I know (from reading the archives of the old fora) that the BCF2000 worked OK with older Cubase versions.
Any reason to believe it would not function well with C6? My first thought was that in the worst case scenario I could set it up as a generic remote, and just have C6 “learn” what the knobs and faders were for.
Thanks for any advice and thoughts!
(XP SP2 here, playing nicely with C6, so far …)
[Edit: Also - any thoughts on the Korg Nanocontrol in general would also be greatly appreciated. I’ve got few sheckels to spend and less desk space to spare, but am interested in something with knobs and sliders. Was going to use my behemothian Motif 8 (4 knobs, 4 sliders), putting it in front of my desk, but I couldn’t figure out where to put my computer keyboard - didn’t want to precariously perch it on the Motif keyboard!]
I use a BCF2000 with Cubase, it does what it is supposed to.
That series of Korg controllers has a plugin for Logic that allows it to do stuff it can’t do in Cubase. There is no such plugin for Cubase, that’s why it worked so nicely in Logic.
The post you referred to was not simply a suggestion, mr. france explained in detail how to import a generic remote preset file. There is no problem with the device.
The best way to deal with this stuff IMO is to buy the unit and learn. They all work using standard midi commands, be it BCF2000, these korg controllers or whatever. Once you get the hang of the basics it comes together, though it is a bit highly detailed.
I use Cubase with Nanokontrol without any problems, although sometimes Cubase seems to be unable to receive MIDI messages. In that case I create a MIDI track and I use as input, after that everything runs fine, normally.
I sold it a few days ago after using it for about 8 years (I now use this Hardware / Sound Cards / iCON QCon review - Espace Cubase , it is not yet available everywhere but is a very good alternative to the mackie control) but the BCF 2000 works without any problem with C6 in mackie emulation mode.
I use the BCF with C5 no reason why it wouldn’t work with C6, my advice though, if you’re planning to use it as a mixer control is just to put it into Mackie Emulation mode and leave it there, it just works and works fine, and you can take advantage really easily of the motorised faders. If you wanna control VSTis etc. then get also some other midi controller, I use four of the rotaries on my microKorg to control the first four Quick controls, and I have an old Hercules DJ Control for any other knobs and faders I might need.
I use both the BCF2000 and the Nanokontrol with Cubase 6.01 32 bit (on Vista 64 and W7 32) and they work absolutely fine together. I have not yet used the USB connextion for the Behringer, using the midi connections instead. I have just downloaded their new(ish) 64 bit usb driver so I’ll probably try this, but midi connections work fine. I use the BCF2000 in Mackie control emulation. I use the Nanokontrol sometimes with Stylus RMX.
There is a world of a difference using motorised faders: the BCF2000 has to be one of the bargains of the last ten years. You can’t use a non-motorised fader unit as a mixer unless you’re prepared to lose your mixes on your projects every time you open them.
Hi Steve - Thanks for writing. Can you explain what you mean by that last statement please, above and beyond that Cubase stores your mixer and automation settings every time you shut it down?
Let’s say you have an 8 track project you’re mixing with the Nanokontrol (as an example of a mixer with non-motorised faders). All works fine; you’ve got your tracks balanced as you want them. Save and close the project. Now, as long as you don’t move any of the fader positions on your Nanokontrol, the next time you open that project your hardware mixer will still be in perfect alignment with the Cubase screen mixer.
If, however, you’ve moved any of the hardware faders (say by working on another project, or by accidentally moving them), you now have a problem: when you open this project again the hardware faders and the on screen Cubase mixer faders are in different positions. As long as you don’t touch the hardware faders, you won’t change the Cubase mix that you’ve been carefully working on. As soon as you touch a hardware fader, however, your corresponding Cubase mixer track will leap to the new position represented by your hardware fader. You find yourself having to realign each and every track between hardware fader and Cubase mixer fader.
So, you CAN use a non-motorised hardware mixer, but without the ‘recall’ offered by motorised faders, you are at a serious workflow disadvantage. Additionally, if you automate any aspects of your mix by using the read and write functions, your hardware mixer will not move during the song like the Cubase mixer faders. Same problem: if you touch the hardware faders during this process, you mess up your read and write automation.
I bought the Nanokontrol to play about with mixing without a mouse but only used it once before getting the BCF2000.
OK, thanks Steve, I didn’t answer right away because I needed to read up a bit more and digest all that.
I guess for the reason you mentioned, non-motorized controllers like the NanoKontrol are great for lots of stuff, like controlling QuickControls, but not for mixing. Does that sound about right to you?
