manual/include/ssl-nucleus.html

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<p>
The Nucleus, from Solid State Logic, is a 16 fader Mackie Control
device that includes many buttons, separate meters, two LCD displays
and other features. The device is not cheap (around US$5000 at the
time of writing), and has some <a href="#design">design features</a>
(or lack thereof) which some Ardour developers find
questionable. Nevertheless, it is a very flexible device, and makes
a nice 16 fader surface without the need to somehow attach an
extender to your main surface.
</p>
<h2>Pre-configuring the Nucleus</h2>
<p>
Your Nucleus comes complete with a number of "profiles" for a few
well-known DAWs. At the time of writing it does not include one for
Ardour (or related products such as Harrison Mixbus).
</p>
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<p>
We have prepared a profile in which as many buttons as possible send
Mackie Control messages, which makes the device maximally useful
with Ardour (and Mixbus). You can
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download <a href="https://community.ardour.org/files/ArdourNucleusProfile.zip">the
profile</a>
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and load it to your Nucleus using the <code>Edit Profiles</code>
button in SSL's Nucleus Remote application. Be sure to select it for
the active DAW layer in order to make Ardour work as well as
possible. <em>Note: unfortunately, the Nucleus Remote application
only runs on OS X or Windows, so Linux users will need access to
another system to load the profile. We will provide notes on the
profile settings at a future time.</em>
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</p>
<h2>Connecting the Nucleus</h2>
<p>
Unlike most Mackie Control devices, the Nucleus uses an ethernet
connection to send and receive the MIDI messages that make up the
Mackie Control protocol. Specifically, it uses a technology called
"ipMIDI" which essentially "broadcasts" MIDI messages on a local
area network, so that any connected devices (computers, control
surfaces, tablets etc.) can participate.
</p>
<p>
All other DAWs so far that support the Nucleus have chosen to do so
by using a 3rd party MIDI driver called "ipMIDI", which creates a
number of "virtual" MIDI ports on your computer. You, the user,
tells the DAW which ports to connect to, and ipMIDI takes care of
the rest.
</p>
<p>
Ardour has builtin ipMIDI support, with no need of any 3rd party
packages, and no need to identify the "ports" to connect to in order
to communicate with the Nucleus. This makes setting it up a bit
easier than most other systems.
</p>
<p>
Unless &hellip; you already installed the ipMIDI driver in order to use
some other DAW with your Nucleus. If ipMIDI is configured to create
any "ports", it is not possible for Ardour's own ipMIDI support to
function. We decided to offer both methods of communicating with
your Nucleus. If you regularly use other DAWs, and appreciate having
ipMIDI permanently set up to communication with the Nucleus&mdash;that's
OK, you can tell Ardour to use the ipMIDI driver you already
have. But if you're not using other DAWs with the Nucleus (and thus
have not installed the ipMIDI driver), then you can ignore the
ipMIDI driver entirely, and let Ardour connect directly with no
configuration.
</p>
<h3>Connecting via Ardour's own ipMIDI support</h3>
<p class="alert alert-info">
This is usable only on computers with no 3rd party ipMIDI
driver software installed and configured. If you have the OS X or
Windows ipMIDI driver from nerds.de, it <strong>MUST</strong> be
configured to offer <strong>ZERO</strong> ports before using this
method.
</p>
<p>
Open <code>Preferences > Control Surfaces</code>. Ensure that the
Mackie protocol is enabled, then double-click on it to open the
Mackie Control setup dialog.
</p>
<p>
Ensure that the device selected is "SSL Nucleus". The dialog should
show a single numerical selector control below it, defining the
ipMIDI port number to use (it should almost always be left at the
default value of 21928).
</p>
<p>
Communication is automatically established with the Nucleus and you
need do nothing more.
</p>
<p>
If this does not work, then make sure your network cables are
properly connected, and that you are <strong>not</strong> running
other ipMIDI software on the computer.
</p>
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<h3>Connecting via 3rd party ipMIDI support</h3>
<p class="alert alert-info">
This is usable only on computers with 3rd party ipMIDI
driver software installed and configured for (at least) 2 ports.
</p>
<p>
Open <code>Preferences > Control Surfaces</code>. Ensure that the
Mackie protocol is enabled, then double-click on it to open the
Mackie Control setup dialog.
</p>
<p>
Ensure that the device selected is "SSL Nucleus (via platform MIDI)". The dialog should
show four combo/dropdown selectors, labelled (respectively):
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li><code>Main Surface receives via</code></li>
<li><code>Main Surface sends via</code></li>
<li><code>1st extender receives via</code></li>
<li><code>1st extender sends via</code></li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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You should choose "ipMIDI port 1", "ipMIDI port 1", "ipMIDI port 2"
and "ipMIDI port 2" for each of the 4 combo/dropdown selectors.
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</p>
<p>
Communication should be automatically established with the Nucleus.
</p>
<p>
If this does not work, then make sure your network cables are
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properly connected, and that you are running the appropriate ipMIDI
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driver and have configured it for 2 (or more) ports.
</p>
<h2><a name="design">Nucleus Design Discussion</a></h2>
<p>
You might be reading this part of the manual seeking some guidance
on whether the Nucleus would make a suitable control surface for
your workflows. We don't want to try to answer that question
definitively, since the real answer depends on the very specific
details of your workflow and situation, but we would like to point
out a number of design features of the Nucleus that might change
your opinion.
</p>
<h3>Cons</h3>
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<table class="dl">
<tr><th>No Master Faster</th>
<td>It is not possible to control the level of the Master bus or
Monitor section. Really don't know what SSL was thinking here.</td></tr>
<tr><th>No dedicated rec-enable buttons</th>
<td>You have to press the "Rec" button and convert the per-strip
"Select" buttons into rec-enables</td></tr>
<tr><th>No dedicated automation buttons</th>
<td>You have to press the "Auto" button and convert the first 4
vpots into 4 automation-related buttons, losing your current view
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of the session.</td></tr>
<tr><th>No buttons with Mackie-defined "Marker" functionality</th>
<td>Mackie's design intentions for the interoperation of the
Marker, rewind and ffwd buttons requires profile editing in order
to function properly.
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</td></tr>
<tr><th>No "Dyn" button</th>
<td>This is hard to assign in an edited profile. To be fair, other
Mackie Control devices also lack this button.
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</td></tr>
</table>
<h3>Pros</h3>
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<table class="dl">
<tr><th>Single cable connectivity</th>
<td>No need for multiple MIDI cables to get 16 faders</td></tr>
<tr><th>Broadcast connectivity</th>
<td>Connecting to multiple computers does not require recabling</td></tr>
<tr><th>16 faders from a single box</th>
<td>No need to figure out how to keep extenders together</td></tr>
<tr><th>Meters separated from displays</th>
<td>Contrast with the Mackie Control Universal Pro, where meters
interfere with the display
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</td></tr>
<tr><th>DAW profiles</th>
<td>Easy to flip profiles for use by different DAWs.</td></tr>
</table>
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<h3>Ambiguous</h3>
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<table class="dl">
<tr><th>Ability to make buttons generate USB keyboard events</th>
<td>The extent to which this is useful reflects the target DAWs
inability to manage all of its functionality via Mackie Control
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</td></tr>
<tr><th>Sophisticated "profile" editing</th>
<td>It is nice to be able to reassign the functionality of most
buttons, but this is only necessary because of the relatively few
global buttons on the surface.
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</td></tr>
<tr><th>Builtin analog signal path</th>
<td>SSL clearly expects users to route audio back from their
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computer via the Nucleus' own 2 channel output path, and maybe even
use the input path as well. They take up a significant amount of
surface space with the controls for this signal path, space that
could have been used for a master fader or more Mackie Control
buttons. The USB audio device requires a proprietary driver, so
Linux users can't use this, and OS X/Windows users will have to
install a device driver (very odd for a USB audio device these
days). The analog path also no doubt adds notable cost to the
Nucleus. There's nothing wrong with this feature for users that
don't already have a working analog/digital signal path for their
computers. But who is going to spend $5000 on a Nucleus that
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doesn't have this already?</td></tr>
</table>