Multiple BFC2000s: will it work?

Installation & Configuration Linux
#1

Hi,

after reading this unsolved forum thread:

http://ardour.org/node/3628

I was wondering if it is possible to actually use more than one BCF2000 with linux/ardour, no matter if I use more than 1 MIDI port. Has anyone been succesfull with this?

Thanks
Alessio

#2

@seablade: ah, sorry, missed that one. then again, what is the point of logic mode when you’re going to use multiple bcfs? i mean, you’d probably have a static assignment with one control per parameter, and no switching around.
or you could use the banking features of the bcfs (of course, that is rather more tedious to assign than logic mode, but hopefully you only do it once).

#3

Sounds amazing!! A3 is gonna rock!! Hope it’s out before the works for my studio are over… though it’s gonna rock anyway even with A2…

#4

You are unable to ‘bank’ faders in the same way you can with the Logic mode, in A2 anyways. In A3 Paul has done some wonderful work rewriting the generic MIDI mode so that this is possible, and it looks MUCH more tempting as a result for when that gets released.

Seablade
#5

@nettings, but you are using it in generic MIDI mode, not in Logic Controller Emulation mode, which is what that thread was referring to.

The OP of that thread has contacted me via email since that thread got going and had been working on it with multiple BCFs in Logic mode, but it apparently does not work currently and getting it to work is going to be an undertaking.

   Seablade
#6

@ nettings, seablade

Thanks for your answers! Is the only downside of using generic MIDI mode the fact that you would be using one MIDI port for each unit? Or would you lose some functionality too?

#7

i have successfully used 3 bcfs and one bcr simultaneously:

all were connected to the host via usb. i started ardour, and while it was waiting in the “open session” dialog, i used qjackctl’s alsa midi connections dialog to connect them to ardour’s midi port. then the session was loaded, and all midi bindings were recreated correctly.
the only problem is that you must not unplug the controllers (or even reboot the machine), because then they may be assigned new midi port ids, and ardour might get confused restoring the mappings. i’m sure there is a solution to that somewhere, but since this was a temporary project (10 days), the machine just stayed on and i didn’t care much.