[RWP] considering purchasing the behringer BCF2000 controlsurface, but have a few questions

Tue May 7 17:39:46 EDT 2013

In its default mode, which I think is number 1, the Behringer BCF2000 
didn't seem to control Reaper tracks and such as much as it controlled 
parameters in VST synths I had loaded.
It was nice to control the attack and sustain, etcetera, of sounds in 
soft synths, though.

In sonar mode, I forget the number, 4 or 5, the BCF2000  definitely 
controls Reaper track volumes1 through 8  with its faders; then you 
press a shift button for track volumes 9 through 17, then shift again 
for a third set of tracks.
Pans per track are on the knobs at the top; and the 2 buttons below the 
knobs do something, I forget what, but you definitely get some control 
of Reaper right out of the box.
There's a YouTube with the BCF2000 set on Cubase mode, and when the guy 
  selected track 9 all the motorized faders automatically shifted to 
controltracks 9 through 17,and shifted again when he selected track 18.
I couldn't get mine to do that trick in Cubase mode, though, but it's no 
big deal to shift the faders manually to control the next 8 tracks with 
a button push.
The transport controls in the lower right corner work in Reaper, but 
rewind and fast forward just jump to beginning and end of the timeline; 
and don't work gradually, like I hoped they would.
I think it's easier to do record; play, and jog or move the cursor with 
the arrow keys from the qwerty keyboard than from the BCF2000 transport 
controls.
There are at least 3 or 4 mappings available in the Cockos Forums for 
the BCF2000 and Reaper, some incredibly complex.
Just google cockos reaper bcf2000 and you can download and try those 
mappings.
Itmight take  you longer to understand what the mappings are controlling 
with the BCF2000  than it'll take you to learn to run Reaper from the 
qwerty keyboard. smile.
Indi

On 5/7/2013 4:23 PM, Gordon Kent wrote:
> The only one I've gotten to work reliably is the frontier designs
> tranzport, which isn't really a surface.  Make sure the control midi
> input and output of whatever surface you are trying to use is set to
> control only in reaper. I may have gotten my alesis master control
> working, I don't remember, but it would have been with the mackie
> protycol.  I forget which mode I had to put the surface in, e.g. cubase,
> sonar, pro tools, etc.
> Gord
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Goldfinga Productions
> Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 1:40 PM
> To: Reapers Without Peepers
> Subject: Re: [RWP] considering purchasing the behringer BCF2000
> controlsurface, but have a few questions
>
> I have three control surfaces, none of them want to play friendly with
> reaper. Which control protocol should I be using? And then I'm going to
> have to figure out how to get each controller to activate that
> particular protocol.
>
> GF
>
>
>
> On May 7, 2013, at 9:02 AM, Patrick Perdue <patrick at pdaudio.net> wrote:
>
>> I don't have  a BCF2000 yet. I have a Korg NanoKotrol. To do what you
>> describe, you'd have to use two profiles from the controller itself,
>> one that acts as a standard control surface for track pan, level,
>> mute/solo/arm, transport, etc. and another that sends out a completely
>> different set of CC values for something like a generic button/knob
>> box for effects. Bad things happen if you try using the Nanokontrol to
>> manipulate effects when it's set up as a Mackie Universal Control
>> emulator, and I assume any other controller using the Mackie Universal
>> Control protocol would have similar issues. Unfortunately, the
>> NanoKontrol editor, necessary to make this a bit easier by creating
>> scenes on the controller's flash, thus making things a lot easier, is
>> 100% inaccessible. So, at the moment, the only way I can do this
>> reliably is to clear the settings on the controller, which defaults to
>> sending midi CC values starting at 1 all on channel 1, when I want to
>> use it for controlling effect
> s, then pressing the key combination to get it into "Sonar mode," or
> Mackie Control Universal mode, for actually acting as a control surface.
> What I eventually want to do is get something like a BCF2000, dedicate
> it for track stuff, then use the NanoKontrol as a dedicated box for
> controlling plugin parameters. Lots of people are doing this with the
> BCF2000 and a BCR2000, which is all rotary encoders and buttons, whereas
> the BCF2000 has flying faders. The BCR2000 has more available controls,
> but the Nanokontrol is a lot cheaper, and will serve just as well for my
> purposes.
>>
>> I am, however, frustrated by the lack of access to automation. Once
>> you've created envelope points, you're stuck with them, unless you can
>> still get to them in the undo history. If you can see, you can re-draw
>> envelope curves after they've been created, but with ReaAccess, not
>> much to be done. A fix was promised in the never to be released next
>> version of ReaAccess, of course, as well as a way to create, edit and
>> remove automation from a keyboard, without the need for a control
>> surface at all., I.E. the way JSonar does it. I have faked my way
>> around that by overlapping items with the same material, panning or
>> changing levels of each, then overlapping the items as necessary to
>> create envelopes, fades, linear panning, etc. without the use of a
>> control surface, and it does work, though it's pretty hacky.
>>
>> On 5/6/2013 10:06 PM, Jim Snowbarger wrote:
>>> This sounds like mapping surface controls to control the parameter of a
>>> particular effect on a particular track.
>>> IS that right?
>>>
>>> Suppose you wanted to assign some knob to the volume of a track, not an
>>> effect parameter.  How would you do that?
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex H." <linuxx64.bashsh at gmail.com>
>>> To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
>>> Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 8:33 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [RWP] considering purchasing the behringer BCF2000 control
>>> surface, but have a few questions
>>>
>>>
>>>> He means that in the FX window you can assign a parameter to a
>>>> button/pot using MIDI learn, and set up custom mappings to suit your
>>>> workflow.
>>>>
>>>> Alex
>>>>
>>>> On 5/6/13, Justin Thornton <drummer060891 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> what do you mean when you say "click on Param in the effects routing
>>>>> page"
>>>>> just a little confused
>>>>> On May 6, 2013, at 9:10 AM, Indigo <33indigo at charter.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> click on Param in the effects routing page
>>>>>
>>>>>
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