Wow, this IS embarrassing... it was all down to human error. 

 Funny how we can miss one minute detail and it can cause us hours of headache. 

When I checked my .ini file, I had failed to remove the old [EQ] and [Bus] parameters, so that is why the BCF was not controlling the PC correctly and some dials were moving in increments of on or off. 

 I was wondering why you have the pots assigned so randomly FBB, LOL. 

Anyway, came home changed the ini file and now.... WORKS. 

 Today, I won.... there are battles ahead but tonight I rest easy... 


Thanks again FBB, Appreciate all your help. may you always have bikes and fast ones at that. :)

 Also, looking at that site:  http://www.chrisboucher.c./cakewalk/mackiecontrol/   i kinda learnt how to create your own settings for any plug so I may have a bash at the Gliss EQ i've got or something else... let you know if i find something useful


It would be nice if there was a thread or page dedicated to parameters for 3rd party plugs that peeps had set up to add to their ini files.

Cheers FBB, 

 Irony is that now I have it working correctly I find that it is actually 1 million times faster to control the PC EQ with the mouse. 

 Currently it is, find bank on BCF with the desired EQ band gain control - boost, 

 then you want to sweep, so > change bank to find the sweep for that EQ etc etc... v slow. 

 LOL. 

but, I guess that is just the way you have set it out FBB, maybe that works better on the MCU. not sure. 

 Anyway, I can edit it so that the first band controls are all on one bank etc. So thats what I'll do. 

 Silver OUT.

Out of interest, has the most recent X1 patch fixed the mute arm enable bug?

Child

Considering that it took Cakewalk quite a bit of time to update it's own VS700 series with a new control surface driver and that the Prochannel controls appears upside down control wise shows that theres lots of work to do in that area.

Ok, I have now set up my BCF2000 MC .ini how I like it. First band controls all on one bank etc. 

 just wondering 1 thing. IS it possible to have a blank vpot? for example 

VPOT1=0, BLAH BLAH
VPOT2=1, BLAH BLAH
VPOT3= **BLANK*
ETC.

 Thing is, when I leave one blank so I can have a gap in the controls, it seems fine going up through the banks (in edit mode) but it seems to lose the last vpot control and then going back down the banks it shifts everything else back one place. 

Is it just a case that there are 27 parameters, and the mackieControl HAS to have the first 27 controls set as one for one. 

 Hope that makes sense? 

FastBikerBoy

SilverfoxUK


Ok, I have now set up my BCF2000 MC .ini how I like it. First band controls all on one bank etc. 

just wondering 1 thing. IS it possible to have a blank vpot? for example 

VPOT1=0, BLAH BLAH
VPOT2=1, BLAH BLAH
VPOT3= **BLANK*
ETC.

Thing is, when I leave one blank so I can have a gap in the controls, it seems fine going up through the banks (in edit mode) but it seems to lose the last vpot control and then going back down the banks it shifts everything else back one place. 

Is it just a case that there are 27 parameters, and the mackieControl HAS to have the first 27 controls set as one for one. 

Hope that makes sense? 

Short answer is I don't know.

My best guess though would be no. I think if you don't assign a parameter to a V-pot then it will automatically be assigned to one, whether you like it or not.

The reason I think that is if there is no assignment for a particular plugin in the ini file then the default behaviour is to assign the V-pots in the order in which the parameters are presented by Sonar.

I guess there's no harm in trying and see what happens.

You are right (no surprise there ;)


 Changing a vpot to blank or commenting it out only leads to problems. 


At first it seems ok, a blank vpot is there, however when you start 'Banking' across in edit mode on the BCF, you find that there is one parameter missing from the end bank (like blanking one out in the MackieControl.ini moves it along one vpot) and when banking back, ithe blank one is gone and it has just squashed up the parameters and deleted the blank vpot. quite strange. 


 I guess as you said, if you leave a blank, it is trying to assign it as it comes by default. 


Shame, because I want my banks to be nice and clean with each band on a bank. i.e. 


Vpots 0 - 7


Enable , Gloss , LF on/off , Q, Gain

Vpots 8 - 15

LMF on/off , Q, Gain

Vpots 16 - 

 HMF.....

you get the idea. I can live with it though. 

At least I have got all the bands controls for PC on one bank now, so I can actually use all the controls at once. Much nicer than using mouse!

 Maybe it will be useful for other BCF-ers. I'll post it up over the weekend.  

Wow, so you are saying that you can have blanks if you increase the amount of vpots?

 pretty sure i checked this already, maybe doesnt work on the BCF?

will give it another go!

Hey that's good to know, thanks Freex, I may find a use for that.

BTW I've also updated the other MCU thread with details of my MCU "bug" report.

I've just updated the first post in this thread to reflect all the changes I've made up to now.

I'm guessing several of you may already have fine tuned it to the way you like but if you haven't and you're as OCD about the Mackie as I seem to be, then the first post explains what to do......

Anyway.. the 'highlights' are.......

1. Pressing the EQ button for the third time now activates 6 bands, although only 4 respond to gain. The other two are the HPF & LPF control freq on the V-Pot, slope (M2 + VPot), on/off (M4 + VPot).

2. In single track mode M2 + VPot, Q or slope depending on control. M4 + Vpot all on/offs for parameters

3. The freq settings when pressing a V-Pot now default to the following.  LF = 48, LMF = 280, HMF = 1.60k, HF = 8.40k, HPF = 40 & LPF = 16 k. That puts them all in the centre of their respective graph areas (I said I was OCD about it).

I also fixed a couple of faults with my original where the slope controls on the buss compressor weren't behaving quite right.

Hope someone finds this useful and if I can appeal to any other MCU protocol users to put in a bug report for the various parts of the MCU that no longer work. A list of which ready to cut & paste can be found HERE.

Thanks

Only if it uses the mackie protocol. Obviously the MCU + MCU pro do and the BCF 2000 can. I'm sure other surfaces use it but I don't know specifics. Sorry.

To assign parameters to the faders/pots etc you need to look at the mappings, much as you have done before, they just need changing to suit the way the PC EQ parameters are presented to the surface.

For example the line

VPot0=5,freq,0.1267            ; LF Freq

just tells the Mackie that I want the first vpot to control the 5th parameter which in the case of the PC EQ is the Low Frequency band frequency.

Whatever changes you have made to your ini.file in the section that controls the "EQ Fader Mode" need adjusting to how you want the controls assigned. You can work out the parameter positions from the first post or alternatively comment out or delete the whole section and then when you switch to EQ mode you can see the actual default presentation order as the mackie sees them, start counting from 0 and work left to right.

I'm not in my studio ATM so can't check my ini file but when I get back in a few hours I'll have a quick look and post any more relevant info.

BCFView needs to be started before Sonar and you need to right click on GUI and assign the correct BCF MIDI port.

FastBikerBoy


Just another thought, make sure the line [track eq] just above the sonitus assignments is commented out or the mackie/bcf will assume sonitus is your default track eq.

Hi FBB,
Huh? The header look exactly the same for sonitus and for prochannel: [Track Eq]... If I quote your ini from the first page:
 
; For Sonitus EQ
;[Track Eq]
;PluginType=1
;NumVPots=21
;VPot0=4,freq,0.24  
...
;For Pro Channel EQ
[Track Eq]
PluginType=1
NumVPots=27
VPot0=5,freq,0.1267            ; LF Freq
 
So how can mackie/bcf distinguish between one and the other? I think I'll take your advise and remove all content from the Track Eq and then see what happens. Then I'll also know for shure which version of the mackiecontrol.ini file is actually loaded.
 
About bcfview... I do start it before sonar and right-click and select the bcf midi port. Still only a blue screen.
 
Thanks for the tips.
Arian.

 Hello all,
FastBikerBoy, thanks again. I've got it figured out.
There were a few problems working together to give me a hard time. 
1. BCFView didn't work. Don't know why, but re-downloading got it working. Now that I wasn't blind anymore I could at least see what I was doing. 
2. It seems to be that win7 somehow protects files in the program files folder. So if you edit something like mackiecontrol.ini it first copies the file to a location such as C:\Users\arian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Surfaces\ and in reality you'll be editting that file. I think that was what caused me to not see any changes I made. Running my text editor as admin did the trick. 
3. I wanted to change a few things in your example, but I edited the wrong section. Wasn't able to figure that out until 1 & 2 were solved. I figured out what I wanted to change by adding your ini example part by part. I have now found out that the faders in EQ-Fader mode are defined by the GainX statements and the rotaries in that mode are defined by CourseFreqX.
Is there any documentation on all the possible configuration options in mackiecontrol.ini. I know about this site (www.chrisboucher.com/cakewalk/mackiecontrol) but it is fairly limited in the options it details. 
I'll post my EQ parts of the mackiecontrol.ini:  Feel free to comment on anything that seems illogical, although the BCF2000 is now again doing exactly what I want it to do.  Arian.
---------------------
[Bus Eq]
PluginType=1
NumVPots=8
; E1. Mode:
VPot0=5,freq,0.1267               ; LF Freq
VPot2=10,freq,0.38205               ; LMF Freq
VPot4=14,freq,0.634               ; HMF Freq
VPot6=18,freq,0.8745               ; HF Freq
VPot1=6,spread,0.5               ; LF Q
VPot3=11,spread,0.5               ; LMF Q
VPot5=15,spread,0.5               ; HMF Q
VPot7=19,spread,0.5               ; HF Q
 
; These are the faders in faderEQ mode:
NumFreqBands=8
Gain0=4,boost/cut,0.5               ; LF Gain
Gain1=9,boost/cut,0.5               ; LMF Gain
Gain2=13,boost/cut,0.5               ; HMF Gain
Gain3=17,boost/cut,0.5               ; HF Gain
Gain4=25,freq,0.1005            ; HPF Freq
Gain5=26,spread,0.143,0.142855          ; HPF Slope
Gain6=23,spread,0.143,0.142855          ; LPF Slope
Gain7=22,freq,0.9677            ; LPF Freq
; These are the rotaries in faderEQ mode:
CourseFreq0=5,freq,0.1267              ; LF Freq
CourseFreq2=10,freq,0.38205              ; LMF Freq
CourseFreq4=14,freq,0.634              ; HMF Freq
CourseFreq6=18,freq,0.8745              ; HF Freq
CourseFreq1=6,spread,0.5              ; LF Q
CourseFreq3=11,spread,0.5              ; LMF Q
CourseFreq5=15,spread,0.5              ; HMF Q
CourseFreq7=19,spread,0.5              ; HF Q
[Track Eq]
PluginType=1
NumVPots=8
; E1. Mode:
VPot0=5,freq,0.1267               ; LF Freq
VPot2=10,freq,0.38205               ; LMF Freq
VPot4=14,freq,0.634               ; HMF Freq
VPot6=18,freq,0.8745               ; HF Freq
VPot1=6,spread,0.5               ; LF Q
VPot3=11,spread,0.5               ; LMF Q
VPot5=15,spread,0.5               ; HMF Q
VPot7=19,spread,0.5               ; HF Q
 
; These are the faders in faderEQ mode:
NumFreqBands=8
Gain0=4,boost/cut,0.5               ; LF Gain
Gain1=9,boost/cut,0.5               ; LMF Gain
Gain2=13,boost/cut,0.5               ; HMF Gain
Gain3=17,boost/cut,0.5               ; HF Gain
Gain4=25,freq,0.1005            ; HPF Freq
Gain5=26,spread,0.143,0.142855          ; HPF Slope
Gain6=23,spread,0.143,0.142855          ; LPF Slope
Gain7=22,freq,0.9677            ; LPF Freq
; These are the rotaries in faderEQ mode:
CourseFreq0=5,freq,0.1267              ; LF Freq
CourseFreq2=10,freq,0.38205              ; LMF Freq
CourseFreq4=14,freq,0.634              ; HMF Freq
CourseFreq6=18,freq,0.8745              ; HF Freq
CourseFreq1=6,spread,0.5              ; LF Q
CourseFreq3=11,spread,0.5              ; LMF Q
CourseFreq5=15,spread,0.5              ; HMF Q
CourseFreq7=19,spread,0.5              ; HF Q

AAAHHH! I was going nuts trying to get this to work in X2!! Then I tried it in X1 and it works perfectly. But nothing in X2. The PC Compressor values can be changed, but not the EQ. Is there any way to get the PC EQ working with X2? Thanks, Kevin Have MCU + XT + C4 ps. thanks so much for all your posts and your insight into MackieControl.ini

Hi guys!

Please do us a favour and put in problem reports on anything that doesn't work with the MCU because over in the VS-700 forum we are discussing identical problems (mainly ProChannel not controllable from control surface).

It looks like Cake hasn't had much time to work on that in the past year (which is OK as they came out with a very stable and cool version of X2), but now it's time we remind them again that there are people out there who don't just play around with the mouse, but have invested $$$ in one or several control surfaces and get no support for the latest and greatest Sonar advancements (the PC!).

Cheers.