Mackie MCU Pro vs Behringer X-32 as a DAW controller

[chelgrian]

Has anyone used both the Mackie MCU Pro and a Behringer X-32 and can contrast them as DAW controllers?

 

The MCU Pro and Extender to get 16 faders would come in at around £1500, an X-32 comes in at £2250 but is also a 32 channel computer audio interface and rumour has it a digital mixing desk :)

 

I'd be using Logic Pro X if it makes a difference.

[OneEng]

The X32 can only use the 8 faders on the right for DAW automation.

[chelgrian]

The X32 can only use the 8 faders on the right for DAW automation.

 

Looking in to this it seems to be because the Mackie HUI and MCU protocols can only do 8 faders and the X32 only exposing one instance of the protocol. The MCU Pro + Extender works by simply having more than one connection to the DAW and the DAW knowing that it's really one logical surface.

 

The X-32 seems to be able to do control via OSC from all faders and someone wrote a sort of bridge back in February which translated OSC and emulated 6 HUIs at once however it never seems to have been finished.

 

In fact it's mostly the Logic Control protocol that was published by e-magic back in 2002, most hardware that emulates HUI seems to be doing it from this document plus some sysex snooping without a license from Mackie.

 

It might be possible to write a plugin for Logic Pro X to make it speak OSC directly, this kind of thing has certainly been done by the TouchOSC developer. However the documentation required to do so seems not to be public and he's coy about it on the Touch OSC forums.

 

So it appears that this is one of those situations where the hardware is being held back by politics and software licensing.

 

However I have to wonder if the was something in the settlement that resulting in Mackie (that is Loud Technologies) owning the Logic control protocol originally owned by emagic before Apple bought them that is now tieing Apple in legal knots.

[OneEng]

The X32 can only use the 8 faders on the right for DAW automation.

 

Looking in to this it seems to be because the Mackie HUI and MCU protocols can only do 8 faders and the X32 only exposing one instance of the protocol. The MCU Pro + Extender works by simply having more than one connection to the DAW and the DAW knowing that it's really one logical surface.

 

The X-32 seems to be able to do control via OSC from all faders and someone wrote a sort of bridge back in February which translated OSC and emulated 6 HUIs at once however it never seems to have been finished.

 

In fact it's mostly the Logic Control protocol that was published by e-magic back in 2002, most hardware that emulates HUI seems to be doing it from this document plus some sysex snooping without a license from Mackie.

 

It might be possible to write a plugin for Logic Pro X to make it speak OSC directly, this kind of thing has certainly been done by the TouchOSC developer. However the documentation required to do so seems not to be public and he's coy about it on the Touch OSC forums.

 

So it appears that this is one of those situations where the hardware is being held back by politics and software licensing.

 

However I have to wonder if the was something in the settlement that resulting in Mackie (that is Loud Technologies) owning the Logic control protocol originally owned by emagic before Apple bought them that is now tieing Apple in legal knots.

 

Very interesting. I didn't know why you could only use 8 faders on the X32, only that it was so.

 

So do mixers like Tascam who have much more complete control over software like ProTools use a proprietary (and therefore licensed) protocol?

 

 

 

[chelgrian]

Very interesting. I didn't know why you could only use 8 faders on the X32, only that it was so.

 

So do mixers like Tascam who have much more complete control over software like ProTools use a proprietary (and therefore licensed) protocol?

 

The Tascam appears to emulate multiple HUI controllers, it would need to emulate 4 of them in parallel to get the 24 fader automation that it provides. I'm not sure why the X-32 doesn't go down this route.

 

The ex-Euphonix surfaces (System 5 and Avid Artist series) connect to ProTools and some other DAWs using a proprietary protocol called EuCon, the Icon series seem to connect to ProTools with something Avid proprietary.

 

It appears that Logic doesn't have a public control surface API and it requires that you are able to connect that right person in the logic group inside Apple to get info and write something then they might distribute it with Logic.

 

All in all it's very unsatisfactory. You have a bunch of high end systems which are closed loop with protools and you have a proprietary low end system which is kind of defacto out there but limited and actually legally closed. You then have OSC as the new entrant but while much of the hard work has been done the final bits to make it useful seem to be missing.

[OneEng]

Very interesting. I didn't know why you could only use 8 faders on the X32, only that it was so.

 

So do mixers like Tascam who have much more complete control over software like ProTools use a proprietary (and therefore licensed) protocol?

 

The Tascam appears to emulate multiple HUI controllers, it would need to emulate 4 of them in parallel to get the 24 fader automation that it provides. I'm not sure why the X-32 doesn't go down this route.

 

The ex-Euphonix surfaces (System 5 and Avid Artist series) connect to ProTools and some other DAWs using a proprietary protocol called EuCon, the Icon series seem to connect to ProTools with something Avid proprietary.

 

It appears that Logic doesn't have a public control surface API and it requires that you are able to connect that right person in the logic group inside Apple to get info and write something then they might distribute it with Logic.

 

All in all it's very unsatisfactory. You have a bunch of high end systems which are closed loop with protools and you have a proprietary low end system which is kind of defacto out there but limited and actually legally closed. You then have OSC as the new entrant but while much of the hard work has been done the final bits to make it useful seem to be missing.

 

Thanks very much. It is always great when I can get so much useful information from someone who knows more than I do about sound ;)

 

 

 

[dbuckley]

The Tascam appears to emulate multiple HUI controllers, it would need to emulate 4 of them in parallel to get the 24 fader automation that it provides. I'm not sure why the X-32 doesn't go down this route.

 

Perhaps because no-one has asked for it yet?

[chelgrian]

The Tascam appears to emulate multiple HUI controllers, it would need to emulate 4 of them in parallel to get the 24 fader automation that it provides. I'm not sure why the X-32 doesn't go down this route.

 

Perhaps because no-one has asked for it yet?

 

Actually it has been asked for on soundforums.net which Behringer seem to monitor. The answer seems to be that the X32 doesn't yet support IP MIDI and order to do multiple HUIs it needs that as a pre-requisite. This seems to be a higher priority to get working (perhaps because it will then just work with a bunch of DAWs) than getting native OSC support in to DAWs which means persuading lots of different people to do lots of work.