This one looks pretty nice also.. anybody use this one yet: http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ur80.html On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 06:47:16 -0800 (PST), Jan Holst Jensen <jhje00(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

I think that has been done... looking at kernl 2.6.5-rc1 i find: <perex(a)suse.cz> ALSA CVS update - Clemens Ladisch <clemens(a)ladisch.de> USB generic driver - fix non-working control port on Roland U-8 - more port names - new MIDI quirks for Roland MMP-2, V-SYNTH, VariOS, FP-*, GI-20, BOSS GS-10, Edirol UR-80, PCR-A, PCR-1 So maybe its already done. On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 18:25:41 +0100 (MET), Clemens Ladisch <clemens(a)ladisch.de> wrote:

Hallo, Mario Lang hat gesagt: // Mario Lang wrote: There's not much info in that bug report. In fact, there's no valuable info at all. "lsusb -vv", dmesg or something like that would be very interesting to know. The Behringer not working in that case could have dozens of reasons. Ciao -- Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__ _ __latest track: fqdn _ http://footils.org/cms/show/38

Joe Hartley <jh(a)brainiac.com> writes: I use a BCF2000 as well, and I have to say, this is the best thing you get for such a price. I absolutely love it, and would even pay trice the money. There is nothing more useful than motorized faders, especially if you're blind like me. Its effectively a tactile display, 8x128, pretty cool! :-). I actually did things like "visualize" certain wave forms (like Sine and so on) using a specialized Class for the BCF I wrote for SuperCollider3. In the end, I added a "zoom" and "offset" rotary and set the first 3 buttons to switch between waveforms, and really had a perfectly cool tool for teaching blind people about continuus waveforms. And its damn fast, the reaction time of the motors is amazing. Its truly wonderful how one can "ab"use technology at times. :-) // Init MIDI and tell BCF about MidiOut MIDIClient.init; MIDIIn.connect(0, MIDIClient.sources.detect {|src| src.name.find("BCF2000").notNil }); BCF.midiOut=MIDIOut(0, 0); "aconnect 128:1 72:0".unixCmd; // Hack necessary to get midiOut working // View sin/cos/tan with variable resolution (knob 1) and offset (knob 2) (rotary group 1) // Use key 1 through 3 to change the waveform and key 4 to exit ( var sliders, resolution, offset, function, keys, draw; function=\sin; sliders=Array.fill(8, {|i|BCF(\slider, i+1, \bipolar)}); keys=Array.new.add(BCF(\key, 1, \midi, {function=\sin; draw.value})) .add(BCF(\key, 2, \midi, {function=\cos; draw.value})) .add(BCF(\key, 3, \midi, {function=\tan; draw.value})) .add(BCF(\key, 4, \midi, { resolution.free; offset.free; (keys++sliders).do{|bcf|bcf.free} })); resolution=BCF(\r1, 1, [8, 136, \lin, 1], { offset.spec=[ 0, resolution.value-8, \lin, 1, min(offset.value,resolution.value-8)]; draw.value }); draw={ sliders.do {|slider,i| slider.value = (pi*2/(resolution.value-1)*(i+offset.value)).perform(function) } }; offset=BCF(\r1, 2, [0, resolution.value-8, \lin, 1], {draw.value}); draw.value // Kick off ) The BCF class can be found at http://delysid.org/sc/BCF.sc (and JITLib support for BCF at http://delysid.org/sc/BCFProxyControl.sc). -- CYa, Mario

Eric Dantan Rzewnicki <rzewnickie(a)rfa.org> writes: Hmm, depends on the backpack :-), but its definitely transportable. Its not USB powered though, so you'll need power from somewhere. I wrote a little review at http://delysid.org/hardware/bcf2000.html -- CYa, Mario

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:08:54 -0500 Eric Dantan Rzewnicki <rzewnickie(a)rfa.org> wrote: They're 13" x 4" x 11.8" (330mm x 100mm x 300mm). They're relatively large to allow for the long-throw faders (100mm). They're also rather heavy - almost 6 lbs (2,6kg), which isn't goof for portability, but gives it a very rugged feel. -- ====================================================================== Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa

Jan Holst Jensen wrote: Just to complete this: I have a BCR2000 (rotary controls), and under Linux it worked out of the box. Plug an play. Under Win ´98, it is recognised as a new device, but refuses to work. Just my 2 EURO-cents. Klaus -- Dr. Klaus Kosten Am Ginsterberg 13 52477 Alsdorf

--- Clemens Ladisch <clemens(a)ladisch.de> wrote: Sounds bad :-(. So it's a question of total reverse-engineering of the protocol ? Well, now I have the gadget :-). I am already in trouble since the thing apparently does not output anything until it has a live USB connection. Stupid design IMHO, so I need some workaround so it will at least output digital SP/DIF or AES/EBU. Then I can route the digital audio into my EgoSys and record from there. Otherwise I cannot use it, not even under Windows (requires Windows XP and I only have Win2000). Sigh. Any good pointers to USB tools to monitor traffic and send commands ? I am a software engineer but have practically no experience with low-level USB protocol. -- Jan __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:18:13 -0500 Spencer Russell <Spencer.Russell(a)oberlin.edu> wrote: They mean that there's no hard stop at either end. When you turn to the left and get to zero, you can continue turning to the left infinitely, though it won't affect the value. -- ====================================================================== Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa

Frank Barknecht <fbar(a)footils.org> writes: Yes, it is, and I consider this behaviour the only sensible. For me, the other dials (those that wrap) are broken, and they are a serious accessibility hassle. -- CYa, Mario

On Tue, Mar 01, 2005 at 09:04:02AM -0500, Joe Hartley wrote: I think I would prefer the dial to send relative information as to what direction it's turning, so that you can have more than 127 different values controlled by one knob. It's not exceedingly difficult to take a wrapping controller and make it functionally the same, but if the encoder just stops at 0 and 127, it makes that impossible. I do agree, though, that the wrapping doesn't seem like a very good idea. -spencer

On Tue, Mar 01, 2005 at 10:21:51AM -0500, Joe Hartley wrote: Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was referring to what Frank said earlier about controllers that send MIDI 4 when turned to the left and MIDI 12 (or whatever numbers they use) when turned to the right. So lets say that I had a parameter that goes from 20 to 20,000. If my controller goes from 0 to 127, I have 128 steps of resolution, but if my controller sends relative information, then I have arbitrary resolution. I realize that this is completely useless for lots of standard DAW controller stuff, so I think that 0-127 should definently still be available, but the relative info can still be very usefull. I don't really understand where a wrapping controller would be advantageous, though. I use a midi controller to send messages to PD patches, where the range of parameters is much larger than 0-127. hope this clears things up, so that I don't appear to be saying silly things. :) -spencer

Hallo, Spencer Russell hat gesagt: // Spencer Russell wrote: Just to clear my words up a bit: I used the 4 and 12 as arbitrary example for value changes: Move the know 4 steps to the right, then you get a value of "+4", move it 12 steps to the left, then you get a value of "-12", move 100 left get "-100" and so on. Ciao -- Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__ _ __latest track: fqdn _ http://footils.org/cms/show/38

Mario Lang <mlang(a)delysid.org> writes: And here is real code to illustrate what I ment, tested, and works: ( var value, oldValue; value=0; oldValue=64; c=BCF(\r1, 1, [0,127,\lin,1,64], {|val| value = value + (val-oldValue); oldValue = val; if (val == 0) { c.value=(oldValue=2); } { if (val == 127) { c.value=(oldValue=125); } }; value.postln; }) ) And there you go, a software-based inifinite rotary. -- CYa, Mario

On Tue, Mar 01, 2005 at 05:34:38PM +0100, Mario Lang wrote: Oh, I hadn't thought of sending MIDI to the controller for anything but moving motorized faders. Thanks Mario. -spencer

Hallo, Mario Lang hat gesagt: // Mario Lang wrote: Of course I do not agree with you here. <grin> Why have an endless knob at all if it has ends and thus is not an endless knob? You could just as well use the standard knobs which stop physically at both ends or use a slider. The main advantage of an endless controller is to send endless data. You just need to keep track of how many revolutions you already did, which is very simple to do in SuperCollider or Pd, and then you are finally free from the terrible and unmusical restriction to value ranges from 0-127. If you want a controller which only can go from 0-127 just use non-endless controllers, but if I buy a controller hoping to provide infinite values and it just does not send these, then I consider this device "broken". Non-broken devices include the Doepfer Pocket Dial and the Contour Jog/Shuttle wheels. I own the Contour. It's not midi, but a USB-HID device and its wheel needs three rounds to go from 0 to 255. At the next round it starts again at 0. This wheel is intended to move a cursor inside a video or audio editor frame- or sample-wise. With the Behringer I could just move to sample 127 and that's it: no further movement possible. This is a really serious accessibility hassle. Ciao -- Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__ _ __latest track: fqdn _ http://footils.org/cms/show/38

Frank Barknecht &lt;fbar(a)footils.org&gt; writes: I've demonstrated already that it is quite simple to emulate endless rotaries in software. However, the wrapping problem is not that easy to overcome. Since I do not have visual feedback, I can not look at the rotaries current value and predict when I need to stop to turn the knob to prevent wrapping. The day that infinite wrapping dials were introduced in modern synths was the day accessibility died finally. Before that, we were able to remember certain settings by counting up from 0, or down from max value. That way, I was at least able to select a certain preset or something. But when they introduced those dials which when wrap at each end, this was finally impossible since you were forced to look at the LCD to determine the current value of something. Its sometimes the small suttle things that make a big difference. -- CYa, Mario

Frank Barknecht &lt;fbar(a)footils.org&gt; writes: No, not really. In fact, most controls in audio are actually bounded. If you choose a frequency for instance, it doesnt make sense to go -1000000 or whatever. Same for filter Q or other typical parameters. You mentioned transport control, which is a good candidate for endless data, but I dont need that actually. My point is, bounded data is much more common than infinite data, so IMHO, the default behavour of a knob should be to NOT wrap. I can always add simulated endless data later on. But by default, I personally prefer non-wrapping behaviour. Anyway, I guess it comes down to personal preference (and therefore customisability :-), and I am probably a bit biased since "wrapping knobs" is deeply hardwired in my brain to "unusable piece of hardware". Thats actually quite possible, I didn't really check. There is a wide variety of settings you can apply to the individual knobs and faders (making them send note on/off, MMC and so on), so it might as well be that you can enable wrapping for individual knobs. But since I cant see that LCD, I cant edit presets. And since their preset editor is Java, I cant use that either. Oh, isn't is a really charming world? Good point. Unfortunately, small markets are even less likely to care about these problems. As someone once said, 10 we are a 20 minority in a 30 GOTO 20 -- CYa, Mario

--- Dave Robillard &lt;drobilla(a)connect.carleton.ca&gt; wrote: Seems like we have to wait for that review to go online (you are referring to http://www.computermusic.co.uk I presume). Interesting - my guess is that they are griping about drivers. Hardware-wise it seems very sensible and sounds OK from what I've just tried (just got one today). Driver-wise you seem to be stuck with Behringers proprietary ones. At least it is not recognized as USB HID or audio class device under Windows 2000 :-/. -- Jan __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/