself.
 
The QCON currently has nine profiles and also has a "Midi Learn" mode which is "dumb" and would allow you to use it as a simple midi controller with something like ACT.  I don't think the motorized faders would work in this mode.
 
I spoke to QCON tech support last week and I do not believe they are going to make an official SONAR profile.  It is mostly for the European and Asian markets.

fireberd
I had looked at the Qcon but since it didn't mention Sonar, I decided not to buy it.  I need a new control surface to replace my flakey BCF2000.  I'm going to hold off for a Behringer X-Touch which is due sometime this winter.

azslow3

MadbeatEstudio
Great, thank you.
 
I thought that the other files (KeyBinding.cpp, keyBinding.h, MackieControl.aps, MackieControl.clw, and so on) should be installed somewhere...
but I only must copy and replace the X64/MackieControl.dll, isn't? (I have 64 bit)

Exactly!
 

chuckebaby
isn't the Mackie Control already shipped with Sonar ?
I use MCU (a Mackie control surface) and I didn't need to install anything if I remember correctly.

QCon Pro does not emulate Mackie correctly (they could not find the documentation...). sdupayage has modified MackieControl plug-in to make it work with that device.