Control|24 and ProControl with Pro Tools 11?

[Hypothesis]

Well, exactly - if Avid/Digidesign has given up on it completely, why would they have anything against a group of enthusiasts writing a new driver for an obsolete piece of equipment, they aren't even supporting anymore, let alone selling.

If they are not supporting their customers - why would they object on customers solving their problems themselves?

It wouldn't be for a commercial purpose, just for individual use.

My idea was to simply record all the messages and logic that the device is sending, analyze the data, figure out what is what and how it works - and write a new driver that would convert that into something universal and freely available such as the HUI protocol....

[groundcontrol]

For them this is a pool of potential future upgrades...

[Hypothesis]

Originally Posted by groundcontrol

For them this is a pool of potential future upgrades...

In my experience with many different hardware companies (Digidesign included) - once they quit supporting a device - that's it, end of life - so I don't really believe it will ever become officially supported, hence - I don't believe it's in their pool of updates.

Once I come to think of it - this procedure of converting it to work with HUI wouldn't even be considered hacking - since it would just translate the received data into something else - we wouldn't temper with the device itself at all... We wouldn't be making any new device, nor selling anything - just converting the signal from a device we already purchased from Digidesign, so we can continue using it. To me this sounds perfectly reasonable, and having anything against it would just be mean and insensitive towards customers.

[AREED]

It is something i would pay for. I hope somebody smarter than me is working on something. Save these awesome controllers. Avid should be happy if we get them working. It could be alot of PT update money coming in for them. I don't think any of us would ever buy one of the new controllers considering what we are going through now. Avid should give up on thinking that. They would be smart to not stand in the way if someone gets these things working again. If anybody has any info that I am not aware of please message me.

[groundcontrol]

Originally Posted by groundcontrol

For them this is a pool of potential future upgrades...

In the sense that some will eventually upgrade to a current controller solution.

They did run an exchange program at some point (which was not necessarily an exceptional deal I'll admit).

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by groundcontrol

In the sense that some will eventually upgrade to a current controller solution.

They did run an exchange program at some point (which was not necessarily an exceptional deal I'll admit).

We meant that the "pool" of potential upgrades are for the software like from PT9/10 to PT12 and up as were there a driver delivered that worked with PT 11/12 and so on many many people would upgrade their old PT licenses in order to stay current but those people are stuck for now on the last version that works with Control24 and Pro Control (PT10). Also these people will look elsewhere for new Controllers in the future as these guys feel screwed by Avid, that number of dollars for the upgrades of controllers down the line is also left on the table and I can't see how thats a good business decision..

Avid would make a lot of money both in upgrades and if they decide to charge a few bucks to get the driver but Avid are leaving many hudreds of thousands if not Millions of dollars on the table by not writing these drivers.

[rathammer]

a funny thought just crossed my mind: Do you know Asterix? I start to feel like... well... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the roman empire. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium...

See. exactly. The roman empire does not even know that we are there, people! Occasionally they send some legionaries to this forum but Cesar has no clue!!

So let's stop complaining, start collecting some helmets: Personally I moved to Pyramix (always used it for mastering anyway) and Nuendo (way ahead of PT for game sound and movie sounddesign). Still keeping a copy of 10 to open and export client's projects.

bye bye pro tools. don't call us - we won't call you!

[Lizardpoint]

Hello all,
As a previous Control 24 owner, I feel all your pain.
Eventually after vowing not to give Avid another penny, I changed from PTHD 10.3.9 to HD Native 12.

I had the technology to reverse engineer the Control 24 and make it look like a C24. I owned a Control 24 and had access to a C24.

My plan was to use a PC with 2 ethernet ports to sit in between the Control 24 and the computer running pro tools 12.

It is only ethernet packets being sent and with ethernet monitoring software it would be possible to see what the Control 24 sends when you move the channel one fader, then see what the C24 sends when you move the channel one fader and write some code to change from one to the other and back again via this intermediate computer.

This way I would not fall foul of Digi/Avid's intellectual property rights as I had not interfered with their equipment.

I contacted Vicky Moreno (Avid's Customer Services person) and told her of my plan explaining it was a win win situation as existing Control 24 owners would then spend money upgrading to PT12.

The long and short of it is that Vicky was unable to confirm that Avid would not take legal action against me if I went ahead with my proposal.

I have now sold my Control 24 and run with a pair of Artist Mix and an Artist transport.

If someone wants to do it them selves its not hard.

1. Dowload Wireshark software.
2. Systematically go through every button, encoder and fader on your Control 24. Note the data each action generates.
3. Repeat same with a C24. Note the data each one generates.
4. Produce a table of the data (I suspect that as both used to work that there will be minor changes to the data headers only)
5. Find a clever programmer and get them to wite you some code to rede the data from one ethernet port, look it up in the table, then write the new data to another ethernet port.

I may be over simplifying things but I'm pretty sure you would get most if not all functions working.

Like I said, I'd have really liked to have done this but the threat of Avid's legal people on my case made it a non viable proposition.

Cheers

Lizardpoint

[bcwiz]

Originally Posted by Lizardpoint

Hello all,
As a previous Control 24 owner, I feel all your pain.
Eventually after vowing not to give Avid another penny, I changed from PTHD 10.3.9 to HD Native 12.

I had the technology to reverse engineer the Control 24 and make it look like a C24. I owned a Control 24 and had access to a C24.

My plan was to use a PC with 2 ethernet ports to sit in between the Control 24 and the computer running pro tools 12.

It is only ethernet packets being sent and with ethernet monitoring software it would be possible to see what the Control 24 sends when you move the channel one fader, then see what the C24 sends when you move the channel one fader and write some code to change from one to the other and back again via this intermediate computer.

This way I would not fall foul of Digi/Avid's intellectual property rights as I had not interfered with their equipment.

I contacted Vicky Moreno (Avid's Customer Services person) and told her of my plan explaining it was a win win situation as existing Control 24 owners would then spend money upgrading to PT12.

The long and short of it is that Vicky was unable to confirm that Avid would not take legal action against me if I went ahead with my proposal.

I have now sold my Control 24 and run with a pair of Artist Mix and an Artist transport.

If someone wants to do it them selves its not hard.

1. Dowload Wireshark software.
2. Systematically go through every button, encoder and fader on your Control 24. Note the data each action generates.
3. Repeat same with a C24. Note the data each one generates.
4. Produce a table of the data (I suspect that as both used to work that there will be minor changes to the data headers only)
5. Find a clever programmer and get them to wite you some code to rede the data from one ethernet port, look it up in the table, then write the new data to another ethernet port.

I may be over simplifying things but I'm pretty sure you would get most if not all functions working.

Like I said, I'd have really liked to have done this but the threat of Avid's legal people on my case made it a non viable proposition.

Cheers

Lizardpoint

I can see Avid not being happy if you were making money from a driver. If I had such a thing it would get released into the wild anonymously for all to use. On the Windows side I still think it's possible to run the 32 bit protocol 'out of process'. IT folks have done this when the source code is unavailable. Likely similar for Mac.
I must find some clever IT person...

[bcwiz]

There's only two things I want in PT11/12. The 64 bit performance boost and offline bounce. Don't give a crap about the rest. Avid did themselves and their customers a great disservice with the choice to brick these controllers. I went 15 months on the support/upgrade plan, waste of money. I did not renew and I will go out of my way not to buy any new Avid products.
really sux...