Is anyone here up to speed on Midibox / Ucapps?

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ruairioflaherty

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Title says it all. Anyone here who is familiar with what's possible?  Or maybe has built a midi controller, I find the forum somewhat impenetrable.

Thanks,
Ruairi
 
I've looked into it a few times with the grand plan of doing a 16 channel mixer / control interface for Cubase.  I've never got much past the initial investigations, and I think perhaps frightening myself with the cost of 16 x flying faders!

I don't know how much you've worked out already, but in essence there are a lot of different modules and you pick the modules to suit the application.  So you always need a core module (or more than one), then you add different modules for different jobs like MIDI control, control surface inputs, control surface outputs, LED arrays etc etc.

I get the impression that quite a lot of  hacking of existing code is required depending on what you want your project to do, and how different it is to what someone has done previously, so you have to be prepared to get your hands dirty.  The learning curve seems steep, and as you mentioned the forum and support network is not particularly healthy.

What are you planning?

 
I used midibox modules for basic midi mute automation on a 8 channels fader module.
That was pretty simple, just one core and one midi out digital out pcb modules


 
keefaz said:
I used midibox modules for basic midi mute automation on a 8 channels fader module.
That was pretty simple, just one core and one midi out pcb modules





And what did you end up connecting it to? A summing box?
I spent a bit of time researching the ucapps stuff and while many people in there built some pretty awesome controllers it seemed they already had a good understanding of midi, programming, and the various protocols involved and it certainly was out of my league.
Did you already have any experience building controllers? How much more advanced is the fader automation?
Thanks in advance
 
Rocinante said:
And what did you end up connecting it to? A summing box?
Yes exactly, for the moment it's connected to a passive summing box with API style gain make up preamp.
(I want to build more elaborated active summing box, but I am too busy at the moment)

I spent a bit of time researching the ucapps stuff and while many people in there built some pretty awesome controllers it seemed they already had a good understanding of midi, programming, and the various protocols involved and it certainly was out of my league.
Did you already have any experience building controllers? How much more advanced is the fader automation?
Thanks in advance
I had no experience building midi controler before, but my requirements were basic: 8 digital inputs (buttons) and 16 digital outputs (8  for ssm2402 mute chips and 8 for the leds of illuminated buttons)

I used the core with PIC18F452 chip, I see there are other core modules now. With the PIC18F452 core, you need to add various modules following your requirements, not sure about the other cores (maybe modules are already built-in?)

The documents are there but maybe ucapps.de navigation is not obvious ;)


 
Thanks Gents,

I appreciate the feedback.  I have a very specific project in mind and I'd love to hash it out with someone who knows the drill to tell me if it's possible in a meaningful way.

My full-time gig is mastering.  I'm a die hard minimalist when it comes to processing and I've settled on maybe 3 plug ins that I use regularly, I would love to build dedicated control surfaces for those plug ins - DMG Equilibrium, Compassion and maybe one other.

I work in Pro Tools which makes things hard but I'm considering the idea of using something like Apple MainStage as a plug in host to make midi/VST etc easier.  As long as I can save my settings for each song I'm happy.

I need to dig in and do some more reading, but time is short.

Thanks,
Ruairi
 
I know it isnt exactly diy but have you considered using a (cringe) bcr2000.
There's a pretty thorough yahoo group surrounding the bcf and bcr with a ton of member drivers and open source  software that's actually pretty cool.
The bcf's and bcr's are junk. But can be modified to become pretty useful controllers.
I took apart several bcfs and used various software created by different members and after a decent amount of tweaking i was able to control most of my favorite vsts. Equilibrium was one of them.
At any rate its an alternative. Its cheap and you get to take stuff apart  and theres a ton of info online. Adjusting the faders was necessary but the outcome was very acceptable.
 
ruairioflaherty said:
My full-time gig is mastering.  I'm a die hard minimalist when it comes to processing and I've settled on maybe 3 plug ins that I use regularly, I would love to build dedicated control surfaces for those plug ins - DMG Equilibrium, Compassion and maybe one other.

I work in Pro Tools which makes things hard but I'm considering the idea of using something like Apple MainStage as a plug in host to make midi/VST etc easier.  As long as I can save my settings for each song I'm happy.

I agree with Rociante that the Behringer BCR2000 may be a good option. Honestly I don't know how it'll interact with Pro Tools but as he said the user group would probably have information about it. I've used it with Nuendo and programmed it so that with  a push of a button I could have two pages each for the UAD Neve 88RS and SSL 4k channel strips, as well as the UAD Cambridge EQ. The only drawbacks are of course its lack of parameter read outs so you'd have to either print out an overlay or memorize it, as well as that you'll always have to pay attention to the host DAW and selected protocols. In my case I had a system crash and lost some Nuendo configuration files which nuked all my programming. That wasn't a fun experience. But the controller to me isn't junk, it's actually an excellent value considering its price.

I'm actually thinking that the worst part with Midibox is probably implementing motorized faders, and rotary encoders and buttons are probably waaaaay easier. I'm guessing you'll have to settle for a protocol and fortunately there's the Mackie one. But I can see how a custom controller based on Mackie for PT would be awesome for you. Certainly more time consuming and probably more expensive than a BCR, but arguably more ergonomic, better looking and more fun.
 
Great info guys thanks.  Will check out the Yahoo group.

My ultimate dream would be physical controls on a custom panel that elegantly control my 3 main plugs, which are then saved with PT sessions.  I think PT will be the sticking point but I can use another DAW as a processing rack of sorts if necessary, I bought Apple MainStage to experiment with that.

Cheers,
Ruairi

 
I use two bcf's with pt10 so yeah it can be done. That user group helped  me for vst control but after tweaking with them in Studio One i figured out how to make pt recognize them albeit in hui not mcu protocol.
I have a hybrid set up using a Soundcraft Ghost that i am slowly modifying with the faders flat and the two bcf's controling the tracks. So mostly the Ghost is for routing hardware and the occasional eq.  I'm too lazy these days, too dependent on plug ins, and need recall.
I may slim down but for now its good.
 
ruairioflaherty said:
Great info guys thanks.  Will check out the Yahoo group.

My ultimate dream would be physical controls on a custom panel that elegantly control my 3 main plugs, which are then saved with PT sessions.  I think PT will be the sticking point but I can use another DAW as a processing rack of sorts if necessary, I bought Apple MainStage to experiment with that.

Cheers,
Ruairi
I'm definitely interested in this so keep us updated. Having a customized vst controller would be the bees knees.  Especially if it can do three plug-ins simultaneously.
 
Rocinante said:
ruairioflaherty said:
Great info guys thanks.  Will check out the Yahoo group.

My ultimate dream would be physical controls on a custom panel that elegantly control my 3 main plugs, which are then saved with PT sessions.  I think PT will be the sticking point but I can use another DAW as a processing rack of sorts if necessary, I bought Apple MainStage to experiment with that.

Cheers,
Ruairi
I'm definitely interested in this so keep us updated. Having a customized vst controller would be the bees knees.  Especially if it can do three plug-ins simultaneously.

Will do.  I'm not sure if what I want is even possible, hence my original post!  Ideally I'd love the dedicated hands on/eyes off convenience of hardware with saving of settings in my PT session as a bonus.
 

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