Converting a D8B to a full fledged DAW Controller (w/o MIDI)

[FrankH]

I believe I can see the meters doing a short freeze

Noticed that too. It's not the video. Also noticed that Channel 1 is still ignoring its fader.

[Petersueco]

That's probably because Marc's board have the Stuck Fader Syndrome precisely in Fader 1

[Marc Girard]

Hey guys,

Yes, we do have some glitches going on... On that video, the whole board freezes every 3-4 seconds for a real short time (take a look at the SMPTE display, is does it too). We're working on that, I'm doing tests like a mad man to verify that everything works good.

As for the first fader not responding, Peter is right, my board has the stuck fader syndrome... I've bought some replacement faders (from a very kind board user should I add!) and I'm just too lazy to crack the board open and replace the god damn thing! It doesn't stop us from developing the d8b/MCU DAW bridge so, I'll replace it when I take the board into real production work.

Some of you asked for the right side buttons and plugin control. Adding switches (buttons) is easy, the problem lies with the MCU protocol, there's a limited number of commands we can implement as the protocol itself don't have much commands available. As for plugin control, I'm still thinking about it. I'm not a fan of tweaking knobs on a 2x40 VFD screen when we've got mouses and huge screens accessible to us on DAWs. I'm not saying "forget about it", it's not just a priority for now as the DAW is way more functional.

MG

[Axeman098]

Outstanding update Marc, THANK YOU!!! Been dying for some news! May I ask, does the Transport control functionality include the Jog wheel? Nice adjustment to bank switch 8 faders per bank, but can you select between that and 24 at a time like you showed before or is this a permanent change? Also, I noticed that you only Solo'ed 1 channel at a time. Am I assuming correctly, that more than 1 CAN be Solo'ed/Muted at a time? I ask, because I remember you saying that when Solo'd there must be commands sent to mute all other channels, and I was just curious if this was an issue?

Also, does the VFD always display what is shown, or can it show various parameter changes or Communication statuses? Right side buttons and plug-in controls would be nice, BUT.....I'd rather have the core functionality working solidly first. Perhaps the plug in functionality could be added in a later update. All *I* personally would like is basic, full 24 fader functionality and the channel buttons you've already been able to assign. I still cannot wait to get to play with this when it's released! WOOOOHOO!

[Badbass780]

Awesome update! So with this mod, is the Ethernet cable the only connect to the computer needed, or is it more to it than that? RS-232, Sony 9-Pin? HUI more controls mapped for this unit, are you going to pursue it's implementation?

[Marc Girard]

Hello again gang,

The transport will include the Jog wheel, for sure. We just didn't do it yet, it's an easy fix. I'm thinking about a way to implement both 8 and 24 fader back switch/scroll. The Mackie Control protocol only does 8 at the time (Bank Left/Right) so that's why our board scrolls 8 channels at the time. Though, nothing keeps me to do some sort of a combo key (say, SHIFT + BANK LEFT) and send 3 messages instead of one, resulting into a full 24 bank shift, I'll have to test it and put some thinking into this.

The Solo and Mute buttons are 100% working. I just didn't do more than one channel at the time in the video, be assured they're working fine. Frank fixed the "slowness" we had in the refresh of all channels.

The VFD will be addressed a little later. We got few ideas for it, showing the selected channel name to beginning with! Editing EQ and such or simply do the MCU behaviour is not ruled out. More on this topic later, we're working on the core now.

To answer Badbass's post, it's RS-232, we're using the "Console Port" data with a custom made serial wire. Please refer to earlier post in this thread to know the reasons why, it's all been documented.

Cheers,

MG

[Badbass780]

Thanks, Marc. Guess I better get innovative with cabling.

[Axeman098]

Thanks for the info Marc. GOD I am looking forward to playing with this!!!

[Marc Girard]

Hello all,

Just wanted to say that I'm working real hard at this project these days, I finally found what was the problem with the glitches and such, I'm an happy man! I'm coding another prototype (while Frank is writing/finishing is own software too) to test and see where are the potential problems. We found out a few quirks we had communicating with Windows' MIDI stack and threads. I'm real happy to report that now the communications are faster than ever, no more glitches and it's more stable too.

Frank and I came up with some ideas for the Green/Red dots (channel number LEDs). Since they're no use to us really (as a virtual board) we're gonna re-purpose them. What about having a special character in the channel name that would trigger those? Say, we put a "*" at the beginning of the channel name and the red dot lights up... A "+" would light up the green dot and a "|" would light up both. Why do you say? Well, Imagine putting a "+" on each drum channels and a "*" on vocals say. It'd be a great visual reference for mixing and such because you'd know just by looking at the board where your channels would be.

I'm also thinking about the VFD display section (EQ, Pots, etc). I think I might have found a solution. The VFD display could show half of the parameters instead of the full 8 requested by the MCU. There's some nice arrow buttons on the d8b, next to the V-Pots underneath the VFD display. We could use those to page left/right our parameters. I still have to put some thought and effort on that one, but if it works, we could edit pretty much anything on our hosts (EQs, Compressors, Plugins, Soft Synths, etc). That'd be awesome.

Now, we might push the emulators one notch more. I'm thinking of adding a 4th device to the software, let me explain: Right now, we're emulating 3 full MCUs (3 x 8 faders = 24). That's a given. The limitation we got is that there's many useful buttons on the d8b we'd like to use but there's no MCU command existing in the protocol for those! (Channel Read/Write Automation, Locators, Numbers, etc). The 4th device wouldn't be emulating an MCU at all, it would simply send simple MIDI messages when buttons are pressed. We would map those standard MIDI messages to our DAW and it would be a way to complement the missing MCU commands. I know that Nuendo/Cubase as a "Generic Device" remote controller that can do pretty much everything we can imagine, is that the case too in your favorite DAW?

Now, the project as a code name: DAW 8 Bridge. I might end up in "DAW8ridge", I don't know!

That's it for now, I'll keep you posted, as always...

Marc

[MOSHWITZ]

Sup?

So very very cool.

MOSHON
DAVE