New BCR2000 control surface plugin available

Hi zenguru I have double-checked using a sample Reaper project (I used Right Here from the sample collection). I cannot replicate the issue that you are seeing. I suggest shutting down MIDI-OX and then configuring Reaper to assign the control surface ports directly to the BCR2000 itself. If for any reason you also have the MIDI connectors on the BCR connected, I would unplug them, so just the USB port is in use (I think this is probably how you already have things, just making sure) Now, with JUST these ports assigned, can you control things smoothly?. If not, is the problem only for channel gain or for all rotaries. e.g channel pan etc?.

evanrabby I sympathise on C++ programming. Not the easiest language to work with, but the control surface bindings are to C/C++ because that's what Reaper's written in. There's no reason, in theory, why a control surface plugin couldn't be written in another language, provided that some kind of 'shim' DLL existed so that Reaper could instantiate it. However there would be potential issues. Many easier-to-use languages, for instance, have 'garbage collection' to manage memory usage. This can kick in any time, possibly causing Reaper to glitch. (this is why the console UI runs in a separate process and why it accepts requests and then returns control immediately to the caller, then gets on with the request later.) But although C++ is a bit harder, it's worth learning. It's one of the Big Three languages (Java, C# being the other two) and in any case you really only need to learn C (C++ being a superset of C), because I deliberately wrote the surface code to be as 'C-like' as possible rather than use lots of clever C++ tricks. Hence, 95% of that code is just standard C. There are plenty of excellent C programming books and once you have mastered arrays, pointers, references, structures and unions, you have almost all the tools you need to hack that code.

mabe I'll look into it. btw I have the midi loop problem too and that's just USB midi connector and basic midi in and out. down down down it goes up? nobody knows.

Hi aj- The console has stopped working for me in the latest (3.21 pre 1). The controls still work, but REAPER crashes consistently when I try to bring up the console: Problem Event Name: APPCRASH Fault Module Name: reaper_bcr2000.dll Thanks- -Susan

Hi Susan I had this problem at one stage and found that forcing the console process to unregister and then reregister resolved it. There are instructions for this in the release notes for the latest version of the surface, towards the end of the document. Let me know if that doesn't work for you Hi zenguru I would still recommend removing MIDI-OX by shutting it down and ensuring that the control surface is directly connected in Reaper to the BCR2000's USB MIDI ports. I'm assuming you are connecting through MIDI-OX and then using the MIDI-OX virtual port into Reaper, right? It might also be worth reinstalling Behringer's USB driver - this should be the latest available version as earlier versions did have issues. Another thing to try would be to remove the control surface plugin in Reaper's setup and then re-enable (in Reaper) the BCR2000 MIDI in and out. They must have been disabled for Reaper to have allowed them to be used for the control surface. Now twiddle some knobs on the unit on a MIDI track and record the result. Does the unit work correctly with no 'fighting' when you do this? (I would think it should). Does Reaper, when the track is replayed, send the MIDI back to the BCR - the rotaries should replay the movements you made when you recorded the track. This at least confirms the correct operation of the unit. I have had this problem - but only when the BCR was in the wrong operating mode and was feeding its MIDI back to itself. To be absolutely sure, select another operating mode like U-3, save it, turn the unit off and on, verify it's still in U-3, then reprogram it to U-1. Also, reloading the device firmware - it should be 1.10 - may be worth while.

Hi ajaym, I have MIDI-OX running only when I want to monitor what comes in and what comes out. The results are the same weather MIDI-OX is running or not. I reinstalled the drivers, but it's still the same. When recording MIDI from BCR it actually fights back a little bit, but the behavior is different. It's resisting both upward and downward movements. In this configuration the track is sending MIDI back to BCR. When the output is disabled it will work normally. Also playing back the recorded MIDI works ok - the leds on BCR are moving. I did a little test to see how Ableton handles all the MIDI ins and outs. It seems that Ableton updates the controller surface values only after the knob has stopped from moving... this kind of makes sense. When tweaking a knob on BCR, the controller knows what's the value at the moment - no need to tell it. It's only after a series of CC messages and a small pause when Ableton sends the latest value back, as to make sure the both are in "sync". Many CC messages come out of BCR, only one goes in. This might be one reason to the problem. If BCR is sending those values quicker than Reaper can respond, wouldn't it then cause BCR to receive old, "expired" values, which would set the BCR value back to something it was a moment ago? For this to work as expected, the MIDI latency should be really small - this is a factor which depends on hardware, configuration and whatnot. It doesn't explain the different behavior on up and down, though...

ZenGuru's Problem 

I had your problem Zen. Took me a while to "figure it out" or at least fix it. I have an idea how it happened, but not entirely sure. Anyway...what I did was used Propellerhead's Record (or Reason) to temporarily overwrite the preset I use for Ajay's Plug-in. Then when the BRC preset reloads itself, it works smoothly as before. 1. Leave the BRC2000 on the preset number you have chosen for the plug. 2. Fire up Reason or Record 3. Goto the EDIT menu-->preferences-->Control Surfaces and Keyboards 4. Add the BRC2000 manually or let it auto-detect. 5. Create a couple of devices and switch around to each of them (watch the display for changes). 6. Go back to step 3 and delete the BRC2000 and exit Prop-heads software. 7. Now just change the BRC preset and change it right back. 8. It should reprogram itself and be working again in Reaper. Hope that helps, Zen And thank you so much for the wonderful work, Ajay

Hi aj- It definitely seems to work more smoothly in SONAR, esp. when I change direction or move the controls slowly. -Susan

Problem solved!