Request: Please Improve MackieControl Emulation

[Artist PM]

Originally Posted by amuntner

I emailed several DUC forum admins and posted on the Avid Facebook page more than once, still no response other than from similarly frustrated customers.

Hi Adam,

I apologize for the delay, but my responsibilities here are myriad and while they include working with the forums, we have moderators who are supposed to bring high profile issues to my attention. This request is better suited for Ideascale, where users can vote on features and we can prioritize them accordingly.

Our position is that we do support basic Mackie Control but advocate for applications to adopt EUCON, and we have a free SDK and support channel in place to assist with implementation.

The difficulty in deep integration is that each application implements Mackie Control a bit differently in terms of how we would map it to our surfaces. We have reached out to every audio and video content creation application to implement first class EUCON and continue to work with over 60 manufacturers to extend the reach of and improve the protocol.


John Haydon
Principal Product Manager

Avid
280 N Bernardo Ave
94043 Mountain View
United States Of America
[email protected]

t +1 (650) 237-1721

[amuntner]

Originally Posted by JC Haydon

Hi Adam,
Our position is that we do support basic Mackie Control but advocate for applications to adopt EUCON, and we have a free SDK and support channel in place to assist with implementation.

John,

Avid's web page still says, "Supports EUCON, HUI and Mackie Control protocols" (http://www.avid.com/US/products/Artist-Mix/features)

The difficulty in deep integration is that each application implements Mackie Control a bit differently in terms of how we would map it to our surfaces. We have reached out to every audio and video content creation application to implement first class EUCON and continue to work with over 60 manufacturers to extend the reach of and improve the protocol.

I appreciate your nuanced answer and wish this had been made more clear by Avid's promotion of the Artist Mix. I wouldn't have bought one.

If you take a look at the issues I described in the initial post again:

- 0 dB in the DAW places the fader between the 0 and 6 positions, not at 0.

- It's not possible to navigate the faders to control return channels or the Master channel.

- Only Channel 1 shows any VU-Meter. I believe the level shown reflects the Master meter: If I have audio on channel 2,3,4, etc, only, the Channel 1 vu-meter displays level, but no others.

- There doesn't appear to be any MIDI Learn mode

- Browsing configured plugins, using the knobs to control plugins, and controlling channel sends from Chan and Insert modes are not implemented.

- There is no way to Solo multiple channels at once, even using the computer keyboard. If I hit shift and use the mouse to set up Solo in my sequencer, I can solo more than one channel at once.

You'll see that these aren't issues with how any applications map on their side to Mackie Control, it has to to with large swaths of Mackie Control Protocol simply being unimplemented in Avid's implementation. Avid's MackieControl implementation doesn't map 0db to the point indicated on the screening of the Artist Mix. It doesn't implement vumeters. It doesn't implement midi mapping or controlling plugins.

The MIDI mappings for Mackie Control Protocol are well known. Here is a webpage with a list: http://home.comcast.net/~robbowers11/MCMap.htm
Even 2nd-tier controller manufacturers like Icon Digital and Behringer have figured this stuff out.

At the present I'm a very disappointed Avid customer.

[amuntner]

JC, I didn't know what Ideascale was, I found the forum and made a submission.

I've been getting pretty handy with Live's Python device scripting. If some of the issues I described are actually mapping issues, please let me know which ones and what the Eucon/MIDI Mapping expectations are and I'll see if I can patch the Live device script to work better with the Artist Mix and share the results on github.

For anyone who would like to see better MackieControl Protocol support so that they can use their Artist series controller with Live and other software, please vote for my Ideascale submission:

http://protools.ideascale.com/a/dtd/...on/122848-3779

Originally Posted by JC Haydon

Hi Adam,

I apologize for the delay, but my responsibilities here are myriad and while they include working with the forums, we have moderators who are supposed to bring high profile issues to my attention. This request is better suited for Ideascale, where users can vote on features and we can prioritize them accordingly.

Our position is that we do support basic Mackie Control but advocate for applications to adopt EUCON, and we have a free SDK and support channel in place to assist with implementation.

The difficulty in deep integration is that each application implements Mackie Control a bit differently in terms of how we would map it to our surfaces. We have reached out to every audio and video content creation application to implement first class EUCON and continue to work with over 60 manufacturers to extend the reach of and improve the protocol.


John Haydon
Principal Product Manager

Avid
280 N Bernardo Ave
94043 Mountain View
United States Of America
[email protected]

t +1 (650) 237-1721

[amuntner]

Bump

This has been the #1 Artist Series bug on Ideascale for several months.

http://protools.ideascale.com/a/idea...ussionID=12430

[amuntner]

Originally Posted by amuntner

Bump

This has been the #1 Artist Series bug on Ideascale for several months.

http://protools.ideascale.com/a/idea...ussionID=12430

bump.

[amuntner]

Bump.

http://protools.ideascale.com/a/dtd/...on/122848-3779

This is the second-most active bug on Ideascale for the Artist Mix.

The Avid website (http://www.avid.com/US/products/Artist-Mix/features) *still* explicitly says, "Supports EUCON, HUI and Mackie Control protocols."

There is no verbiage describing limited MCU functionality. The website lists Mackie Control in the same sentence as EUCON without any explanation that the level of support for EUCON and Mackie Control are not the same.

The problem is that Avid did not do a full implementation of Mackie Control protocol, even though they still advertise it.

I even left a link to the complete MIDI implementation for MCU, since it's not published by Mackie:
http://home.comcast.net/~robbowers11/MCMap.htm

All it would take to solve this problem would be to add the missing mappings, and sending the correct channel level output to the correct channel display.

Avid, please live up to what your website claims.

[amuntner]

Bump

Still the #2 bug on DUC even though the issue is a year and a half old.

http://protools.ideascale.com/a/dtd/...on/122848-3779

It was even written up to contain the technical data necessary to fix the bug.

The #1 issue is also over a year old with no attention paid to it, either.

Avid?

[amuntner]

Finally gave up and sold my Artist Mix. What a disappointing product and company. Avid, you lost a customer forever.