Hello, so I would like to buy this SSL UF8 (but I didn’t yet), and my plan would be to use it mainly in midi mode to send midi CC
the unit does have a midi mode, the issue is that it’s limited to 5 banks, and I need many more.
The obvious solution would be to use bome to create virtual banks.
I am left with 2 big issues, I need bome to switch banks using the track name in cubase. For exemple a condition like "if track name of selected track contain ‘Violins - BBC’ then activate preset x. y and z…
the second and biggest issue is that I need the text label of the lcd screen next to each fader to have a custom text based on the bank I am in. And I want to be able to manually choose each text label of each lcd screen
after chatting with chatgpt, he told me that somehow we can use bome as a middleware to
intercept the mcu messages of the unit, translate it into the desired midi cc, send it to cubase
send custom sysex messages to the unit with the correct text labels based on presets
intercept cubase messages for the unit to block all messages that normally cause the unit to update the text labels
Well if the SSL is receiving bank messages, you could use Bome MIDI Translator Pro virtual banks but the SSL probably uses the concept of banks to translate to multiple paramters. So a PC sent to Bome MIDI Translator Pro may need to result in a series of SysEx messages sent to the SSL for whatever parameters need to be set for a given bank. Essentially Bome MIDI Translator Pro translates incoming Bank change to a series of outgoing MIDI messages. It would likely take a while to do but would take some time to set up. You would have to know the underlying messages the SSL needs for each virtual bank change.
There is some limited pattern matching that can be done with Bome MIDI Translator Pro here. Instead of “wildcard” type parameters there would potentially need to be several patterns. that would be monitored for from the incoming message depending on the position certain characters are expected. For instance you could monitor for the letter v in the first character for that scripple strip and another translator that monitors for “v” in the second letter. You would need patterns for each possibility, each pattern having it’s own translator. Also capital “V” would be different than lower case “V”. On the outgoing message you could code in the letters that you need. There are 10 local variables to choose from so if you need more than 10 then you need to resort to global variable and watch out for collisions between different translators.
You would set up the outgoing message (goint to your SSL scribble strip) using variables (or hardcoded) ASCII characters to the label you would like displayed. Yes, this is possible.
As mentioned this is possible yet might take some time to set up. The biggest challenges will be:
The number of variables needed (if more than 10 characters) to avoid global variable collision
The complexity of the messages for virtual banks to go back to the SSL.
The number of patterns that may be needed to trigger the scribble strip display changes.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
well regarding switching bank in the ssl unit, what I had in mind wasn’t a real bank switch triggered by bome, instead staying within the same bank in the ssl unit, but converting each fader midi cc to a different one depending on the preset I choose to enable inside bome. I think this simplifies the concept of banks because I don’t need variables and the ssl unit doesn’t need to be aware of that
how to know the patterns needed to trigger the scribble strip display ? sending a message directly to the manufacturer ?
The format of what Mackie MCU uses for scribble strips is on page 105 (SysEx Header) and page 114 (Scribble strip) of the manual that you can download from here.
An incoming message might look like this:
F0 00 00 66 10 00 56 69 6F 6C 69 6E F7
F0 00 00 66 10 - Is the header
00 is the character postion for the start of scribble strip 1
56 69 6F 6C 69 6E is the ascii characters for "Violin"
F7 is the footer.
Now if all you cared about is the first character you could have an input pattern that looks like this.
F0 00 00 66 10 00 56 oo oo oo oo oo oo F7
Anything with a capital “V” on the first scribble strip that has 6 characters would be recognized. “oo” is a local (through away) variable in this case.
If the DAW sends long MIDI messages you would need to create patterns for every possibility of the incoming MIDI messages for each possibility.
If you want the whole word “Violin” then you could just use the same pattern as is sent by the host. (again with 6 characters in position 0 (strip 1).
If you want to send the text “Track 1” you would send this:
F0 00 00 66 10 00 54 72 61 63 6B 20 31 F7
For both input and output they would be set up as raw MIDI messages in Bome MIDI Translator Pro .
I hope this helps.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
Any translator with a desired pattern from Cubase would replace the Cubase output with your translator output (if the swallow option is chosen in your translator. You would not have Cubase send back to your controller directly. It would go back via a virtual port to Bome MIDI Translator Pro which would handle all processing back to your controller (either via translated message or pass through in absense of a translator with the desired input pattern).
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
2 questions, where to get a quote for a commissioned work and where can I learn myself all about sysex and mackie ? Would you recommend some books, courses or just the manual is enough (I doubt it)
´Thank you
Hi, I learned from the document that I shared with you. I know of no official courses or books on this. I’m happy to help you at my hourly rates as an independent consultant. Either email me or send me a Personal Message and I will give you my rates.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz