Is the VS 700 still being worked on?

Hmmmm Silence speaks volumes.

They should have come in with a simpler unit at a much lower cost that could be expanded.   Something along the lines of the Mackie MCU.

You're too smart to be here.

Elias,
Care to elaborate?
 
Tom

Hey people!! Sorry! I just saw the posts. Not to much time now.. YOU KNOW NEW BORN BABY HERE!! HEHE!!
 
Anyway this is what I did. I used the vs700 control surface plugin and bcf2000 and bcr2000 in BCmode..
 
There is a link to the midi messages on at the end but it would be better to get an idea 1st by reading this.
 
i USE 2 BCF2000 AND 1 BCR2000 Α and I can do anything the VS700 does. except the T bar.
I did it by assiging the midi messages the vs700 uses to the bc unit. On the bcr2000 I use 2 presets cos 1 is not enough for all the commands I want.. hehe!! One for editing like copy paste bla bla buttons and one for mixing like open close plugin, bypass effects, automation write enable and stuff like that. I have a knob up on the right for jig wheel, the 4 upper left butins as shift ctrl alt command. (these are buttons of the vs700 i use on the bc.)
Try this for start.. take a knob and assign it to CC, channel 1, 60, 0 -127, rel 3 and you have a JOG WHEEL to scroll through your project.
Or try this assign your faders from 1 to 8 to PB, ch 1 to 8 for each fader and you got your track volumes!
 
Normaly in mackie mode, to solo a track you need to press shift and the mute button. I dont like that cos I dont have visual display of what tracks are solo on the bcf2000. you need to press shift to see it. So I came up with a nice way to have solo on one row and mute on the other.
I have also made my own custom mackie mode with functions I like to use. like bypass effect bins, automation on or off, and many more with pressing their own assigned button on my bcr2000 and bcf2000. For the mute and solo functions you need to use midiox for some midi translation. The reason is that for some reason in the vs700 the midi notes work a bit different. You had to press the button twice for it to work. Like to solo a track you had to press it twice. But I got arround that also using midiox and some midi translation.
 
Try this set the upper or lower buttons on ur BC unit like this: button 1 - 8 set them to notes 8 -15 ch1 values 0 - 127 on -off. this is SOLO hehe!! and notes 16 - 22 are mute. So now you have one row for solo and one for mute.
Or set a button to note, ch 1, 70. 70 is the SHIFT BUTTON. Shift and other buttons do other things. WHAT I DID WAS I THEN GOT THE VS700 MANUAL IN THE SHARED SURFACES FOLDER IN SONAR AND FOUND OUT HOW TO DO THINGS. EASY!
Its a lot of things that you can do. I have made a map that shows what midi messages are assigned to each control on the VS700 and you use those on ur bc units.
THE GOOD THING IS THIS!!!!
If you have act control surface plugin and also the vs700 control surface plugin, ACT FOLLOWS THE TRACK IN THE EFFTCS CONTROL.. This wouldnt happen in mackie mode e.g if you had a track selected you had to click on the effect for act to see it and control. if u wanted a different effect you had to click again. I didnt like that either. I wanted more hands of! But now, select ACT mode on ur unit, select a track and act focuses on the 1st effect in that track.  U can press a button an open that plugin or open the next one or close it or whatever. All that with commands from the act control plugin. Then you select another track and act focuses on the effct in that track.. GREAT EH?? u press open plugin and there u have it. Then press close plugin and open next plugin and there u go. NO MOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!
The other thing I have done is I have combined the generic control surface and the act plugin and I have control over the plugins. . The bcr2000 works like it was full duplex with the plugins it just doesnt show the led updates on the bcr2000. so if u are controlling a parameter on an effect with a knob and then u go to another effect and control a different parameter with that same knob IT DOESNT jump to where the knob is. It just tweaks the knob from where the plugin parameter is. It works perfect!!! So what I do is insert a plugin, select the track and automaticly the 1st plugin is selected. 
You can even insert effects just like you would on the vs700. The thing was that I couldnt see what effect im selecting hehe! Cos there is no display on the bc untis. So, What i did was I went into the plugin manager and renamed the all my plugins by putting a number infront of them. e.g EQa was named 1-EQa and 2 and 3 for the next ones and so on. I moved them around to get them in the row I wanted them like 1st my EQs the compressor e.tc  and I saved that. So, you go to sonar, open the browser  on the side and select plugins and now you see the plugins with there number. So when you are going to insert a plugin you use the kob on the bc unit and the red leds on the bcr show you on wich plugin number you are. And u see witch one it is in the .browser. Then u insert the plugin and there u are!!!! WOW!! eh?
 
On the vs700 to use pro channel you have to select pro channel and u tweak the pro channel for each track! for plugin mode u chose plugin to control effects. to tweak sends you chose send mode. you can assign all these to ur units.
So I have ended up with a full working control surface. and I love it..
You have to put some time in to it to assign your buttons to what you want but its worth it!!
Whoever needs the midi map for the midiox translation pm me I can email it to you if you like. In the pic there are the midi messages that the vs700 has. just assign those to your bc unit. 
Here is what the messages are!! Assgn these messages to ur bc unit!! hehe!! Most of them are notes. pan knobs are CCs and fader are PBs. The rest are notes.
 
I have created my own mapping for my use for the 2 bf2000s and the bcr2000 to work together controling 16 tracks and everything else. :) Made a template on the pc to know what everything does, and it works great! 
 
So my connections are
 
BCF via MIDI TO BCR2000. 
BCR200 via USB to PC
and
the 2nd BCF2000 via USB TO PC
THEN,
BCR2000 (witch includes the bcf2000 also) to MIDIOX1 and MIDIOX OUT to Midiyoke1
In sonar, insert a vs700 control surface plugin and select input from MIDIYOKE1 and out to BCR2000
for the 2nd one,
BCF2000 into MIDIOX2  and MIDIOX 2 out to Midiyoke3 (yes 3. if I put it to 2, for some reason it messes up!! but in 3 it woks) and in Sonar insert another vs700 plugin and select in from MIdiyoke 3 and Out to bcf2000.
 
IF YOU DONT CARE ABOUT PRESSING THE SOLO BUTTON TWICE FOR IT TO WORK THEN YOU DONT NEED MIDIOX COS I USE IT FOR THE MIDI TRANSLATION SO SOLO WOULD WORK WITH ONE PRESS. I also made some other mapping too  that are helpful too. IF YOU WANT THE MIDI TRANSLATION FILE pm me I can email it to you.
 
I suggest you look at the vs700 manual in the shared surfaces file and see what amazing things you can do that will change your workflow completely.
 
These are the messages. I found them by checking them one by one on the bc unit. Pffff!!
 
 

and no one says thank you for Elias' incredible post after banging him for a slow response?  Wow Elias.  That was well worth the read.  Thank you for the eye opening work around.
Barry

Hi guys!
 
Long time ago I realized that all magic the vs-700 does is simply sending MIDI messages ... which you could clone with a BCF (like Elias did) ... or listen in ... or what I had in mind: use it to extend vs-700 functionality (yet I never found enough time to seriously pursue this and eventually forgot about it until I read this thread)
 
There are many vs-700 button combinations that are not part of the standard vs-700 functionality i.e. you press them, nothing happens; yet, in the background MIDI messages are send, but not understood by Sonar. I would like to use these combinations e.g. for changing screensets by using COMMAND + ACCESS PANEL buttons.
 
So when you actually press COMMAND + TRACK, you get a new set of MIDI messages ... and if you could re-map that to another simple MIDI message you could assign virtually any Sonar command to that MIDI message (would be way cool)
 
Trouble is that e.g. COMMAND + TRACK does not send one message, but 2 consecutive ones ... which means you need something somewhat intelligent listening to these messages and in case 2 particular MIDI messages (e.g. 1st COMMAND, 2nd TRACK) appear in the MIDI pipe, you would have to remap them to a single new MIDI command and block the original 2 messages ... sounds a bit complicated (well, it is) and I could not find a proper tool that would be capable of doing this (hence, I gave up as there was no time to embark on a coding adventure)
 
Well, I had actually found one MIDI tool that could do something like that, but it was awefully complicated to use (and I forgot its name, sorry) ...
 
But does anybody know some tool that could listen to the MIDI pipe and dynamically manipulate some commands before they reach Sonar ???