Using the Mackie driver for MCU and BCF2000
Mackie support is available only for ardour 2.0 beta12 or newer.
This will walk you through the process of configuring and using Mackie
MCU, or a BCF2000 in
Logic
Control emulation mode.
Connecting Device
Make sure your surface is connected and you know which
/dev/snd/midi entry belongs to the device. You
can do this by saying cat /proc/asound/cards which
should result in something like
0 [EWS88MT ]: ICE1712 - TerraTec EWS88MT
TerraTec EWS88MT at 0x1140, irq 21
1 [VirMIDI ]: VirMIDI - VirMIDI
Virtual MIDI Card 1
2 [BCF2000 ]: USB-Audio - BCF2000
BEHRINGER BCF2000 at usb-0000:00:1a.1-1, full speed
in this case the BCF2000 is on /dev/snd/midiC2D0.
While ardour is not running, edit your
.ardour3/ardour.rc and add at the top, with the
other ports:
<MIDI-port tag="mcu" device="/dev/snd/midiC2D0" type="alsa/raw" mode="duplex"/>
If you have a BCF2000, and you'd like to use
BCF mode, you can also add
under the <Config> tag:
<Option name="mackie-emulation" value="bcf"/>
It is also possible to add MCU extenders, although this is untested
because nobody we know has access to one right now. To do this, add
the following lines to ~/.ardour3/ardour.rc
<MIDI-port tag="mcu_xt_1" device="/dev/snd/midiC3D0" type="alsa/raw" mode="duplex"/>
<MIDI-port tag="mcu_xt_2" device="/dev/snd/midiC4D0" type="alsa/raw" mode="duplex"/>
and so on, one for each of your extenders, up to a maximum of 9
extenders.
Connecting to Ardour
Start up ardour. Go to Options/Control Surfaces. You should see
"Mackie" as one of the menu items. Turn it on. The faders on the
surface should jump to the correct positions. The mackie should work
as normal, except that any buttons not on the BCF won't work.
BCF mode
7 of the 8 sliders are used as route sliders, the remaining
right-hand one is used for the master slider
certain buttons have been remapped from the default Behringer
settings, which required either both hands, or one-handed
contortions to do simple things like rec-enable or mute a track.
The display shows the number of the first switched-in bank or Ar
if the first bank is in place.
BCF mode bindings
BCF mode bindings
Strips 1-7
Master Strip
Buttons
pan / solo if pressed
transport
Making a pot pretend to be a shuttle wheel doesn't work
very well.
/ global solo
LCD display
mute
mute
shift 1
loop
shift 1: marker
shift 2: punch in
rec
session rec
shift 2
click
shift 2: punch out
slider
slider
rewind
ffwd
home
end
previous bank
shift 1: previous route
next bank
shift 1: next route
previous marker
next marker
stop
play