I tried to upgrade my Mackie Control to the latest firmware:

2.1.1 firmware upgrade:
http://www.mackie.com/products/mackiecontrol/upgrade_mcu.html

but it didn't work. Has anyone done this succesfully?

Nick

Do you have the Mackie Control or the Mackie Control Universal?
If you have the MC you can't upgrade to ver 2xx of the firmware, unless you replaced the old chips with the new ver 2 chips with the upgrade kit from Mackie. If you have the MCU then make you are using the proper tempo in Sonar to slow the stream to the Mackie down enough. If it is 100 bpm try 50 bpm.

Also unless you plan to use it with Pro Tools there is no need to upgrade.

Best
John

Hi John,

I've got the Mackie Control Universal. The reason for upgrading was that I also wanted to use it with CoolEdit and noticed that the latest update fixed some bugs.

I'll try the slower BPM as you suggested and see if that works, but I think the problem is something else. I've got things set up just as they describe in the Readme.txt file, but nothing appears to be transfering to the MC. When I activate the MIDI activity indicator in the task bar, I don't see any MIDI in or out activity. I've got the thing hooked up properly, because it works fine as a control surface with Sonar. I do remove MC as a control surface as instructed and set up the MIDI track as if I was hooking up a keyboard. However, I see no MIDI activity when I play the MIDI file. I must have some setting wrong. Does the type of data (I think is't SysEx data in the file) require any special setting in Sonar to be transmitted?

Thanks,

Nick

I could not get the update to work using Sonar midi I used Acid, worked great


1. Make sure your controller is plugged into the computer via MIDI and communicating with your preferred audio software application.

2. Disable the Mackie Control/Logic Control as a midi controller device in the control surface setup section of your audio software application.

3. Disable MTC, MMC, MIDI Clock, MIDI Metronome, or any other MIDI signals being sent by your DAW.


4. Import the MIDI file you just downloaded from the Mackie web site into your audio software application, and make sure the Mackie Control/Logic Control is the target midi device on channel one.

5. Turn off the power of the Mackie Control/Logic Control.

6. Hold down the REC RDY buttons on channels 1 and 2 and the SELECT button on channel 1 as you turn the power on. This will put the Mackie Control/Logic Control into the Boot Loader Mode.

7. Once in the Boot Loader Mode, simply play back the MIDI file in its entirety from your audio software application. While the MIDI file is playing, you should see a series of dots parade across the display. If you do not see the dancing dots, restart at step 1.

8. Once the MIDI file has played through to the end (you'll know when), hit STOP in your audio software application. The controller will restart automatically.

9. Select the desired mode of operation (Mackie Control or Logic Control).

10. Apply the appropriate overlay to the master section – you’re done.




If you want to change the operating modeat any time, here's what you need to do:

1. Turn off the power of the Mackie Control/Logic Control.

2. Hold down the SELECT buttons on channels 1 and 2 as you turn the power on. This will enter the Mackie Control/Logic Control Mode Selection Dialog on the display.

3. Select the desired mode of operation - Mackie Control or Logic Control (or HUI, if the Mackie Control Universal Upgrade was purchased and installed).

4. Apply the appropriate overlay to the master section – you’re done.




Once an operating mode has been selected, the controller will continue to boot up into that mode unless you choose to change the mode of operation as described above.

I used midiox to send the file http://www.midiox.com/, worked first time on my MC, XT and C4.

Chris.

Did you try the Sonar sysex editor to upload to the MC?

If the file is full of sysex data then Sonar will want to send it via the sysex editor but it won't if you do not use the proper port. In the sysex view there is a colum to the right for the ports. They are not named but are listed as 1 through how many have, If you have 4 ins and outs the ports will show as 1,2,3,4. To change the port you will click the port icon, there a drop down list will show the ports as above.

Best
John

Did you try the Sonar sysex editor to upload to the MC?

Hi John,

I searched the Sonar help file and couldn't any mention of the sysex editor.

I did tweak some additional options and managed to get the file to transmit to the Mackie with the following results:

First I booted up the Mackie, while pressing the REC/RDY buttons of ch1 and ch2 and the SELECT button of ch1.

This brought up the display:

- MACKIE CONTROL LOADER v2.0 -
Waiting for MIDI update...

Then when I started playing the MIDI update file, the MC display started showing "U1>" followed by a blinking square above an underscore character (top LHS of the display). The display did not change while the track played.

When the MIDI update file "Mackie Control Universal v2.1.2 Release.mid " finished playing, the same "U1>_" displayed on the display without any change.

I tried powering down and then powering back up and got a blank display and heard a relay clicking about once a second. Yikes!!! I've screwed up my MC!

Anybody run into this?

Nick

You can get to it from the view menu. On your search did you try SYSX as your search term?

Best
John

From the help file;


Using the System Exclusive View

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The System Exclusive view has a list box for a maximum of 256 Sysx banks, plus a toolbar of buttons. Most of the buttons affect whatever bank you have selected in the list. Certain buttons will be disabled if the selected bank is empty. To open the System Exclusive view, choose the Sysx command from the View menu, or click the Sysx view icon in the Views toolbar.

SONAR stores Sysx messages as either Sysx banks or Sysx data. The main difference is in the number of bytes in the message, and also that Sysx data is only visible in the Event List view as SysxData events. A Sysx data message can have up to 255 bytes in it. You can send Sysx data to an instrument without interrupting playback (depending on the speed of your computer and the number of bytes in the message), however, sending a Sysx bank stops playback until all of the Sysx bank is transmitted. Sysx banks are usually sent to your instrument when you load your work file. SONAR asks you each time you load a project file if you want to send any existing Sysx banks the file contains that are marked for auto-sending. Clicking the Auto Send Bank button in the Sysx view toolbar marks or unmarks a selected bank for auto-sending.For more information, see:

Best
John

Using the System Exclusive View

Thanks John. I'm starting to get to know the MIDI aspects of Sonar a little better with your help and some manual and help file reading.

The file from the Mackie site is a MIDI file with what appears to be embedded SYSEX data when I look at it in the Event List View.

I am able to transmit the data to the Mackie Control by playing the file (as instructed by the Mackie readme.txt file) and the Mackie does respond, although not as described in readme.txt file they provided. Also, I do see MIDI activity as I'm transmitting in the MIDI monitor that sits in the task bar. Unfortunately, I now have a totally unusable unit. When I power it up, it has a blank display and I hear a relay clicking and that's it. The only other thing I can get it to do is to come up in MACKIE CONTROL LOADER mode. Not good. Fortunately, I can still work with Sonar with mouse and keyboard, so I'm not out of commission, but I would like to get my MC working again. Any help or advice would be greatly apprecieated.

Nick