I started to work on a d8b Bridge map for you guys to understand how the software will work. It's preliminary work still but you'll get the idea. It might not look like much, but most of the board is now mapped and working. I skipped a few buttons (Save, Save As, Shift, Option, Alt, etc) but fear not, they're working as expected.
The VFD section might look a bit complex, but you'll see in our next video that it makes a lot of sense in the workflow of things. I don't want to say too much here for now as we didn't test it enough but Frank has reported that the VFD section works and looks very nice!
Peter, I simply implemented the MCU buttons in their original order (as documented by Mackie). Once done, I'm gonna swap "EQ" and "Track" probably as it does make more sense. As for the other buttons, there's no implementation in the MCU protocol for those. As discussed before, I might do a 4th Generic MIDI Mapper to map those in Nuendo (Control Room, etc) but as of now, I'm concentrating on making all of the MCU functions ready for prime time.
Question: will the 3 emulated MCUs bank simultaneously with one push of the bank button or will they bank individually, depending on which one is selected? An example would be if I press bank, it banks from the first 24 to 48?
Simultaneous would be ideal but now that I think about it, and see your map, it looks like that may not be the case.
m33 wrote:Question: will the 3 emulated MCUs bank simultaneously with one push of the bank button or will they bank individually, depending on which one is selected? An example would be if I press bank, it banks from the first 24 to 48?
I'm not sure if I understand your question fully, but I'll try an answer. The Bank Left/Right scrolls the whole board 8 channels at the time (either Left of Right, depending on which button you are depressing). On Nuendo/Cubase, all MCUs are linked so only one keypress is needed to update the whole board. I can't speak for other hosts/DAWs but it wouldn't be very smart if it wouldn't work like this!
Thanks, Marc, that makes sense. I'm assuming it will work with Logic since the HUI protocol was practically built for it. Great progress. I'm already thinking of way to create some sort of overlay for the board using your mapping. Once you publish the final version, let me know. I have some ideas.
Here's the news! I finally got the time to go at Frank's and pickup my D8B to bring it back home. I replaced my 1st fader, unfortunately, it didn't fix my stucking fader problem. I guess it's got a deeper problem, I might have to find a replacement fader board. The good news is that doesn't keep me to work on the software.
As you guys probably already know, I did a complete re-write of D8B Bridge. Why? Because Java simply wasn't cutting it, we had bugs and it was a bit too slow to handle real time midi events. I want to take this occasion to say thanks to Frank for his efforts. He contributed lots to the project as he found a way to access the meter bridge that's really efficient and he's the one who found how the jog wheel works.
So I've spent a lot of time in the last few weeks rewriting the software, now it's a compiled program (native executable (.exe)) that runs super fast. It uses a minimum of CPU time and works wonders. The program eats up about 300Ks of disk space and about 2,100Ks of RAM. (Yes, you read right, I'm talking about KiloBytes here, not megs or gigs!).
I haven't been sending new videos in lately, the reason being that I had nothing new to show really, I was just reimplementing all the features we already had on the Java version of the software. (Faders, Pan, Meters, Transport, etc). I managed to optimize my new routines for maximum efficiency. That doesn't show on the video but the response time is quicker across the whole board, and it feels great! So, it might not look like much, but there's tons of new stuff in the rewrite...
Now, let's talk about the NEW stuff! You'll see in the NEW video that the VFD section if now fully active. You can view channels, edit EQs, plugins and Sends. It supports all 3 virtual MCUs too! I finally found a use for those little green leds! They're now showing the current active MCU on the VFD screen, very simple, yet useful. All the pots and buttons are correctly working underneath the VFD as well. You can either use the Pan pots or the VPots to edit your parameters, you choose... You'll see, it's all explained in the video.
The jog wheel is now fully functional. It's got three functions: Channel scrolling, Jog and Scrub. All shown in the new video as well.
Many more switches/buttons has been implemented too. Fader Flip, Loop, SMPTE View, VFD Params View, programmable User F-Keys, Channel and Bank scrolling, Read/Write Automation for all channels, Rude Solo Light, Global Views, Channel Editor... to name a few!
One more important point, I left the thing running all day yesterday. Just wanted to make sure that the whole system was stable. It ran without any problems for 7 hours straight. We still gotta put that thing to real life use, but I think the software is pretty stable as of now. That's good news to me and to you guys, we're getting real close to a beta test version!
Now, less talk, more rock, here's the new video showing all the advancements made in the last weeks:
As always, comments are welcome, thanks for watching and being so patient!
I'm blown away. I was hoping only for a semi-dumb box that did fader, mute, solo, track arm and pan. Since I've watched those faders moving smoothly and rhythmically, have I been hypnotized with a post hypnotic suggestion implanted by you?
This is waaaaaay more than I was expecting. Looks like this project has really taken a hold of you, Marc. THANKS.
Marc, it's clear you have put a lot of work into this. Great work, man. we are all super impressed. Looking forward to seeing how the beta goes and one day, for the mac version.
funny guy this Marc Girard. 
