They can be the same because Mackie MCU and Fire protocols are entirely different.
Here is a link to the manual I generally use for my Mackie MCU projects. I’ve found this to be the most reliable. Look at page 122. There are, however variants, on how vendors implement it.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
I’m not using any Fire protocol. I’m just using the MCU driver in FLS. Push button on the Fire, the message comes in, MTP translates it to one I set the same as these MCU maps, out to a port that FLS is set to MCU.
Your reference says ‘70’ for fader touch master. Tried that, nothing.
I think the “fader touches” rude solo etc. is just for output to a controller. Couldn’t think of what fader touch means, but that sounds like the motorized faders to me; maybe they are touch sensitive or something.
It’s cool I can do the /* move by bar hotkeys by using the MCU scrub. CC#60 and value 1 or 65.
That makes me think maybe the master mixer track is CC’s instead of notes.
I can move faders using the MCU pitch bend as well, except the “pick up mode” stops that from working. Not sure what values to send. Tried adding the min/max values together and dividing that by 127, which is 128 oddly. So absolute output 128 for down, -128 for up. Didn’t work though. It’s a mute point anyway, as you can link the FLS mixer faders to controller without MCU.
Can’t find master mixer mute/solo anywhere. Asked Image Line too. No response yet.
I went through every possible note when I made that map. I dunno.
Yes, fader touch is for motorized faders. It signals the DAW not to try to control the motorized fader while you are moving it. 90 70 7F is for master fader touche and 90 70 00 is for master fader release which lets the DAW know it can regain control.
Faders are then controlled by pitch bend which are 14 bit values. Some controllers use 10 bit. If you convert CC to pitch bend you need to scale it to 14 bits. Typically I just copy the 7 bit value into both the MSB and LSB so E8 7F 7F would be the maximum value and E8 00 00 would be the minimum value. I then prepend with touch and post pend with release so a full message for all the way up is 90 70 7F E8 7F 7F 90 70 00 and the smallest value would be 90 70 7F E8 00 00 90 70 00.
You wont find anything like that as there are no such commands with MCU for a master track. It is just all the way up or down or something in between with the fader. Likewise there is no select as the master is always selected and fed by the other tracks.
As far as take up, since you don’t have motorized faders, some DAW’s do not move them until you hit the last known crossover point by the DAW. Some DAWs allow for option to jump instead of takeup though but for me jumping can be abrasive and is usually not a good thing.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
I see.
No master track mute, solo, rec arm, select channel? Very odd.
The Mackie console has to be sending something; it isn’t sending magic.
Unless it doesn’t even have those buttons.
FL Studio recently made a pick up mode for MIDI links. It’s a God send.
One of the reasons I can proliferate so much custom things on my MIDI controllers, because of using virtual banks in MTP, and as you noted the mitigation of value jumps. Very nice.
Image Line got back to me with a MCU map which is the same one as yours. Oh well *sigh.
I found a few things in the meantime: F#6 deselect time selection. D#7 metronome.
The “VPots” are the mixer track pans, channels 1-8. Don’t know what “general purpose control” is. ?
I can only link up half the mixer pans (tracks 5-8) if I don’t find out what that is.
Well I guess this is because the Fire only has 4 encoders. They are relative encoders but a different method than most non-Mackie encoders use.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
I meant looking at that one map and I see this:
I know that “Controller 20” means CC#20. Don’t’ know what “Gen. purpose 1” is.
Yes, I don’t use this document. You can read about the purpose of VPOTs in the other document in which I provided a link.
V-POTS have different MCU functions depending on how you push other buttons. By default they are all PAN but there are other modes that make them behave differently. They can control plug-in select, sends, front-to-rear spacial sound, device selection etc. I could write a book about it but the other document I provided is already written. It is up to the DAW manufacture to determine if the want to use some of these functions for other purposes (and many do).
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
I was looking for what MTP output works. Didn’t think to consider the pattern that’s already there on the map, before asking (sorry about that). I tested it and the CC’s do follow the pattern. So track 1 VPot (FLS Pan) is CC#16. 2=17, 3=18, 4=19.
The Fire knobs are hardcoded to send relative messages and the MCU VPots do too.
But the Launch Control sends absolutes. So I will have to convert to relative, which will be annoying.
But I don’t even have to do that; just link to controller directly to FLS. Was just wondering.
Thanks again.
You probably have a choice. If you use Mackie MCU for the knobs then you will need to convert absolute to relative. If you use some other protocol that supports absolute you will not, however the other uses that FL Studio might have programmed for MCU may not work.
Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care
