Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

Hi. 

I am using Ableton Live.

I have a BCF-2000 and i want the LED switches to light up and stay lit when i trigger a 
loop/clip and if i hit them again, the clip toggles off and the LED turns off. 

At the moment, this does happen but the LED turns off after 1 loop of the loop/clip. 

i want the light to remain on to show me the clip is on and if its off, i know the clip isnt 
playing. 

I have asked Behringer about this and they told me that i need to speak to ableton about this. 
The guys on the Ableton forums have recommended i come here and speak to you guys. . . 

If anyone has any advice i would very much appreciate this!

Cheers, Benji

Any ideas anyone?

Has no one else experience this problem.

I just want the LED light to stay on when i turn on a clip in Ableton and turn off when the 
clip is turned off. . .

Cheers, Ben :)


--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "apricotandpearjam" <apricotandpearjam@...> wrote:
>
> Hi. 
> 
> I am using Ableton Live.
> 
> I have a BCF-2000 and i want the LED switches to light up and stay lit when i trigger a 
> loop/clip and if i hit them again, the clip toggles off and the LED turns off. 
> 
> At the moment, this does happen but the LED turns off after 1 loop of the loop/clip. 
> 
> i want the light to remain on to show me the clip is on and if its off, i know the clip isnt 
> playing. 
> 
> I have asked Behringer about this and they told me that i need to speak to ableton about 
this. 
> The guys on the Ableton forums have recommended i come here and speak to you guys. 
. . 

> 
> If anyone has any advice i would very much appreciate this!
> 
> Cheers, Benji
>

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "apricotandpearjam"
<apricotandpearjam@...> wrote:
> I am using Ableton Live.
> I have a BCF-2000 and i want the LED switches to light up and stay
lit when i trigger a 
> loop/clip and if i hit them again, the clip toggles off and the LED
turns off. 
> At the moment, this does happen but the LED turns off after 1 loop
of the loop/clip. 
> i want the light to remain on to show me the clip is on and if its
off, i know the clip isnt 
> playing. 
> 
> I have asked Behringer about this and they told me that i need to
speak to ableton about this. 
> The guys on the Ableton forums have recommended i come here and
speak to you guys. . . 

I'm not an expert on Ableton Live, but I've been able to duplicate
your problem very easily - and couldn't find a way to solve it either.
In the Clip View of the Session View I've tried different settings for
"Launch Mode" (Trigger/Gate/Toggle/Repeat), but I haven't been able to
get the behaviour you're after: my impression is that Live ALWAYS
sends an "Off" message to the BCF2000 after the clip's first loop has
finished.

If you haven't done so already, you might look at the chapter called
"Launching Clips" in Ableton Live's pdf-manual for some additional
ideas on how to solve the problem (but at least I couldn't do it).

The BCF2000's behavior is very simple: the button's LED switches on
and off when the BCF receives the "On" and "Off" messages
(respectively) from Live - there's nothing the BCF can do about that.

By the way: I was using the Live's control surface "BCF2000", and the
BCF2000 itself in its "standard" mode. I don't know what setup you've
been using, but an alternative might be to set the BCF2000 in its
Mackie emulation mode and use Live's "Mackie" control surface
definition - but I can't see how that would change your particular
problem.

So all in all I agree with Behringer in this case: I think your
problem is only related to Live, and you should contact Ableton or
their forum about it.

Mark.

I have used my BCF with Live but in general not as a devise to trigger clips. (I have a monome for that) but I have played around with the BCF and Live.  I seem to remember things working properly (except that I had to push the button twice to get any responce) but I'll have to get back to you.    

----- Original Message ----
From: Mark van den Berg <markwinvdb@...>
To: bc2000@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2008 4:28:25 PM
Subject: [bc2000] Re: BCF-2000 L.E.D & Ableton Live Problems. . .


--- In bc2000@yahoogroups. com, "apricotandpearjam"
<apricotandpearjam@ ...> wrote:
> I am using Ableton Live.
> I have a BCF-2000 and i want the LED switches to light up and stay
lit when i trigger a 
> loop/clip and if i hit them again, the clip toggles off and the LED
turns off. 
> At the moment, this does happen but the LED turns off after 1 loop
of the loop/clip. 
> i want the light to remain on to show me the clip is on and if its
off, i know the clip isnt 
> playing. 
> 
> I have asked Behringer about this and they told me that i need to
speak to ableton about this. 
> The guys on the Ableton forums have recommended i come here and
speak to you guys. . . 

I'm not an expert on Ableton Live, but I've been able to duplicate
your problem very easily - and couldn't find a way to solve it either.
In the Clip View of the Session View I've tried different settings for
"Launch Mode" (Trigger/Gate/ Toggle/Repeat) , but I haven't been able to
get the behaviour you're after: my impression is that Live ALWAYS
sends an "Off" message to the BCF2000 after the clip's first loop has
finished.

If you haven't done so already, you might look at the chapter called
"Launching Clips" in Ableton Live's pdf-manual for some additional
ideas on how to solve the problem (but at least I couldn't do it).

The BCF2000's behavior is very simple: the button's LED switches on
and off when the BCF receives the "On" and "Off" messages
(respectively) from Live - there's nothing the BCF can do about that.

By the way: I was using the Live's control surface "BCF2000", and the
BCF2000 itself in its "standard" mode. I don't know what setup you've
been using, but an alternative might be to set the BCF2000 in its
Mackie emulation mode and use Live's "Mackie" control surface
definition - but I can't see how that would change your particular
problem.

So all in all I agree with Behringer in this case: I think your
problem is only related to Live, and you should contact Ableton or
their forum about it.

Mark.

Yea. I know this happens in normal mode but if you change the buttons to toggle off then 
you can just push them once to turn a clip on and off. The only tiny tiny problem is the 
fact that they just dont remain lit when a clip is on. Its as if live sends an off message to 
the behringer as soon as the clip has lapsed once. 

Its the smallest problem in the world but the most frustrating!

:)



--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, john carroll <keiodi@...> wrote:
>
> I have used my BCF with Live but in general not as a devise to trigger clips. (I have a 
monome for that) but I have played around with the BCF and Live.  I seem to remember 
things working properly (except that I had to push the button twice to get any responce) 
but I'll have to get back to you.    

> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Mark van den Berg <markwinvdb@...>
> To: bc2000@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2008 4:28:25 PM
> Subject: [bc2000] Re: BCF-2000 L.E.D & Ableton Live Problems. . .
> 
> 
> --- In bc2000@yahoogroups. com, "apricotandpearjam"
> <apricotandpearjam@ ...> wrote:
> > I am using Ableton Live.
> > I have a BCF-2000 and i want the LED switches to light up and stay
> lit when i trigger a 
> > loop/clip and if i hit them again, the clip toggles off and the LED
> turns off. 
> > At the moment, this does happen but the LED turns off after 1 loop
> of the loop/clip. 
> > i want the light to remain on to show me the clip is on and if its
> off, i know the clip isnt 
> > playing. 
> > 
> > I have asked Behringer about this and they told me that i need to
> speak to ableton about this. 
> > The guys on the Ableton forums have recommended i come here and
> speak to you guys. . . 
> 
> I'm not an expert on Ableton Live, but I've been able to duplicate
> your problem very easily - and couldn't find a way to solve it either.
> In the Clip View of the Session View I've tried different settings for
> "Launch Mode" (Trigger/Gate/ Toggle/Repeat) , but I haven't been able to
> get the behaviour you're after: my impression is that Live ALWAYS
> sends an "Off" message to the BCF2000 after the clip's first loop has
> finished.
> 
> If you haven't done so already, you might look at the chapter called
> "Launching Clips" in Ableton Live's pdf-manual for some additional
> ideas on how to solve the problem (but at least I couldn't do it).
> 
> The BCF2000's behavior is very simple: the button's LED switches on
> and off when the BCF receives the "On" and "Off" messages
> (respectively) from Live - there's nothing the BCF can do about that.
> 
> By the way: I was using the Live's control surface "BCF2000", and the
> BCF2000 itself in its "standard" mode. I don't know what setup you've
> been using, but an alternative might be to set the BCF2000 in its
> Mackie emulation mode and use Live's "Mackie" control surface
> definition - but I can't see how that would change your particular
> problem.
> 
> So all in all I agree with Behringer in this case: I think your
> problem is only related to Live, and you should contact Ableton or
> their forum about it.
> 
> Mark.
>

An update to my previous reply:

I've now tested the communication between Live and the BCF in detail,
by inserting a MIDI monitoring program between Live and the BCF, via
MIDI Yoke. (Actually the monitoring program I used was BC Manager,
employing two MIDI thrus; but you could also use MIDI-OX.)

Thus I've discovered that I was basically right in my previous
hypothesis that the main problem lies with Live rather than the BCF,
but it's a bit more complicated than I thought:

What typically happens when you try to control a looped clip in Live
from the BCF (in standard mode) is this (assuming the button uses MIDI
channel 1 and controller 1):

When you press the BCF button to start the clip, the button's LED goes
on and the BCF sends the MIDI message $B0 $01 $7F. This is a Control
Change message on MIDI channel 1 (cf. $B0) for controller 1 (cf. $01)
with value 127 (cf. $7F).

Upon reception of this message, Live immediately sends back $B0 $01
$7E(=126) to the BCF. I don't quite understand this, but probably this
is a Live-specific code meaning "preparing" or something.

A fraction of a second later, when the clip actually starts playing,
Live sends $B0 $01 $7F back to the BCF.

After that, whenever any subsequent (second, third etc.) loop starts,
Live sends $B0 $01 $01(=1). This is yet another Live-specific code,
probably indicating the start of the new loop.
In any case, unfortunately the BCF's "rounding off" policy (quite
sensible in itself) is to divide the defined button range (min=0;
max=127) into two subranges: any value below 64 is interpreted as
"off". Therefore, upon reception of the value "1" here, the LED goes
off. So this is the cause of your problem.

And when the loop is finally stopped (either via the BCF or the
mouse), Live sends $B0 $01 $7E (so another "code"!) and $B0 $01 $00.

As far as I know, it's impossible to change the BCF's "rounding off"
policy. It IS possible to set a different range (min and max), but I
haven't been able to think of a way that makes Live and the BCF
understand each other. I don't know MIDI-OX well enough: maybe you
could make it "swallow" the strange $01 and $7E values that Live
sends. It might also be possible to tweak Live, but I haven't found it
yet.

Mark.