Topic: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

I use my Fireface UFX and TotalMix FX to do live broadcasting. I'd like a small fader bank and button collection to control and automate my most common moves. I do this on my laptop now, but I'd like to have a few knobs and faders instead.
I am NOT interested in the OSC iPad app for this (I have it, but don't want it for this application).
What is a small format controller that is compatible with my above setup? It could control the TotalMix FX software, or it could control the Fireface UFX directly - I don't really care.
I like the layout of the Avid Artist series stuff, but I understand that EUCON isn't supported by RME. Is anybody else using something like this?
TIA. Appreciate it.
Kelly.

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Even though EUCON is not supported, can I still use the MIDI control from the Avid Artist mix to control the RME stuff?

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Although I won't recommend purchasing it just to use with the UFX, you can use the Artist series with TotalMix FX.  Artist series controllers have a mackie emulation mode that works fine after you adjust the Eucon application settings.
Another cheaper option is the Behringer BCF2000 which works great in mackie emulation mode. You can plug it directly into the UFX midi ports and not have to worry about Ethernet configuration of the Eucon series.  It's quick to bank up/down to input,playback and output sections of totalmix.
The downside of both is you cannot easily select submixes.

If I were you, I'd wait for the RME iPad app and use that.

Studio: RME UFX PT11, Studio One 2.5, Waves, UAD..
Live: RME UFX, Octopre, Rodes, Shure

4

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

krazylain wrote:

Although I won't recommend purchasing it just to use with the UFX, you can use the Artist series with TotalMix FX.  Artist series controllers have a mackie emulation mode that works fine after you adjust the Eucon application settings.

Are you sure? When we tested that (more than a year ago) Euphonix checked the name of the exe file, did not have TotalMix FX in their whitelist, and so it didn't work (although it would do so as we confirmed by renaming our app). I never heard back from them if that problem was ever fixed on their side.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Thanks! Appreciate the info. Will something like the JL Cooper MCS 3000 or 3800 with the MIDI card installed control TotalmixFX directly?
Again- I love the iPad app, but in this circumstance I need mechanical faders and knobs. No OSC app based stuff.
Kelly

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

EUCON should work with old Totalmix plus Totalmix FX. Perhaps someone who is using Artist Mix will test the following workaround.

I tried only Euphonix/Avid Artist Transport with FF400 + FF UCX and MacOS 10.6.8 + 10.8.5. No Problems with FF400 if you install Totalmix in EUCON Preferences with protocol "MackieControl" MidiPort 1-4 and start EUCON System with "Start" Button below in EUCON Preferences. Totalmix FX is much more tricky to connect to Artist Controller. I think it is a "simple" issue with the Name because of buggy Eucon Drivers. Avid does not seem to be interested to solve this Problem. Interesting to see in EUCON Preferences the Difference of Names. Below Application Column you see "TotalmixFX", Path Column describes it as "/Applications/Totalmix.app" without the "FX". I am not an expert but i think this "little" Difference of Names causes the issue to not connect permanently to Totalmix FX. There was a similar Problem with Logic X that could be solved by only renaming an xml-File. TotalmixFX seems to be more complicated, manually renaming the xml-File does not work in this case.

For connecting an Artist-Controller with TotalMixFX i found an experimental Solution: To try it you have to do precisely the following steps.

- start RME-Hardware to start Totalmix FX in OSX
- go to EUCON Preferences and click the Startbutton. You see rotating grey E icon in top menu bar
- don't click anywhere in Finder and power on your Artist Controller. Foreground App should be "EuControl" (don't switch to another!). Icon animation will stop and icon goes black. Your controller is online. E.g. Artist Transport shows "00:00:00:00" in its Display
- again don't click anywhere but only activate the "Soft Keys" Button in EuControl Settings. Here you can select your desired Commands to assign to the Hardware Keys of the Controller. After finishing your setup don't forget to save with the "save"-Button
- Last important step: Click "Asign" Button in Main Menu of EuControl and assign your controller to TotalmixFX

Now your Controller should remain connected and work with TotalmixFX even if you switch to different Apps. Sure there are annoying limitations: When you leave "EuControl" Software to switch to another App, it is impossible to edit your Settings when using EUCON Commands (that contain all Mackie Commands), only Key Commands can be changed and edited. To reactivate EUCON editing you first have to power off Artist Controller, then stop EuControl with "Stop" Button in EUCON Preferences, only quitting EuControl App does not work! After that repeat described Procedure. Only TotalmixFX can be used with your Artist Controller. No chance to switch between different Apps or even better different Hosts with different Apps. If you do this by unassigning EuControl from TotalMixFX you can't reconnect by selecting the Totalmix FX and again have to repeat the annoying Procedure.

The Concept of EuCon for me is the best of all "payable" Hardware Controllers (Price/Quality/Features). It's very disappointing to me, that there seems to be no Interest to solve driver issues to make it work much more stable and universal. Hardware is great, software is Beta - not finished. It would be a great chance for both RME AND Avid, if they could cooperate to optimize Communication and Functions for their excellent Hardware. Artist Transport alone could be an Advanced Remote Control DELUXE for all RME Systems, if only the Connection Problem would be solved and if there would be a way to get Jog Wheel work as an assignable Volume Fader for Master, Phones, Outs etc. (similar to the great assignably Jog Function in Logic) this would be the most efficient Controller on market (in my eyes ;-) But i am a realist, sure there are economical thoughts, that prevent this User friendly Development on both sides :'-/

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

We'll-
That Avid work-around sounds a bit experimental for my purpose. I like the Avid stuff, but not enough to do that much fiddling.
Anyone know about the JL Cooper stuff? Can it work from controller directly to the Fireface UFX unit? I assume I'd need my laptop to program it up, but once mapped, I should be able to go from JL cooper surface straight to the Fireface, no?
Kelly

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Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

loonypac - yes it is the internal program name that needs to be changed. We gave them all the details and all we got back was that we should implement the Eucon protocol. Quite ridiculous as the change on their side is less than a minute work, while the other one is weeks of work - time that we simply not have.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

MC: you are totally right. Avid seem to have its own weird Customer Philosophy. Many users deplore the development of an user friendly interface for the Artist Series in several Threads over the years. Nevertheless the Euphonix Conception for me is the most powerful and "open" one I could find while searching for Hardware Controllers, that are usable in very different workarounds - not only DAWs but all Apps that support Key-Shortcuts.

RME Hardware is also very powerful, not only in its conception of Hardware but also in its excellent Drivers and Interfaces. OSC as an integrated option for example is a very impressing and stable Helper. But there isn't any Hardware Controller that has OSC onboard (I did not find any).

It's really disappointing when you confirm the whole thing is a simple issue with a software name. Shame on you, Avid tongue

My Dream:

RME übernimmt Artist Serie, entwickelt vernünftige Treiber in ihrer bekannten und bewährten Tradition, integriert noch OSC und Midi und verkauft die besten bezahlbaren Allround-Hardwarecontroller, die der normalsterbliche Anwender jemals in dieser Welt gesehen und benutzt hat. Träume sind erlaubt wink

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Avid has historically been a very self-focused company IMHO. I'm not at all surprised they don't do a better job of integrating with non-Avid products. They, in fact, took forever to integrate ProTools and Media Composer. This Avid Artist Mix control surface is essentially a re-painted Euphonix piece with EUCON updates. Expecting them to immediately get it working on a whole host of hardware platforms seems hopeful at best.
That is not to say they don't make nice stuff. It just seems that Avid is slow to adopt non-Avid devices in favor of their own devices. And that, frankly is to be expected. ProTools was just able to use third party hardware a few years back. For years you were locked into at least one piece of their hardware.
I love the RME interfaces. They work for me. I need some physical buttons and knobs. I decided to just pick up an older MIDI controller and do things the old fashioned way. I don't have a ton of time to fool around making two things work together that don't want to work together. I'm a bit sad I can't play with the new hotness of an Artist Mix, but meh. I'm more focused on making my rig work and less focused on trying new things at this point.
I'll report back with my findings on the JL Cooper stuff working directly with the RME Fireface UFX.

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Wow - I actually have my Artist Mix and artist control working with my UFX for about 4 minutes... then I started responding to this post, and POOF - no more control.

It must be that they've fixed the app name problem... I'm going to dig around and see if I can't find any means of reliably reproducing a working environment. 

Stay tuned!

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Is it possible to get a behringer bcf2000 to activate the layout presets?
Thanks.
Craig.

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Hi,

Slightly different but related question... is it possible to use a control surface like BCF2000 to control the mix functions of the UFX *without* a computer connected, i.e. without the TotalMixFX software?

14

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Of course. Stand-Alone MIDI supports the Mackie protocol, as can be read in the manual.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

15 (edited by loonypac 2014-05-20 09:21:38)

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Interessting little statement from Avid [ http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?p=21 … ost2157472 ]:

… Our position is that we do support basic Mackie Control but advocate for applications to adopt EUCON, and we have a free SDK and support channel in place to assist with implementation.

The difficulty in deep integration is that each application implements Mackie Control a bit differently in terms of how we would map it to our surfaces. We have reached out to every audio and video content creation application to implement first class EUCON and continue to work with over 60 manufacturers to extend the reach of and improve the protocol.

John Haydon
Principal Product Manager

EUCON-Implementation seems not to be as difficult, but who knows this better than RME developers hmm
(Nevertheless it would be a great step forward in controlling Totalmix with Hardware Controllers like it was OSC to control it with Software-Controllers)

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

RME TOTALMIX MIDI CONTROL (midi channel, cc number, function)


CH1 CC 7 - MONITOR MAIN VOL



CH1 CC 16 - IN 1 PAN
CH1 CC 17 - IN 2 PAN
CH1 CC 18 - IN 3 PAN
CH1 CC 19 - IN 4 PAN
CH1 CC 20 - IN 5 PAN
CH1 cc 21 - IN 6 PAN
CH1 CC 22 - IN 7 PAN
CH1 CC 23 - IN 8 PAN

CH1 CC 102 - IN 1 VOL
CH1 CC 103 - IN 2 VOL
CH1 CC 104 - IN 3 VOL
CH1 CC 105 - IN 4 VOL
CH1 CC 106 - IN 5 VOL
CH1 CC 107 - IN 6 VOL
CH1 CC 108 - IN 7 VOL
CH1 CC 109 - IN 8 VOL
CH1 CC 110 - IN 9 VOL
CH1 CC 111 - IN 10 VOL
CH1 CC 112 - IN 11 VOL
CH1 CC 113 - IN 12 VOL
CH1 CC 114 - IN 13 VOL
CH1 CC 115 - IN 14 VOL
CH1 CC 116 - IN 15 VOL
CH1 CC 117 - IN 16 VOL

CH2 CC 102 - IN 17 VOL
CH2 CC 103 - IN 18 VOL

CH5 CC 102 - OUT 1 VOL
CH5 CC 103 - OUT 2 VOL
CH5 CC 104 - OUT 3 VOL
CH5 CC 105 - OUT 4 VOL
CH5 CC 106 - OUT 5 VOL
CH5 CC 107 - OUT 6 VOL
CH5 CC 108 - OUT 7 VOL
CH5 CC 109 - OUT 8 VOL
CH5 CC 110 - OUT 9 VOL
CH5 CC 111 - OUT 10 VOL
CH5 CC 112 - OUT 11 VOL
CH5 CC 113 - OUT 12 VOL
CH5 CC 114 - OUT 13 VOL
CH5 CC 115 - OUT 14 VOL
CH5 CC 116 - OUT 15 VOL
CH5 CC 117 - OUT 16 VOL

CH6 CC 102 - OUT 17 VOL
CH6 CC 103 - OUT 18 VOL

CH9 CC 102 - AN 1 VOL
CH9 CC 103 - AN 2 VOL
CH9 CC 104 - AN 3 VOL
CH9 CC 105 - AN 4 VOL
CH9 CC 106 - AN 5 VOL
CH9 CC 107 - AN 6 VOL
CH9 CC 108 - AN 7 VOL
CH9 CC 109 - AN 8 VOL
CH9 CC 110 - SP L VOL
CH9 CC 111 - SP R VOL
CH9 CC 112 - A 1 VOL
CH9 CC 113 - A 2 VOL
CH9 CC 114 - A 3 VOL
CH9 CC 115 - A 4 VOL
CH9 CC 116 - A 5 VOL
CH9 CC 117 - A 6 VOL

CH10 CC 102 - A 7 VOL
CH10 CC 103 - A 8 VOL
CH10 CC 104 - PH L VOL
CH10 CC 105 - PH R VOL

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Hi,

Do you know if Novation MIDI controllers, specifically the Launch Control is compatible with TotalMix. There's a section in the manual that states that you can control some aspects in the monitor section using controllers that don't necessarily follow Mackie protocol. Those include Talk Back, Dim, Mono and more. I Already tried using my CME 25 keys just to trouble shoot and it did work. The Launchcontrol however doesn't do anything. Even after setting it up with the editor.

Cheers

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Lemur and Ipad for me is fantastic.

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Hello everyone,

I dont want to use the ipad app either, I prefer the touch of real knobs. lol

My needs is mainly for volume faders and pans knobs. I like the design of the Icon M+ controller.
Does the purchase of one to go with the RME UCX looks like a good idea? Thank you all!

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

SemperEadem wrote:

Hello everyone,

I dont want to use the ipad app either, I prefer the touch of real knobs. lol

My needs is mainly for volume faders and pans knobs. I like the design of the Icon M+ controller.
Does the purchase of one to go with the RME UCX looks like a good idea? Thank you all!


Did you ever get your answer?

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Still works, I just installed it.

GREAT!!

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

HeAniganist wrote:

Still works, I just installed it.

GREAT!!


What did you install and how?

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

What’s the latest on this question?

We’re also looking for a hardware controller that can control TotalMix *without* a computer.

Are the behringer and old Mackie control surfaces with MIDI outputs the only option in 2020?

Eastwood Records
www.eastwoodrecords.co.uk

24

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Isn't that obvious? Adding the whole software TM FX with all supported protocols into the hardware's FPGA isn't possible. These units are not sold as stand-alone mixing desk. They are still audio interfaces.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

MC wrote:

Isn't that obvious? Adding the whole software TM FX with all supported protocols into the hardware's FPGA isn't possible. These units are not sold as stand-alone mixing desk. They are still audio interfaces.

I appreciate not all the controls will be available, but faders and pan pots would suffice.  RME interfaces would be ideal as reliable live mixers for classical concerts, so long as the computer is taken out of the equation!

Eastwood Records
www.eastwoodrecords.co.uk

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

I agree that a simple midi support for faders and pan would already be helpful. Standalone mixing capabilities is something which you can find and expect from a modern audio interface. digital mixers and audio interfaces are merging more and more.

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

MC wrote:

Isn't that obvious? Adding the whole software TM FX with all supported protocols into the hardware's FPGA isn't possible. These units are not sold as stand-alone mixing desk. They are still audio interfaces.

No, but they are advertised as, and have a section in the manual dedicated to, a standalone mode that is supposed to work once it has been configured with a connection to a computer running TotalMix FX.

As mjfe87 and hselters mention, faders and pan pots are the minimal controls that should *always* be available once the device has been configured and set to CC mode. These are called out in the manual as "implemented in hardware, thus available also in stand-alone mode" (section 28.6, p.86 of UCX manual).

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Ipad works fine in CC mode!

Re: Hardware control surface to use with TotalMix FX

Ipad works fine in CC mode!