Though I apparently don't have time to even fire up Sonar often enough to even recall how to use it these days (or play my instruments, or be musically inspired, or...), I'd be very interested in the depth of integration with the BCF2000 device in MCU mode as well.
 
Looking forward to your guide/preset - then I'll try the plugin, assuming I can get away from creating websites, fixing computers/servers/networks, and running a business for long enough to even do the laundry regularly! :)

So far it's been working fine on my M-Audio Oxygen 49 using the Quick Start instructions.
I've never been able to get  ACT stuff to work  but this looks promising. Thanks.

Dyonight
I have a Nucleus which need a lot of attention here, I will SOOO gladly alpha test this plugin and give as much feedback as I can!

A combination of big expensive surface with free plug-in... that sounds interesting. Does it represent itself as MCU plus extender on different ports? If you by chance know technical details of some "native" mode, it could be better to use it directly instead of MCU compatibility.

Blades
Looking forward to your guide/preset

Unlike "simple" plug-ins, CW Mackie Control plug-in has quite some logic inside. I am not sure I am going to explain/configure everything it can. I use TouchDAW and it simply does not allow to test everything.
 
So far I am done with Initialization, complete transport section and basic track operations (volume/pan + display). I want to extend strip functionality at least to Track/Bus and may be  ACT before I publishing the initial preset/docs.
 
I do not know what other expect/need/want. I guess my own needs are unusual and I can not just follow my nose. Except "looks interesting... I will try..." I have got effectively zero response so far. So my only conclusion: no one wants surface integration till it is "instant auto magic". My plug-in provides a way for good integration, but it is not (and will not) do this "magically". It is the same as SONAR in respect to music: SONAR is a good DAW, but it does not generate music on it's own, not even on the level of simplest auto-arranger.
 

bjornpdx
So far it's been working fine on my M-Audio Oxygen 49 using the Quick Start instructions.
I've never been able to get  ACT stuff to work  but this looks promising. Thanks.

Quick Start is the first step... but you have many miles to go "ACT MIDI Explained" is the next route to take.

This looks exciting!  I have an old M-Audio keystation pro-88 with a zillion buttons, knobs, sliders plus a nektar lx61 with a bunch and gave up...will read everything and see how this might apply.  Leaning to a Lemur or OSC for orchestral control over Spitfire libraries which many are beginning to do over at v.i. control...but most are using Cubase who've implemented UACC and other protocols... Haven't really explored any of this yet but I spend a lot of time mousing around and wasting time when so many knobs and levers are just sitting there....
 
Would be great to automate stuff in the new year.  I'll follow and try and digest some of all your website over the holidays!

Vastman I have an old M-Audio keystation pro-88 with a zillion buttons, knobs, sliders

I have no space to use it as CS (it is my "mobile" piano...), but I can debug problem with it (in case you spot some).
 
Since AZC has internal display now, practical use of high number of controls is finally feasible .

azslow3
For BCR2000 the roadmap is the following:

• try to go throw "ACT MIDI explain" tutorial (just with 1-2 encoders, duplicating them is easy as you can find at the end).
• find good working mode for encoders, some "relative" should be the best. BCR documentation is not precise there, so I can not give exact recommendations. You will need to play with "Value" parameters to match ("Endless" "Accelerated" "Reversed"). I get the best results with "Absolute" mode and "Direct Linear".
• At the end of the Action List (after "Value") add "Monitor" "Parameter Value" "Fast (or Ultra)" and in the Feedback Actions for it add "MIDI" "<Use Ctrl MIDI>" "Value". That should make your LED ring animate (again, depending on BCR mode that potentially requires some tuning in what to send). I get best results with "Ultra".

 
 
Hi Alexey,
 
I've worked my way through most of the ACT tutorial and I think I'm finally starting to understand some of the basic programming procedures and I think your plug-in has tremendous potential. For my experiments so far with the BCR2000, I get the best results with the standard factory preset No. 1 ("Only controllers") with the encoders in "Absolute" controller mode and the AZC "Value" action configuration set to "Direct Linear" and the Monitor Parameter Value set to "Ultra". The feedback from the parameter value monitor seems to update my LED rings just fine even without defining the encoders as "Endless". The only edit I made to the BCR2000 preset No. 1 was to change the button I chose as the "Shift" button for the tutorial to use controller mode "Toggle Off" instead of the default value of "Toggle On". I tried several combinations of relative encoder modes along with the "Endless" "Accelerated" and "Reversed" Value parameters, and they worked okay to control strip controls but I had trouble getting them to work with ACT controls. (Turning an ACT control on the VST GUI with my mouse would change the LED ring and physical controller value, but turning the physical encoder on the BCR2000 would not update the ACT control on the GUI.) But using Absolute controllers with Direct Linear worked fine with both strip and ACT controls in the tutorial. I still have a LOT to learn, but I'm very excited about this control surface plug-in. Thank you for your efforts.
 
 
Is it possible to use your control surface plug-in to manipulate ProChannel effects and the QuadCurve EQ? (I haven't found a way to do that yet in my experiments.)
 
Thanks again,
Don
 
[Edited for spelling]

First of all, many thanks for the first detailed comment about my plug-in/tutorial. And the first bug report
 

dwcaldwell
 I tried several combinations of relative encoder modes along with the "Endless" "Accelerated" and "Reversed" Value parameters, and they worked okay to control strip controls but I had trouble getting them to work with ACT controls.

I could quickly reproduce that on one of my set-ups. So that should be a bug... I can not reproduce it now in my test/development environment, but I will try to understand and fix it once I am back at home.
 

  But using Absolute controllers with Direct Linear worked fine with both strip and ACT controls in the tutorial.

Does BCR change the reference value in that mode? I mean in case you change ACT context (focus another plug-in) and start to turn the knob, does the parameter "jumps" to the position where corresponding parameter was in the previous plug-in? Novation knobs do that, so there is effectively no difference between "Endless MIDI" and "Absolute" with monitoring, but I do not know about BCR behavior is such case.
 

I still have a LOT to learn, but I'm very excited about this control surface plug-in. Thank you for your efforts.

I also have a lot to learn in all directions, developing the plug-in has opened my eyes on what Control Surface is and what it is not. And I will be happy in case I can help other in that narrow area. I am "newbie" in everything else
 

Is it possible to use your control surface plug-in to manipulate ProChannel effects and the QuadCurve EQ? (I haven't found a way to do that yet in my experiments.)

A kind of yes. The corresponding action is called "Filter". Not only from Control Surfaces perspective, ProChannel is a new incarnation of the Filter concept. While some of the ideas match (only one EQ/Comp possible), other do not (the position of EQ was fixed in Filters and there was a fixed set of possible "modules"). And there are some bugs on SONAR side (see my comment in docs).
 
In practice, in case the strip is Selected/Highlighted/Current, ProChannel is shown and the module is "activated" (so it was at least "enabled" before with mouse), all delivered with X3pro Modules should be controllable. This (and most other features...) is not intensively tested.
 
Please note that ProChannel modules can be also controlled with ACT.
 
In the latest published API there is new focusing method. It is used by VS-x00 plug-ins (and most probably that is the reason why these devices reliably control EQ). But this method is not yet exposed in AZC.

azslow3

dwcaldwell
 I tried several combinations of relative encoder modes along with the "Endless" "Accelerated" and "Reversed" Value parameters, and they worked okay to control strip controls but I had trouble getting them to work with ACT controls.

I could quickly reproduce that on one of my set-ups. So that should be a bug... I can not reproduce it now in my test/development environment, but I will try to understand and fix it once I am back at home.

 
 
I'm not sure if it is a bug or not. I think endless encoders are intended to be used when there is no parameter feedback provided to the control surface so I have no problem with using Absolute/Direct with feedback. Secondly, this "bug" only happens on my system with certain plug-ins. When I configure my BCR/AZC to do endless encoders with parameter feedback, it works with strip controls and some plug-ins using ACT. It works with TRackS EQ73 and EQ81, for example. I can adjust an EQ73 control with either the BCR or with mouse and everything updates correctly. I can switch focus to the EQ81 and the BCR encoders' LED rings and values update to the proper parameter values for their associated EQ81 ACT rotary controls. This doesn't work with the Maaq EQ4 plug-in which was the one I used for my initial testing. With the BCR/AZC configured for endless with feedback, moving the encoder on the BCR does not change the Maaq EQ4 ACT rotary control. I will try to test some more common plug-ins when I have a chance.
 

azslow3

dwcaldwell
  But using Absolute controllers with Direct Linear worked fine with both strip and ACT controls in the tutorial.

Does BCR change the reference value in that mode? I mean in case you change ACT context (focus another plug-in) and start to turn the knob, does the parameter "jumps" to the position where corresponding parameter was in the previous plug-in? Novation knobs do that, so there is effectively no difference between "Endless MIDI" and "Absolute" with monitoring, but I do not know about BCR behavior is such case.

 
When I change ACT context between different plug-ins, the BCR encoders immediately change to reflect the parameter values of the focused plug-in. This is how it should behave, IMO. I don't have to turn a knob before it updates to the value of the focused plug-in.
 

azslow3

dwcaldwell
Is it possible to use your control surface plug-in to manipulate ProChannel effects and the QuadCurve EQ? (I haven't found a way to do that yet in my experiments.)

A kind of yes. The corresponding action is called "Filter". Not only from Control Surfaces perspective, ProChannel is a new incarnation of the Filter concept. While some of the ideas match (only one EQ/Comp possible), other do not (the position of EQ was fixed in Filters and there was a fixed set of possible "modules"). And there are some bugs on SONAR side (see my comment in docs).
 
In practice, in case the strip is Selected/Highlighted/Current, ProChannel is shown and the module is "activated" (so it was at least "enabled" before with mouse), all delivered with X3pro Modules should be controllable. This (and most other features...) is not intensively tested.
 
Please note that ProChannel modules can be also controlled with ACT.
 
In the latest published API there is new focusing method. It is used by VS-x00 plug-ins (and most probably that is the reason why these devices reliably control EQ). But this method is not yet exposed in AZC.

Thanks. I look forward to trying this.

dwcaldwell
I'm not sure if it is a bug or not. I think endless encoders are intended to be used when there is no parameter feedback provided to the control surface so I have no problem with using Absolute/Direct with feedback. Secondly, this "bug" only happens on my system with certain plug-ins.

My observation is the same: happens with several plug-ins and sometimes start to work after track automations... A bit strange. The reason - some granularity in mapping for value inside SONAR and/or plug-in. I wonder either Mackie device owners also observe it.
 
I have implemented some workaround ( in v0.2r6). It is not perfect, but should work.
 

dwcaldwell
When I change ACT context between different plug-ins, the BCR encoders immediately change to reflect the parameter values of the focused plug-in. This is how it should behave, IMO. I don't have to turn a knob before it updates to the value of the focused plug-in.

That is good. So you do not really need "endless" mode.
 

 
A combination of big expensive surface with free plug-in... that sounds interesting. Does it represent itself as MCU plus extender on different ports? If you by chance know technical details of some "native" mode, it could be better to use it directly instead of MCU compatibility.


What kind of "native" mode are you refering to? You mean the language the Nucleus speaks on its own before being converted to mackie for Sonar?
 
I need to setup a Mackie and an extender in order to have all 16 to work with the current mcu implementation. I guess I will need two instance of your plugin to have all channels recognized?
 
The Nucleus is programmed via a Java software that give access to quite a lot of parameters, including choosing to use Mackie, HUI or straight CC command, the later being one way only.
 
Depending on which template I use (Logic, cubase, protools, live, Studio One... well every existing daw but NOT Sonar...) I have access to different software commands, which trigger different functions.
 
Also, the Nucleus is connected via ethernet so IPmidi software is needed and this is what Sonar (or any daw) see.
 
Do you know which approach would be best?
 
And what is the "scientific" name of a "native mode"? I will ask SSL since they are very helpful with these kind of questions.
 
Thanks!