Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

Hi list,

I just got a BCR 2000 and while it mostly works as advertised I also
have some questions that I haven't found an answer for either here or
at Behringer's site.

First, My unit's display says 1.0.4 when I switch it on so I guess
that's the firmware version. I've found a sysex file which says
firmware 1.1.0. Is this the latest firmware? What are its advantages
over 1.0.4? Do I really install it by just uploading it to the unit
with SysEx Librarian (I'm on OS X)? There are no installation
instructions either at Behringer's site or in the documentation folder
of the files section. Can I damage my unit by doing something wrong?

Also, I've read somewhere that you can enable the four top right
buttons as midi controllers instead of using them for switching top
encoder banks. How do I do this with no editor available for OS X and
no possibility to do it on the hardware directly? What firmware is
required for this to work?

I've already read a lot of the documentation on BCL but all this info
is too specific. Please help me get a grip on this.

Cheers,
Axl

I'm new to the BCR so I don't know informative my reply will be, but since no one else has chimed in yet, I'll reply w/what I know.


> I just got a BCR 2000 and while it mostly works as advertised I also
> have some questions that I haven't found an answer for either here or
> at Behringer's site.

Yep.  IMHO the BC controllers are abandoned products (even though Behringer still sells them).


>firmware 1.1.0. Is this the latest firmware?

Yep.


> What are its advantages over 1.0.4?

Sorry, don't know.


> Do I really install it by just uploading it to the unit
> with SysEx Librarian (I'm on OS X)?

Mine came w/1.10 so I don';t know how to update the firmware.


On your Mac, are you running on an Intel processor?  If so, are you running Parelles or VMWare?  If so, once you get your BCR2000 working with OSX I suggest downloading and installing BCMan in your Windows VM.  BCMan is Windows only, but it's better than the Java client (BC Edit) that Behriniger wrote.


Jeff

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "dsseit_9dgx" <dsseit_9dgx@...> wrote:
> First, My unit's display says 1.0.4 when I switch it on so I guess
> that's the firmware version.

Yes.

By the way: your unit must be pretty old indeed! I bought mine about 2
years ago, and it already had 1.10, and at the Behringer website even
at that time only 1.07 and 1.10 were available.

> I've found a sysex file which says
> firmware 1.1.0. Is this the latest firmware? What are its advantages
> over 1.0.4?

I know basically nothing about 1.04. When I wrote the "BC MIDI
Implementation.pdf" document, I never even analyzed 1.07 - as you can
imagine, I had my hands full with 1.10.
But I think the Behringer site mentions the advantages of 1.10 over
1.07, and perhaps the "new" features of 1.07, so that might give you a
clue.

In any case it's highly recommendable to upgrade to 1.10 as soon as
possible.

> Do I really install it by just uploading it to the unit
> with SysEx Librarian (I'm on OS X)?

Yes. A one-way dump by means of any SysEx-sending utility should work
fine. (BC Manager employs a 2-way, handshake protocol for firmware
uploading, which works a bit smoother, but handshaking is not essential.)

By the way: you should probably avoid using Behringer's own firmware
upload utility: in my experience it doesn't work (at least not under
Windows). (Is it even available for the Mac?)

> Can I damage my unit by doing something wrong?

No. The worst that can happen is that the process is somehow
interrupted, in which case the BCR will say "noOS" when you switch it
on again. So you simply have to redo the whole upload procedure then.
(You might then also look at "BC MIDI Implementation.pdf", which has
some material on "bootloader" mode, including "noOS".)

> Also, I've read somewhere that you can enable the four top right
> buttons as midi controllers instead of using them for switching top
> encoder banks. How do I do this with no editor available for OS X and
> no possibility to do it on the hardware directly?

I have no idea. (In BC Manager it's a piece of cake...)
In any case the operation mode for the "Encoder groups" buttons is
included in each preset definition, so if you can send such a preset
(in a Syx file) to the BCR, this operation mode should work as defined
on your BCR.

> What firmware is required for this to work?

I have no idea whether the this already works under your 1.04 (if I
had to guess, I'd say yes, but I may be dead wrong). I seem to
remember that it does work on 1.07, but to be sure you should simply
upgrade to 1.10.

Mark.

Hi Mark,

Thanks very much for the information. I have upgraded to 1.10 without
problems.

> By the way: your unit must be pretty old indeed! I bought mine about 2
> years ago, and it already had 1.10, and at the Behringer website even
> at that time only 1.07 and 1.10 were available.

I got my BCR from some guy on Ebay for cheap. It was never used. The
seller has/had quite a lot of them. They must have been stored
somewhere for years. Anyway, it works.

> > Also, I've read somewhere that you can enable the four top right
> > buttons as midi controllers instead of using them for switching top
> > encoder banks. How do I do this with no editor available for OS X and
> > no possibility to do it on the hardware directly?
> 
> I have no idea. (In BC Manager it's a piece of cake...)
> In any case the operation mode for the "Encoder groups" buttons is
> included in each preset definition, so if you can send such a preset
> (in a Syx file) to the BCR, this operation mode should work as defined
> on your BCR.

So, basically, I take a preset sysex file, convert it back to a human
readably format with a utility and try to find and edit the definition?

I'll take a closer look at your midi implementation document.

Cheers,
Axl

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "dsseit_9dgx" <dsseit_9dgx@...> wrote:
>
> I got my BCR from some guy on Ebay for cheap. It was never used. The
> seller has/had quite a lot of them. They must have been stored
> somewhere for years. Anyway, it works.

Yeah, there seems to be a little inflation of BCR2000s on eBay... ;-)
I also got one of my BCRs from somebody, who seems to belong to a
local group of private sellers, who frequently sell some BCRs and BCAs
on eBay. My unit apeared to be new and never used, too. Maybe they are
"fallen from a lorry" (a german idiom for "stolen")... ;-)

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "dsseit_9dgx" <dsseit_9dgx@...> wrote:
> So, basically, I take a preset sysex file, convert it back to a human
> readably format with a utility and try to find and edit the definition?

Yes, in principle this is possible.

For a long time there's been a small Windows utility ("BC-Convert")
that converts B-Control syx files to text files and back. (BC Manager
also provides this facility, although you don't really need it in BC
Manager itself.) However, I don't know about such a utility for the Mac.

The main problem with BCL SysEx-to-text conversion is that each BCL
SysEx message is INDEXED, so the utility needs to be written
specifically for BCL SysEx-to-text conversion (and back, of course).

Even assuming that there is such a utility for the Mac, editing
presets in BCL text format is not for the faint-hearted. (In fact,
this was my main reason for writing BC Manager: to hide all BCL's
horrible syntactic details from the end user.)

Mark.