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Old 09-28-2019, 08:39 PM   #1
themixtape
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Default Behringer X-Touch Compact / MC and Standard Mode side by side... HOW?

Hi guys! I posted this at the official "Music Tribe" forum but I hate the layout of it and it seems it's never going to be found unless someone googles it... so, I'm here, of course... because you Reaper people know your stuff, and I love you (because I love Reaper!).


Bought an X-Touch, X-Touch One, X-Touch Compact.... yeah, overkill. Probably going to hang onto the Compact, because of its Layer A/B customization.... with Standard Mode, you get a LOT of awesomeness.... I don't need the screens/scribble strips since I look at my main display a lot, anyway.


What I can't seem to understand (and please shed some light if you can) are several things....


1. How do you use CC127 (Global Channel) to switch between Mackie Mode and Standard Mode, without power-cycling? In the manual, it mentions that if the unit receives CC127 on the Global Channel, it will switch to Mackie Mode (with a value of 1) and back to Standard Mode (with a value of 0). Since Standard Mode has the X-Touch Editor, I'm able to set a button on the unit to CC127, Global Channel, and min/max both to 1 (to at least switch into Mackie Mode) but, how do I switch back, if Mackie Mode doesn't let you customize anything (especially in the X-Touch Editor software)? And further, why is it only a message of CC127 that it RECEIVES, instead of TRANSMITS? Forgive my ignorance.. but like... really? Why couldn't they have just added a button in the corner that says "toggle MC and Standard Mode"?

2. The X-Touch Compact has only have ONE midi port (in, and out). The X-Touch has TWO... "X-Touch" and "MIDI IN2 (X-Touch)" but why? Why, if the big brother doesn't offer a Standard/generic MIDI message mode?

A "virtual" midi port in addition to the main one allows a person to use the Compact as a general MIDI/CC controller AND as a Mackie controller, without having to reconfigure Reaper's preferences/devices. Reaper needs separate ports (in AND out) for Control Surfaces (for Mackie Mode, in my instance "Klinke" which I and many others really enjoy), and for general MIDI use (note input, control messages such as mapping an encoder to your favorite synth plugin). I've tried Midi-Ox and LoopMIDI and all sorts of midi routers and can't seem to get anything to work, and I'm not exactly a novice with these types of things. I just cannot figure it out.

My main issue is the virtual midi port thing. Most DAWs don't let you share the basic midi port, when you need both Mackie Mode, and general MIDI control. It makes for a lot of useless functionality on the hardware itself, if virtual MIDI ports aren't supported by MIDI controllers.

I've scoured the web for the past two days, finding nothing on the X-Touch Compact... there's some stuff out there, but none of it is really helpful... a lot of people either use it in Mackie Mode, or Standard Mode, and not both.

But, I did find a user on the VI-Control forum, who said he's able to use Layer A for MIDI CC use, and Layer B for "Mackie Mode" (since he manually mapped all the Mackie messages, which I've tried to do in various ways).... I know it is possible to use Layer A and Layer B as "Mackie Mode" and "Standard Mode" (when ONLY in Standard Mode), just by mapping the Mackie messages correctly, like this user talked about. I've yet to hear more details from him as he didn't reply to his thread.

However, I don't think you get the motorized movements (or the instant recall) this way.... or, I might be wrong. Question is... did he enable his X-Touch Compact as a Control Surface in Reaper? Or just a General MIDI Device (note input, and control message input)? The Control Surface mode would allow feedback both ways, for sure. The General MIDI Device, wouldn't... or would it?

As a music teacher, it helps me to understand simple things such as the ability to at least use CC127 / Global Channel to switch between the modes (again, without power-cycling--- which is exactly what the X-Touch Editor does, when you click "MC" or "Standard" on the screen... it's an instant switch... some basic calibration, but it works exactly as it says.) I just don't understand how the unit needs to receive a CC127 message on its global channel.... like... from where? From what? What needs to be routed to bounce between both modes easily? Does the CC127 message have to come from a separate midi controller?

Thanks so much for ANY help! I know someone's gotta have a solution for this, at this forum.... (here's hoping)
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Old 09-28-2019, 11:52 PM   #2
mschnell
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As discussed in "General" the Xtouch can be switched between "Standard/Generic" and "MC" mode by holding the bottom left MC button while poweeing it on", and there are not options to use the modes at the same time. I did not check switching modes by sending the said Midi messages to the device. Maybe this is possible, but I don't suppose it's very helpful. -> https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=2186334#36
In fact there are severe limitations in the Compact firmware:
- It ignores received Layer B messages when in Layer A and vice versa
- It does not send anything when switching Layers
- it only uses 7 Bit resolution in MC mode.
I did not find any firmware update for the Compact, yet.

Obviously a huge shortcoming of the firmware of "the big brother" is that it does not offer a configurable generic mode.

Quote:
Originally Posted by themixtape View Post
Bought an X-Touch, X-Touch One, X-Touch Compact....
To use them together supposedly the only way is using the "CSI" Reaper extension. I understand CSI can deal with MCU and other Midi/OSC-protocol based devices at the same time.

I do see that the "Klinke" Reaper extension is very handy if you want support some rather "standard" Midi surface device and workflow, but if you want to support "queer" devices and personalized workflow, obviously using the CSI Reaper extension is the way to go, as it is highly configurable.

If you want to manually convert midi messages "on the fly" (e.g. to create some kind of MCU protocol from the standard MIDI generic Compact messages, and includinmg creating a new Midi device), this can be done by the free, very versatile OSCIIBot software by Cocos or (maybe) (more handy) by the (payed) Boeme Midi translator. to

Anyway all this has nothing to do with "Reaper Compatibility" at all, as the core of Reaper is not supposed to be "compatible" with any Midi devices at all, and hence it should be discussed in the "Control Surfaces" subforum -> https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47.

-Michael

Last edited by mschnell; 09-29-2019 at 06:48 AM.
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Old 09-29-2019, 05:38 AM   #3
Geoff Waddington
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Quote:
Originally Posted by themixtape View Post
Hi guys! I posted this at the official "Music Tribe" forum but I hate the layout of it and it seems it's never going to be found unless someone googles it... so, I'm here, of course... because you Reaper people know your stuff, and I love you (because I love Reaper!).


Bought an X-Touch, X-Touch One, X-Touch Compact.... yeah, overkill. Probably going to hang onto the Compact, because of its Layer A/B customization.... with Standard Mode, you get a LOT of awesomeness.... I don't need the screens/scribble strips since I look at my main display a lot, anyway.
Please think carefully before you commit to "No Scribble Strips".

Unless your projects are always 8 Tracks or less you may not be happy.

Consider this -- you are banked over so that Track 25 is interacting with the leftmost fader on the device -- I know I'm hopelessly lost without scribble strips as are most people -- kinda defeats the purpose of a control surface -- supposed to speed up workflow and all that...

Quote:
Originally Posted by themixtape View Post
What I can't seem to understand (and please shed some light if you can) are several things....


1. How do you use CC127 (Global Channel) to switch between Mackie Mode and Standard Mode, without power-cycling? In the manual, it mentions that if the unit receives CC127 on the Global Channel, it will switch to Mackie Mode (with a value of 1) and back to Standard Mode (with a value of 0). Since Standard Mode has the X-Touch Editor, I'm able to set a button on the unit to CC127, Global Channel, and min/max both to 1 (to at least switch into Mackie Mode) but, how do I switch back, if Mackie Mode doesn't let you customize anything (especially in the X-Touch Editor software)? And further, why is it only a message of CC127 that it RECEIVES, instead of TRANSMITS? Forgive my ignorance.. but like... really? Why couldn't they have just added a button in the corner that says "toggle MC and Standard Mode"?

2. The X-Touch Compact has only have ONE midi port (in, and out). The X-Touch has TWO... "X-Touch" and "MIDI IN2 (X-Touch)" but why? Why, if the big brother doesn't offer a Standard/generic MIDI message mode?

A "virtual" midi port in addition to the main one allows a person to use the Compact as a general MIDI/CC controller AND as a Mackie controller, without having to reconfigure Reaper's preferences/devices. Reaper needs separate ports (in AND out) for Control Surfaces (for Mackie Mode, in my instance "Klinke" which I and many others really enjoy), and for general MIDI use (note input, control messages such as mapping an encoder to your favorite synth plugin). I've tried Midi-Ox and LoopMIDI and all sorts of midi routers and can't seem to get anything to work, and I'm not exactly a novice with these types of things. I just cannot figure it out.

My main issue is the virtual midi port thing. Most DAWs don't let you share the basic midi port, when you need both Mackie Mode, and general MIDI control. It makes for a lot of useless functionality on the hardware itself, if virtual MIDI ports aren't supported by MIDI controllers.

I've scoured the web for the past two days, finding nothing on the X-Touch Compact... there's some stuff out there, but none of it is really helpful... a lot of people either use it in Mackie Mode, or Standard Mode, and not both.

But, I did find a user on the VI-Control forum, who said he's able to use Layer A for MIDI CC use, and Layer B for "Mackie Mode" (since he manually mapped all the Mackie messages, which I've tried to do in various ways).... I know it is possible to use Layer A and Layer B as "Mackie Mode" and "Standard Mode" (when ONLY in Standard Mode), just by mapping the Mackie messages correctly, like this user talked about. I've yet to hear more details from him as he didn't reply to his thread.

However, I don't think you get the motorized movements (or the instant recall) this way.... or, I might be wrong. Question is... did he enable his X-Touch Compact as a Control Surface in Reaper? Or just a General MIDI Device (note input, and control message input)? The Control Surface mode would allow feedback both ways, for sure. The General MIDI Device, wouldn't... or would it?

As a music teacher, it helps me to understand simple things such as the ability to at least use CC127 / Global Channel to switch between the modes (again, without power-cycling--- which is exactly what the X-Touch Editor does, when you click "MC" or "Standard" on the screen... it's an instant switch... some basic calibration, but it works exactly as it says.) I just don't understand how the unit needs to receive a CC127 message on its global channel.... like... from where? From what? What needs to be routed to bounce between both modes easily? Does the CC127 message have to come from a separate midi controller?

Thanks so much for ANY help! I know someone's gotta have a solution for this, at this forum.... (here's hoping)

-Chris
I can only give you my take on all of this.

First off, I answered a question from you about CSI setup over in that thread a while ago, but you never came back, please feel free to ask more questions.

Although it's still in alpha (which can be very frustrating for everyone), we are slowly -- thanks to a great user community-- getting some resources other than the software itself -- go to the first post in thread listed in my sig below and check out #MalcolmG's excellent wiki, it's improving all the time.

Also @poetnprophet put out a short video on the basics of getting around, definitely worth checking out.

Your teaching/research chops will come in handy here.

Now the bigger picture.

I was a professional musician and computer programmer until my retirement.

Relevant positions for this discussion:
2006 -- wrote the original Faderport drivers for Presonus
2011 -- wrote a plugin for Reaper with MCU/C4 support
2014 -- wrote the EuCon support for Reaper.

It's been my experience that these extra modes available on these controllers are actually more of a PITA than anything else -- better to do everything in software -- that way it's much more easily made customizable.

They never seem to do quite what you want -- as you are experiencing.

Now let's add in the total bastardization of the MIDI spec -- yup, I'm talking about Mackie Control Protocol, which while clever, is absolutely NOT meant to co-exist with MIDI as @mschnell points out. There is no such thing as a CC or Channel or Note On in the MCU protocol just things like:

byte 1 90 switch
byte 2 00 - 7f -- which switch
byte 3 00 = off -- 7f = on

another example
byte 1 e0-ef which fader
byte 2 00-7f -- lsb of fader value
byte 3 00-7f -- msb of fader value

So you can see how the Channel number in the e0-ef case has been repurposed to mean the actual fader number on the hardware surface.

Now just picture for a moment what all of this might sound like if you let this nasty data stream loose on your midi sound generating devices

THAT is why we keep them separate.

This doesn't help you at all though, you don't care about all of that you just want things to work properly.

Once again, my experience shows that each time one of these hardware manufacturers come out with their latest Whizz Bang product with the multiple layers and the oh-so-easy-to-use editor, they inevitably leave out or just simply blow a really important concept.

CSI says -- let's dump all of that and have exactly one definition file per Surface per Page.

The good news is you can have as many pages as you want each with an entirely different set-up file for each surface -- or the same set-up -- or a mixture, etc.

Same for Channels, Sends, FX, etc.

You have to put some effort in, but in the end you will get a lot closer to what you want

-- just my 2c on all of this
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Last edited by Geoff Waddington; 09-29-2019 at 07:22 AM.
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Old 09-29-2019, 04:56 PM   #4
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Thanks Geoff! Very helpful reply, of course. You know your stuff, for sure.

Sadly, I installed everything as intended (from the wiki)... when I pop up the controller windows (the very first thing to configure), the windows are too small, and I can't "cancel / ok" -- and I can't exit out of the window, so I have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and force Reaper to close.

Would love to at least try the CSI but I can't get past that simple first step. Any ideas?

I'm on Windows 7, 64-bit. 32GB ram. Using the latest 64-bit Reaper (5.983). Solid-state drive in my laptop, full HD resolution (1920x1080).

Thanks!
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Old 09-29-2019, 06:50 PM   #5
Geoff Waddington
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Quote:
Originally Posted by themixtape View Post
Thanks Geoff! Very helpful reply, of course. You know your stuff, for sure.

Sadly, I installed everything as intended (from the wiki)... when I pop up the controller windows (the very first thing to configure), the windows are too small, and I can't "cancel / ok" -- and I can't exit out of the window, so I have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and force Reaper to close.

Would love to at least try the CSI but I can't get past that simple first step. Any ideas?

I'm on Windows 7, 64-bit. 32GB ram. Using the latest 64-bit Reaper (5.983). Solid-state drive in my laptop, full HD resolution (1920x1080).

Thanks!
Well that sucks.

Unfortunately I don't have a Win 7 test environment, could you post screenshots of the windows that are too small ?
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