iLive MIDI control – experiences?

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  • 2010/07/16 at 6:34 am #22386
    Profile photo of BiggsoundsBiggsounds
    Participant

    Thought I’d open a new thread to discuss peoples experience with various MIDI controllers and the iLive – Stix of course has a Logic control environment with a Mackie Universal (thanks again for the great video Richard!), but I’m keen to hear what other experiences people have had with the system.
    I’ve had initial success with a Behringer BCR2000 surface interfacing directly to the midi inputs on the mixrack (programmed via midi learn to control fader levels, dca’s & mutes) & I’m experimenting with midi over LAN to use it at FOH.
    Open to ideas on how other people have used this aspect of the system?

    iDR32 mixrack
    Asus N61 Laptop (x2 wireless)
    Sennheiser IEM (for PFL)
    Dante card (soon!)

    2010/07/16 at 4:38 pm #25911
    Profile photo of StixStix
    Participant

    There are two things stopping midi being really useful with third party controllers and the iLive:

    1: No MIDI Fader/mute/DCA controller information is sent when a scene is recalled – So any MIDI device with moving faders etc won’t update. Thats why I made my Logic environment have it’s own scenes for fader/mute/DCA settings.

    2: You can’t interface MIDI directly with Editor software (you have to connect to either a mixrack or a surface MIDI I/O. This isn’t a major other than the cabling requirements – If Editor is running on a laptop at FOH (and no surface is used) and you want to use a midi controller you have to have MIDI in/Out connections all the way to the mixrack. This can be tricky as MIDi signals aren’t designed for long cable runs.

    One idea (already mentioned here somewhere) with iLive midi is the ability to record the midi data stream into a sequencer and then on playback you can have automated fades/crossfades etc over time. Just be wary of iLive scene recalls!

    Cheers

    Richard Howey
    Audio Dynamite Ltd
    IDR48/IDR16/T112/R72

    2010/07/17 at 11:49 am #25912
    Profile photo of BiggsoundsBiggsounds
    Participant

    Thanks Richard – you are definitely the authority on iLive and MIDI here I think! My main reason for chasing this is that I understand the MIDI spec will be broadened in future releases & therefore more useful functionality will be available in a cheap controller – great for those of us who don’t currently have the budget to go to a surface (although I appreciate I’m in the minority on the forum running without one)…
    I’m looking into all of those issues –
    1: the controller I have doesn’t have the moving faders, and it does support MIDI feedback so I’m looking at whether that’ll be an issue (in our initial tests using the MIDI controller did send the fader level to minimum, but seemingly not if you ‘activate’ the fader first by mousing over it and clicking as if to move – will check that again)… will do some more experimenting with changing scenes to check that.
    2: There are several open source/paid applications which will carry midi data over ethernet/LAN – we’ve found one that looks promising & will try it shortly with the WAN I’ve established (I run 2 laptops, 1 at FOH & the other at the rack, this second one is my redundancy as well as providing playback & USB to DMX lighting control, so I can run a midi interface at that end connected locally)
    Sounds like the biggest issue is the scene recalls, so that’ll be the next set of tests… more discoveries to follow!

    iDR32 mixrack
    Asus N61 Laptop (x2 wireless)
    Sennheiser IEM (for PFL)
    Dante card (soon!)

    2010/09/04 at 3:34 am #26270
    Profile photo of letmefixletmefix
    Participant

    So, do we have a way to let performers control their monitor mixes with Behringer BCF or BCR2000?

    I just checked 1.70 help and saw:

    ============================
    Mutes – Note On messages
    Levels – IP, Mix, FX, DCA – NRPN messages
    DCA assignments – NRPN messages
    IP to Main Mix assignments – NRPN messages
    Preamp Gain – NRPN and Pitch Bend messages
    Preamp Pad – Sysex message
    Preamp 48V – Sysex message
    Channel Name and Colour – Sysex message
    Scene recall – Bank select and Program Change messages
    ===========================

    In the “Levels” line it says “mix”, but that does not indicate you can manipulate mix content.
    Did anybody figure out this aspect?

    I wish A&H released an iMonitor app after iTweak.

    IDR32
    Motion computing LE1700
    Where is my DANTE & iMonitor?

    2010/09/04 at 7:27 am #26272
    Profile photo of BiggsoundsBiggsounds
    Participant

    I have a behringer BCR controller & am keen to investigate the new midi options in 1.7, have just been too busy! As soon as I get a chance I’ll test it & let you know… A friend has been researching midi over LAN & we’re close to a solution for sending control from FOH for laptop mixers too!

    iDR32 mixrack
    Asus N61 Laptop (x2 wireless)
    Sennheiser IEM (for PFL)
    Dante card (soon!)

    2010/09/05 at 1:59 am #26277
    Profile photo of StixStix
    Participant

    quote:

    Originally posted by letmefix

    In the “Levels” line it says “mix”, but that does not indicate you can manipulate mix content.
    Did anybody figure out this aspect?

    It just means that you can control any of the 32 Mix master levels(Faders). You can’t yet control what makes up each mix via MIDI – other than the main L/R mix channel levels.

    Cheers

    Richard Howey
    Audio Dynamite Ltd
    IDR48/IDR16/T112/R72

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