# Motorized faders for CC automation



## artur (Jan 20, 2014)

does anyone know/use a fader controller where CC automation (CC1, CC11 mainly) works both ways so e.g. when u record your CC11 on a track and playback this then the fader moves itself reflecting recorded CC automation ? 

i have BCF2000 but that is not supported (only standard mackie control volume mixer faders support that in BCF 2000, very annoying) 

I need that to be able to refine a recorded CC automation by just grabbing a moving fader and changing CC while overwriting the previous take. without this function there are jumps in the CC automation when i overwrite in the middle of the part. 

or do you have a way around for this ?


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## stevetwist (Jan 20, 2014)

Hi 

I'm not sure about other DAWs, but in Cubase you can work around this by using track Quick Controls.

In brief:

* Assign a quick control to the MIDI CC you want to drive (e.g. CC1, or CC11). 

* Setup your control surface as a generic remote, specifically to drive the quick controls, and ensure that both MIDI in and out are set. This way, whatever value the quick controls currently reads will also be sent back out via MIDI to your control surface (allowing the motorized faders to reposition).


I was using a setup based on this for the past year, with some MIDI hacking to allow me to toggle my MCU pro faders between sending MIDI to Cubase over a virtual MIDI port for the MCU Pro, or over a second virtual MIDI port driving the Quick Controls. That way, I could press a button on my MCU pro and re-route the MIDI between controlling mixer faders and quick controls.

It was useful, but there's a pretty large shortcoming - your quick control data gets recorded as automation tracks, not MIDI Part CC data. So you have to convert it back and forth between automation data and MIDI Part CC data, depending on what you're doing. For me, this was too much of a compromise - and I didn't really feel that the motorized response of the faders actually helped me at all.

So, now I just use the MCU pro as a mixer control, and I use an iPad with Lemur as my MIDI CC controller.

Anyway, back to point, hopefully that helps if you're on Cubase. Perhaps other DAWs have a similar functionality?

Steve


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## MacQ (Jan 20, 2014)

I'm pretty confident that it's not possible, since the MIDI spec itself doesn't support anything like that. It's one of my biggest annoyances when it comes to writing MIDI automation.

That said, I just thought of a potential path to achieving it with custom software by sending the MIDI channel you've just recorded on to both your instrument and an external device or MIDI port which then multiplies the 7-bit integer by 8 to get to 10-bit for the Mackie protocol and drives the fader ... but that's really far beyond the scope of what most people want to tackle, and really requires that your DAW has MIDI sends capable of cloning that CC data to an external port. It's really more a project for someone who has lots of time and a lot of software development knowledge and skill.

But it does make me think ...


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## markwind (Jan 20, 2014)

If I understand your situation correctly, I believe you need to download other drivers for the BFC 2000, the standard drivers apparently don't let you configure your CC values for your faders. If you google it you should be able to work it out. 

I hope it helps


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## artur (Jan 20, 2014)

stevetwist @ Mon Jan 20 said:


> Hi
> 
> I'm not sure about other DAWs, but in Cubase you can work around this by using track Quick Controls.
> 
> ...



thanks Steve. im on Cubase and always been using Midi Part CC automation for CC1, CC11. 
- so what are some benefits of using MIDI Part CC automation over track CC automation ? 
- i also use Lemur template for Cubase but CC automation is so much more intuitive with a real fader (you dont need to look at Ipad when you want to "grab" and record CC automation) - how does this work for you ?


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## stevetwist (Jan 20, 2014)

For me, the "benefits" (which are a very personal preference) of using MIDI Part CC data are that you can edit the CC data in the key editor, with the notes above as reference, musically, as to what all that CC data is doing. In an automation lane I felt there was a lack of relationship between the location of the automation data, and the musical note is was affecting - sure, there are workarounds to this (like the in-place editor) but it's not quite as immediate as the Key Editor.

The next big drawback of automation lanes, for me, is that I don't like editing the data in the automation lanes. Sure, they offer most of the same tools as the CC lanes in the key editor, but I felt that they weren't quite as easy to use. Showing/hiding automation tracks, resizing them to make them a workable size etc., for me, at least, was cumbersome in the project view. Using the MIDI Key editor felt far more intuitive - plus you're only seeing the appropriate data, for the part you're editing.

Another disadvantage (there might be a workaround, but I couldn't find one), was with copying MIDI parts and moving them to different tracks etc.. With MIDI Part CC data, it's right there in the part. Move the part, it moves with it. Duplicate the part, you duplicate it. Move a part to a different track... well, you get the idea. With automation data it exists outside of the part, on a separate lane, so I ran into issues where the two would become disconnected - I'd move one and it would leave the other behind, or I'd duplicate a part and it wouldn't duplicate the automation data.

So, in my old workflow, I'd record all automation via quick controls into automation lanes, and immediately convert it into MIDI Part CC data. Then, if I ever needed the current performance to drive my MCU sliders, I'd convert it back to Automation data, modify it, and push it back to MIDI Part data.


One thing I REALLY liked about working with Quick Controls was that I'd setup each MIDI track to have 8 quick controls that made sense for whatever instrument I was currently driving. For example, I may have a slider for CC1 (Dynamics), CC2 (Non-Vibrato -> Vibrato), CC11 (Expression), Legato-speed etc., if the track was driving an instrument that supports those features. Another MIDI track, driving a different VI, would have a different set of controls, appropriate for that VI. It felt like a very organized, 'intelligent' system, only showing me CCs that were appropriate for the VI I was playing.

However, I ran into issues when record-enabling multiple tracks. The Quick Controls wouldn't drive all the tracks at the same time (perhaps this was user error, or a bug with Cubase 5.5 that has since been fixed - I only recently updated to 7.5 and haven't tested this since), so I couldn't record a pass at the keyboard and CC1 for Violins A, B and C, all in one go, for example. It would only drive the last selected track.

It was things like this, and the workflow hurdle of pushing the data back and forth between MIDI Part and Automation Lane, that made me search for a different solution. I saw a thread on here about Lemur/Touch OSC, and decided to put the family iPad to use on my music rig.

I've only just got it hooked up, and haven't played too much with it. My general 'idea' is to basically setup Lemur to have a variety of 'tabs' at the top, one per type of VI I use (e.g. LASS, Cinebrass etc.), with a variety of sliders for the appropriate CCs, as well as putting my keyswitches onto the iPad (and having them in an octave that's not available on my keyboard), freeing up some more real-estate on my keyboard.

Granted, you're probably right about the fact you need to look at the screen to find where to put your hand on the slider. There isn't that same 'tactile help' to guide you into location. That is slightly less desirable than using the MCU faders. However, personally, I'm probably only recording one CC at a time (I don't have the finger-/brain-coordination to record multiple)... most of my quick controls were actually setup to quickly set VI parameters, rather than just recording automation (turn on/off certain features of the VI, or set legato speed, for example - something you kind of set and forget), and Lemur works great for this.

So, I'm still slowly refining the setup (between everything else I try and find time for). I'm hoping to set Cubase up to use a MIDI send on every track, that when I want it will output the MIDI data back to the iPad, and cause Lemur to respond by automatically updating sliders - giving what you were wanting in your original post. I'm thinking a Project Logical preset may allow me to activate the MIDI send only on the currently selected track, and deactivate it on other tracks, so as to allow me to select which track updates Lemur... but, that's all at the conceptual stage right now, I haven't had chance to implement it.


Hopefully that didn't wander too far off topic for you. I tend to ramble.

Kind regards,
Steve


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## reddognoyz (Jan 20, 2014)

I have been trying to get MOTU to implement something like that for years! 

I'm using cc1 or 11 for dynamics on a good percentage of my vi's and I have to do it in the dark because there's no way currently to assign a motorized control surface to a cc other than 7 at this point.


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## Guy Rowland (Jan 20, 2014)

Like Steve, I useCubase's Quick Controls, but I use the Avid Artist Mix to control them, The beauty of this is that they have a display with your own meaningful names on them - port speed, vibrato etc. You can set Cubase's automation parameters so that the midi and automation lanes merge, in the settings somewhere.

On the other thread about the artist mix series, I bang on about how great it all is at some length.... love having real automated and named faders for everything.

(BTW for keyswitches I use a little Korg Nanokey, set to C-1).


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## FriFlo (Jan 20, 2014)

stevetwist @ Mon Jan 20 said:


> Hi
> 
> I'm not sure about other DAWs, but in Cubase you can work around this by using track Quick Controls.
> 
> ...


Exactly! I am waiting since ages for a company, that will finally support automation on CC with the editing of midi. Cubase seems closest, but it doesn't cut it for me either. Another drawback is that you are limited to 8 quick controls which is fine for many. Kontakt instruments, but not all of them. My dream would be an iPad surface that simply puts each midi channel selected on the screen with the current values of the selected tracks. It is so obvious how cool it would be, that I really don't get why nobody has done it ...


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## stevetwist (Jan 21, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Mon Jan 20 said:


> Like Steve, I useCubase's Quick Controls, but I use the Avid Artist Mix to control them, The beauty of this is that they have a display with your own meaningful names on them - port speed, vibrato etc.



I played around for a bit trying to get this to work on the MCU Pro (which also has an LED text display). I figured out, through trial and error, the MIDI SysEx messages to write characters to the screen, but I couldn't figure out how to get Cubase to output the track quick control names. Is there a special way (other than generic remote) to get it to do this? (I only tried this in version 5.5 of Cubase, so maybe it's something Steinberg added since?).

Cheers,
Steve


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## Will Blackburn (Feb 4, 2014)

Behringers just announced the spiritual successor to the BCF at Namm - with Motorized controllers included. Looks really nice.


http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/nam ... ers-592989


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