Hi, All,
recently i bought the finally released Behringer X-Touch (the “big boy”). A word about it. Compared to my old BCF2000, it’s amazing. The faders are smooth, no noisy motors (they are quiet, really). Touch sensitivity is perfect for correcting automation in touch mode. Buttons are soft, no click after every (hard) press. All important buttons on strips are visible and accesible without shift (mute, solo, rec). LCD on every strip is a “must have” feature. Now, i know every time what does the strip control :-).
Timecode display works with some issues. I use the SMPTE mode and when i move the playhead by mouse, the display shows old timestamp and when i start the transport, display shows wrong time. Switching to beats and back to SMPTE corrects this problem.
Another issue is with the LCD and db scale. Moving the fader displays correct db value. Releasing it and touching again displays incorrect value. For ex. - i move the fader to maximum, display shows 6.0 (correct). When i touch the fader again (not moving them), display shows 0.0 (wrong).
Moving the fader:
Sysex (15) = [f0 00 00 66 14 12 38 20 20 20 36 2e 30 20 f7]
(6.0) 36 hex is ‘6’
Touching the fader:
Sysex (15) = [f0 00 00 66 14 12 38 20 20 20 30 2e 30 20 f7]
(0.0) 30 hex is ‘0’
Those two issues are probably in Ardour, i think, X-Touch doesn’t do anything, it’s not “smart”. Or am i wrong? Has someone similar issues with another Mackie device?
Now a word about strange behavior of the meters. When level is higher then 0 dBFS, clip LED goes ON (correct). But, the latest LED before clip is off. I undertand why, because the meters in Ardour are (were) up to +6 dBFS. Nowadays, it’s not right. There is meter in Ardour up to 0 dBFS … I’ve patch.
Personally, i don’t undertand why meters are turned off when transport is stopped???
Now, the ideas. Firstly, i don’t undertand what selection of track in Ardour means. Usually in DAW or digital mixer, when i select strip, i can control special properties, as EQ, GATE, SEND etc. I know, in Ardour, there is no “standard” EQ, standard gate, send or insert in a strip. But there is for ex. automation control (Manual, Play, Touch, Write). Now it isn’t possible to control it from the surface. Unfortunatelly, it can’t be mapped in device profile. There is possible mapping like “rec enable track 1” (track 2 … track 17) bud there is no “rec enable in SELECTED track”. It’s my idea - control more parameters in selected track.
Maybe there can be a flag in plugins/sends/inserts like “this is a standard send”, meaning is it can be controlled from the surface. Maybe too crazy or too difficult.?
--- a/libs/surfaces/mackie/meter.cc +++ b/libs/surfaces/mackie/meter.cc @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ Meter::send_update (Surface& surface, float dB) /* we can use up to 13 segments */ - int segment = lrintf ((def/115.0) * 13.0); + int segment = lrintf ((def/105.0) * 13.0); surface.write (MidiByteArray (2, 0xd0, (id()<<4) | segment)); }
Petr