Mackie d8b Control Surface

[RTPro]

Few questions..

The first one I think I know the answer to but I thought I would ask the brains on this board just incase.

I have a Mackie d8b (24 fader) mixing board with 5.1 software which includes the HUI layer. I have it connected via MIDI to my 002R. I can only use 1 group of 8 faders at one time and need to bank back and fourth if I have more than 8 tracks. Not the worst thing to deal with..but it would be nice to use all 24.

Has anyone that may have a simular setup as mine get all 24 faders operational at once?

I have read its a midi limitation so I was wondering if anyone has a workaround?

Just thought I would ask the question.

What is nice is that I have two sets of studio speakers that I have hooked into the d8b so I can toggle between monitors (main and near field). So I have the outputs from the 002R into the d8b so I also can also control the volume from the board which is great.

Also protools and the mackie seem to loose connection pretty often.. thats annoying. Any ideas?

Lastly, it seems if I have the mackie on as the control surface and I am using another MIDI contoller (say my korg trinity to trigger sampletank) through my midisport 2x2 protools locks up after a few mins. If I shut the d8b off as a control surface protools does not lock up but regardless the playback curser on the midi track kinda freezes and is jumpy. Not smooth scrolling like when working with just audio.

Its a little frustrating.

[RTPro]

huh.. Guess nobody has the same kinda setup....

[Joe Evans]

I don't personally know anyone that still uses this board, but I do know that the guys that I know that *did* have them never got around that limitation. That's a little confusing, but I think you get my meaning.

[Greg B]

The d8b will only do 8 channels of control because the HUI protocol does 8 channels per MIDI connection, and the d8b has one. It is a sad thing. And HUI doesn't support a master fader, at least, my d8b/PT connection doesn't.

One or two geniuses didn't use HUI but wrote MIDI maps to get 24 channels of mute, pan and fader, but that's several pay grades above me.

I've been doing d8b/PT/HUI for 1.5 years, and I don't recall losing connection.

I highly recommend against having ANY device on the MIDI channel that runs between the d8b and the 002R. It played hell with me as I slowly discovered that not every MIDI device passes every MIDI data, and MIDI devices can potentially do just about anything, some with choking and discarding data, and even some with intelligent "thinning" of data and "lag" adjustment.

So my d8b is one one MIDI channel and my KB controller and JV1010 are on the other.

On the bright side, the d8b has LED levels per channel, a VFD display for channel names, a couple of headphone outs, monitor A/B choices, and a built-in talkback mic. Those features put new controllers WAY up on price.