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Sonar Control Surface and MMC Setup Guide


mamero

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I want to use my Yamaha DM2000 to send MMC (MIDI Machine Control) to control Sonar's transport and location. I also want to use the DM2000 as a control surface for Sonar ideally with two-way communication. I have been trying to get this configured for days now without luck. It really shouldn't be this difficult to set up should it?

Could someone in the know kindly provide clear instructions on how to get this configured in Sonar? Detailed information on what control surface or MMC protocols Sonar now supports would also be very helpful.

This information will also apply to the Yamaha 01V96, 02R96, and DM1000. Likely many other consoles as well. Thank you!

 

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13 hours ago, mamero said:

I want to use my Yamaha DM2000 to send MMC (MIDI Machine Control) to control Sonar's transport and location. I also want to use the DM2000 as a control surface for Sonar ideally with two-way communication. I have been trying to get this configured for days now without luck. It really shouldn't be this difficult to set up should it?

It depends...

Configure DM's DAW control mode (preferably "Mackie", in case it has it, but HUI should also work somehow). And then use Mackie surface module in Cakewalk.

For anything else (in case you are not happy with simple approach), you will need deep understanding how all that staff works. F.e. you probably don't want MMC function as originally intended (to control hardware devices) even in case you have corresponding hardware, but you can use MMC sending buttons as generic Control Surface buttons, to control Cakewalk transport (or something else in Cakewalk...). You can even use MIDI DM signals, originally independent to sync DMs and/or save parameters, to control something in the DAW. But that is  relatively difficult. 

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IFAIK the DM2000 supports HUI, so you could try Cakewalk's HUI support (via the Mackie Control surface option).

I don't actually have a HUI, so when I added the HUI support,  I used both the Mackie MCU in HUI mode and TouchDAW in HUI mode to develop it. As such, it might not behave 100% as expected.

It's also limited to 8 tracks IIRC, as the original HUI didn't have an extender.

@azslow3 - does AZController support HUI type messages ?

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1 hour ago, msmcleod said:


@azslow3 - does AZController support HUI type messages ?

AZ Controller support all MIDI messages ;)

Not a joke, in fact that is more difficult than someone can guess...

  • HUI has "triggered" support different CC modes in one preset
  • 14bit CC sequences (including (N)RPNs) are supported with standard as well as arbitrary order, including mapping a part of the value to separated controls (A&H style)
  • complex SysEx mappings (Roland and Yamaha digital mixers in "native" mode)
  • Mackie handshake and Roland checksum, Mackie style ring feedback (other feedback I have seen so far could be organized in presets without special code in plug-in).

But I can't claim the same for OSC, f.e. Behringer DMs OSC is not supported, I guess NI MK2 OSC also needs some addition in the code. Well, NI MK2 MIDI (native mode) will be hard to support too, but not in the MIDI parsing part... 

My HUI example was tested with Nocturn only, one user has tested with d8b http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,223.msg1386.html#msg1386

BTW I have complex preset for Yamaha 01V in MIDI mode, can happened something in it can work for other Yamaha mixers (if MIDI implementations overlap). But that is not recommended since controlling DAW using DM native MIDI means DM can no longer be used as a mixer (Cakewalk project will influence sound processing in the mixer).

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9 hours ago, azslow3 said:

Configure DM's DAW control mode (preferably "Mackie", in case it has it, but HUI should also work somehow). And then use Mackie surface module in Cakewalk.

The DM does not explicitly say it supports HUI or Mackie control one way or the other. In it's setting's it allows the user to set one of the following as a target for a remote layer. User Defined, Pro Tools, Nuendo, Cubase SX, General DAW, and User Assignable Layer. I can't find any documentation on what protocols are behind those templates.

Of those options which one should I choose? And, what control surface should I best pair it with in Sonar? I have experimented. I noticed that the General DAW combined with Sonar's  CM LABs Motormix control surface sort of works. I get the first 8 faders but that's it. It is very limited. No transport or anything deeper. It at least proves some kind of communication is possible.  Thoughts?

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5 hours ago, azslow3 said:

But that is not recommended since controlling DAW using DM native MIDI means DM can no longer be used as a mixer (Cakewalk project will influence sound processing in the mixer).

The DM's USB driver creates 8 assignable USB devices which are available as IN/OUT MIDI ports in Sonar (Named DM2000-1 through 8). This is in addition to the standard MIDI IO which can be used if connected to an independent MIDI interface. If all are used then 9 possible devices could be available in Sonar. In the DM I have assigned the following: MIDI connectors for regular MIDI duty and MIDI Clock. USB 1-4 is assigned to DAW. USB-5 for MMC Remote. The DM breaks those four USB DAW ports in to the following: USB-1 strips 1-8, USB-2 strips 9-16, USB-3 strips 17-24, USB-4 PAN/Surround.  The transport/locator controls appear to be configured independently of the four USB DAW ports. This is why I have set MMC transport/locator controls to USB-5. But it gets more confusing. I've loaded up MIDI-OX and am looking at what the DM is actually outputting for the transport/locator section.In the Machine Configuration window for REMOTE (again set to USB-5), if the machine type is set to MACHINE CONTROL the DM outputs SYSEX on USB-5.  HOWEVER, if the machine type is set to DAW CONTROL, it outputs CONTROL CHANGE on USB-1, NOT USB-5. Even though it's set for USB-5. Confused yet?

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Two more questions

1. Can anyone confirm Sonar actually RECEIVES MMC? Or does it only transmit?

2. How do you manually program Sonar's Generic Control Surface? When I try to enter specific SYSEX commands the generic surface is very random about what types of data it will let me enter and what not. Sometimes the fields are greyed out and sometimes not. It is very unpredictable. Also, can you create a generic surface outside Sonar? Perhaps some kind of control surface INI file similar to instrument definitions?

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You already hit the first reason Control Surfaces are difficult... Names!🙂

----

ProTools support HUI (protocol) only. So, if you select "ProTools" target, DM will speak HUI.

HUI (device) was produced by Mackie (company) with special HUI protocol,  later they have produced Logic and then MCU (Pro) devices, commonly known as "Mackie" (device). And MCU can be switched to "ProTools" mode (HUI protocol).

So, switch DM to "ProTools" mode and use MIDI devices to configure "Mackie Control" surface plug-in in Cakewalk. In that plug-in select "HUI (Beta)" protocol. Start with MIDI In/Out which you think control channels 1-8  and should also send transport and other buttons(*). When that work, add "Mackie Control XT" with In/Out for the next group of 8 channels. And so on.

* that is why you see some "CC" from transport on USB-1. Note they are a bit more complicated that just "CC"...

mcmcleod is the author of "HUI (Beta)", so you will be supported in case something goes wrong on the software side (BTW "Mackie Control" is Open Source, in case you have some experience with C++ and want to have a look how all that works...)

----

If you want to observe which messages are sent and how they are interpreted, you can initially use AZ Controller with mentioned by be "HUIv2" preset loaded on USB-1 (Instead of "Mackie Control", do not try to use in parallel). Unlike other plug-ins, it display what it receives and how it interpret (for not yet assigned complex messages you will need to play with interpretation "Options", see my previous post for explanation). But there is no "XT", so you will be limited to 8 channels + transport, till you extend the preset (far from easy without experience) or switch back to "Mackie Control" + XT(s).

----

 

MMC is a (fixed) set of SysEx messaged, originally indented to sync hardware MIDI devices. Cakewalk CAN send them for that purpose,  but you do NOT want to use MMC as "MMC" in any case, just as SysEx messages assignable to some actions in Generic Surface (if you are not in ProTools mode...). For Generic Surface read (3-5 times, not a joke...) the documentation of Cakewalk. I repeat, at least 3 times. I have stopped after reading it 2 times, could not understand it, and started to write AZ Controller 🙄

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I have a Yamaha DM1000 and am working on a similar situation you are. For me, best luck has come from the DM being set to "General DAW", and using Mackie Control in HUI. As you stated, only the first 8 channels work with Cakewalk. I haven't thought about attempting to use the different MIDI channels (DM1000 also has 8 in and out) to try to coax it into doing more channels, I want to look into that. Sadly, the DM1000 doesn't have transport control buttons, so that side of things isn't on my radar. 

A couple of tangents barely relating to the thread: have you looked into Stereoscope at all? 

and for @msmcleod

On 1/14/2021 at 7:57 AM, msmcleod said:

IFAIK the DM2000 supports HUI, so you could try Cakewalk's HUI support (via the Mackie Control surface option).

I don't actually have a HUI, so when I added the HUI support,  I used both the Mackie MCU in HUI mode and TouchDAW in HUI mode to develop it. As such, it might not behave 100% as expected.

It's also limited to 8 tracks IIRC, as the original HUI didn't have an extender.

@azslow3 - does AZController support HUI type messages ?

I've been meaning to ask if there would ever be support for more than 16 channels, does this mean it's actually a limitation of HUI and not the Mackie Control in Cakewalk? And I know you've mentioned before if people have HUI want to help you test things, I don't know what that would entail but I'd be down to help somehow!!

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8 minutes ago, Eamon McMullen said:

I have a Yamaha DM1000 and am working on a similar situation you are. For me, best luck has come from the DM being set to "General DAW", and using Mackie Control in HUI. As you stated, only the first 8 channels work with Cakewalk. I haven't thought about attempting to use the different MIDI channels (DM1000 also has 8 in and out) to try to coax it into doing more channels, I want to look into that. Sadly, the DM1000 doesn't have transport control buttons, so that side of things isn't on my radar. 

A couple of tangents barely relating to the thread: have you looked into Stereoscope at all? 

and for @msmcleod

I've been meaning to ask if there would ever be support for more than 16 channels, does this mean it's actually a limitation of HUI and not the Mackie Control in Cakewalk? And I know you've mentioned before if people have HUI want to help you test things, I don't know what that would entail but I'd be down to help somehow!!

AFAIK the HUI protocol supports 8 channels, and devices with more than that actually present themselves as multiple HUI controllers (with separate MIDI IN/OUT devices for each bank of 8 faders).

I guess you could try adding 3 x MackieControl surfaces in preferences (all set to HUI mode) and see if this works, but I've no way of testing this configuration.

The surfaces should be added so the MIDI ports match the units from left to right (e.g. the first surface is channels 1-8, the second 9-16 etc).

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2 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

AFAIK the HUI protocol supports 8 channels, and devices with more than that actually present themselves as multiple HUI controllers (with separate MIDI IN/OUT devices for each bank of 8 faders).

I guess you could try adding 3 x MackieControl surfaces in preferences (all set to HUI mode) and see if this works, but I've no way of testing this configuration.

The surfaces should be added so the MIDI ports match the units from left to right (e.g. the first surface is channels 1-8, the second 9-16 etc).

Definitely giving this a try this weekend. Thank you for your thoughts!

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Did some stuff today with this and was very pleased with the results. I'll go over the steps here in as excruciating detail as I can.

1. I configured the midi on the DM1000. set the DAW control to usb (1-3) [1-3 is required, there's no other option]. I set REMOTE 1 to General DAW. 

image1.jpeg.90974d2acd56fbee176337c00d845a53.jpeg

You might notice in the photo StudioManager is set to USB 4, which isn't necessary for this, I believe none of the other settings on the screen are. Nevermind that my word clock is wrong lol

2. From there, I moved into Cakewalk. In the Control Surfaces tab of the Preferences, I hit the... plus button? What is that, a star?

mackie1.png.8d9b908d649b76ee0dd6fc3be85ca2a5.png

3. I made a control surface with the Controller set to Mackie Control, and the Input/Output ports to both be Yamaha DM1000-1 and clicked ok 

mackie2.PNG.f2570e6aff7e272a3ba6a1d872c93967.PNG

4. Repeated steps 2 and 3, but the second controller used Yamaha DM1000-2 for the in/out ports. The 3rd port seems unnecessary for my purposes, (and may cause glitching in cakewalk? I didn't test it much). Since the DM2000 has more channels though, Yamaha DM1000-3 should also be added and I believe 4 skipped. 

5. Pressing ok on everything and returning back to Cakewalk, there should be a color next to your tracks that matches the color that was chosen in Control Surfaces (WAI Color) Double clicking the color brings up the menu below. As far as I know the major change was changing Protocol from Mackie Control Universal to HUI (beta) Is there a more straight forward way to get to this screen? I couldn't find one. I also haven't looked very hard.

Mackie3.PNG.a2f52b8b06dcc367ff99f4c70c7f5eef.PNG

 

6. I added a whole bunch of tracks to get to the other colors and did the same thing to switch to HUI. After doing it once it seems to save forever so that's good. 

7. That's all I did! At this point I can switch the Remote 1 on the DM and all 16 channels on the DM work with the first 16 channels in cakewalk, and can be moved around to additional channels if necessary. The fader, mute, solo, and pan knob all work in both directions: up on the DM fader means up on the cakewalk fader and vice versa. It also shows the meters, and the time on the meter accurately to cakewalk which was a surprise I didn't expect! But wait, there's more:

8. MIDI Preferences on the DM. This is not something I touched during my testing today, and was an afterthought as I wrote this. I'm somewhat sure my settings are as in this screenshot I found on the internet. I'm more so sure that everything on ECHO is turned off. But if the above steps weren't working, check these settings out and see if that helps.

DM2.png.5b5ae9cb7457f8e8210222be4d98f2fd.png

 

9. Because of this thread, I got a little jealous about not having transport buttons. Then, seeing the meter display the time quick and easy like that, I got to thinking if there was a way to set it up for myself. By chance I found out I could use the User Defined Keys to make it happen! So I got to setting those up, and set them up as follows: 

image0.jpeg.89a8c45ea6c384ee24c1b957565581de.jpeg

Oops, Word Clock got in the way. 12 is set as DAW STOP.  DAW RTZ Returns to the start, DAW LOOP turns the loop on and off. 

All of these worked as intended EXCEPT for DAW UNDO, which doesn't seem to do anything at all. I would think it should work the same as Ctrl+Z, right? @msmcleod Is this one of those things that could be updated or might they mean 'undo' to mean something else and I'm just not pro enough to understand?

 

@mameroMy thought here, is that if I could set those user defined keys up and it work perfectly with no additional work, I would have to imagine your dedicated buttons should work as well. If you get everything else working fine but the transport buttons still don't work, maybe you can try setting your User defined keys to test if THOSE will work properly, and then at least you'd know if it's some other setting with the dedicated buttons you have to change.

That's all I got for today!

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On 1/22/2021 at 5:24 PM, Eamon McMullen said:

Did some stuff today with this and was very pleased with the results. I'll go over the steps here in as excruciating detail as I can.
......

 

What a fantastic response and effort! Thank you. Your screen shots are very helpful. I should be able to get somewhere with my DM2000.

My version of Mackie Control is out of date. Where can I download YOUR version of Mackie Control? As you see from my screenshot my version does not even have a Protocol section. Perhaps this has been my biggest stumbling block which I did not know was an issue until now. I will certainly need to get this updated first.

762094275_MackieControl2002-2006.jpg.f7a294beb9d33ef89533e495b80b0d7f.jpg

Edited by mamero
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3 minutes ago, mamero said:

My version of Mackie Control is out of date. Where can I download YOUR version of Mackie Control? As you see from my screenshot my version does not even have a Protocol section. Perhaps this has been my biggest stumbling block which I did not was an issue until now. I will certainly need to get this updated first.

 

The latest version of the MackieControl.dll is always released with the latest Cakewalk.

Are you running SONAR or an older version of Cakewalk?

If you're running SONAR, you could try my version of the MackieControl.dll which is up to date with Cakewalk's - you'll need to pick "MMcL Mackie Control #1" instead of the standard Cakewalk "Mackie Control" though.

https://msmcleod.co.uk/cakewalk/MMcLMackieControlSetup.zip

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5 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

The latest version of the MackieControl.dll is always released with the latest Cakewalk.

Are you running SONAR or an older version of Cakewalk?

If you're running SONAR, you could try my version of the MackieControl.dll which is up to date with Cakewalk's - you'll need to pick "MMcL Mackie Control #1" instead of the standard Cakewalk "Mackie Control" though.

https://msmcleod.co.uk/cakewalk/MMcLMackieControlSetup.zip

Perfect. Thanks! This looks like what I need. I have X3 and 8.5 producer installed in addition to Bandlab. Can I use this to update the previous versions as well? Or only the Bandlab version?

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IT'S WOOORKIIING!!!! Almost...

My bridge meter time counter is working perfectly. Transport is working excellent! Even shuttle, scrub, and RTZ are working. This is FANTASTIC! TWO-WAY control. Even scribble strips! AMAZING! The DM2000 just became MUCH more valuable

But there is one and somewhat key issue with the tracks though.  I am only getting tracks 1 - 8 repeated three times rather the 24 individual tracks. So if I move track 1's fader it also moves 9 and 17. The scribble strips are duplicated as well. Any ideas how to fix this? I have set up the 3 x MMcL Mackie Control #1 throu #3.  Is there some kind of channel offset that needs to be set up? If I can get this figured out I'm totally set.

Definitely getting somewhere here at last! Almost there.

Edited by mamero
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4 hours ago, mamero said:

IT'S WOOORKIIING!!!! Almost...

My bridge meter time counter is working perfectly. Transport is working excellent! Even shuttle, scrub, and RTZ are working. This is FANTASTIC! TWO-WAY control. Even scribble strips! AMAZING! The DM2000 just became MUCH more valuable

But there is one and somewhat key issue with the tracks though.  I am only getting tracks 1 - 8 repeated three times rather the 24 individual tracks. So if I move track 1's fader it also moves 9 and 17. The scribble strips are duplicated as well. Any ideas how to fix this? I have set up the 3 x MMcL Mackie Control #1 throu #3.  Is there some kind of channel offset that needs to be set up? If I can get this figured out I'm totally set.

Definitely getting somewhere here at last! Almost there.

I don’t know for sure, but I think it might be solved if for all three DM MIDI ports you choose “Mackie control #1” instead of #1 #2 and #3

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