Following the tragic loss of its creator, software developer/publisher Image Line is dedicating Deckadance to its creator, Juan Antonio Arguelles (”Argu”). Deckadance, a DJ application with the ability host plug-ins and operate in a host mode, as well as support a variety of vinyl timecode systems, was the project on which Argu was focused at his untimely death; he had also worked on projects like FL Studio 7 and plug-ins by discoDSP.

Image-Line has also announced a new developer is taking on Deckadance in Argu’s absence:

Image-Line is pleased to hand the baton for Deckadance development to the capable hands of Luis Serrano Cavero. Luis is an experienced developer of DJ tools, including his own DJ midi controller, and brings further inspiration and enthusiasm to the Deckadance project. “We are very proud, and fortunate, to have Luis on the team” said [Jean-Marie Cannie, Managing Director of Image Line Software].

The announcement comes with the release of 1.13, with various bugfixes and improvements, deck sync and monitoring enhancements, and Behringer BCD3000 console support.

As we again offer our condolences, it’s nice to see this developer’s work memorialized and recognized; I hope we get to know more of the faces behind the tools we care about.

Deckadance homepage

As Apple revealed in a description for a session at WWDC, OS X 10.5 includes enhanced USB and FireWire audio support. Some of that functionality is already arriving in the 10.4.10 update, which incorporates the FireWire SDK 24 and FireWire 2.1. (The SDK also includes “most” of the source for Leopard’s upcoming FireWire stack.)

You probably don’t care about that unless you’re a developer.

You probably do care that the 10.4.10 update can cause some FireWire audio devices to cease normal function, including the Behringer FCA-202 and Mackie Onyx Satellite. MacFixIt has the full details, and a workaround from Mackie:

Mac OS X 10.4.10 Special Report: FireWire audio interface issues — fixes

Basically, you can roll back the FireWire driver itself while leaving 10.4.10 in place. Of course, if you haven’t yet installed 10.4.10 and you own an affected interface, you might just leave well enough alone for now.

The “glass half full” way of looking at this would be to presume the full 10.5 update may not cause any earth-shaking driver issues, beyond a few fixes here and there. And we may have jumped over some of those issues before the full 10.5 issue hits. My Focusrite Saffire, for instance, is performing just fine under 10.4.10 on two machines. For anyone complaining about Vista, this is further proof that OS updates will generally cause issues with audio hardware, simply because, aside from class-compliant devices, most pro audio gear interacts with the operating system at a pretty low level. Low-level functionality just tends to break first. The question is, can you fix it, and how fast? (In this case, “pretty durn” fast seems to apply.)

Apple still releases more incremental updates compared to Microsoft’s fewer, larger updates, and Microsoft’s changes in Vista were more sweeping changes to the underlying driver model, compared to Apple’s incremental improvements to audio-specific features. The jury is still out on which is better; it’s still unclear to me, for instance, how much benefit the Vista driver model switch will have in the longer haul.

Brad Sucks, the one-man band known for Internet stardom and Brad’s brilliant title “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing”, is taking on laptop performance. First job: find a way to use limbs on your body other than your arms and hands, since those need to play the guitar.

Like many Ableton Live users, Brad finds his way to the Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal. Before you scoff at the brand name, this foot pedal’s configuration is unusual (ten stomp pedals, two “scene” pedals, and two expression pedals), and the price is ridiculously cheap (often US$150 or less).

Of course, it is from Behringer, which means there are lots of things wrong with it: it doesn’t work out of the box with Ableton Live, and it’s a pain to program. Enter an aggressive community with tutorials, homebrewed Windows editor software, patches, hardware mods, and even a $10 firmware hack. Brad has rounded up all of them in a central location so you can skip Googling and get straight to modding:

I’ve tried, Behringer, really I have. I’ve tried to support and defend you, to explain your quirks and help people use your promising but terribly flawed BCD2000. How do you repay me? You make some OSX drivers, fix compatibility with Traktor, give the BCD2000 a new coat of paint and then sell it as the BCD3000.

There is time, however. You can save yourselves from utter scumbagdom (at least in my eyes). This thing is obviously the same hardware as the BCD2000, so you can do it. Update the BCD2000 drivers and firmware and we’ll never speak of this again.

The alternative is to get crushed by Numark’s NuVJ and Total Control/ION’s iCue, Vestax’ VCI-100, MAudio’s Xponent… Seriously people, when the BCD2000 was announced it was basically the only kid on the block at the price point, 18 months later there are similarly functioned devices from all of the major players, and all you’ve managed is a coat of paint and platform support which was put together by a hacker sniffing USB packets?

Dude, ouch.

The BCD2000 has been somewhat of a contradiction for me since purchase. On one hand the hardware is fantastic; robust and seriously cheap. On the other hand the included software and drivers are absolutely abhorrent, PC only affairs with broken midi implementation. I’ve always hoped that Behringer would update the BCD to have similar (extensive) MIDI configuration options to the BCR and BCF. That hasn’t happened, and almost 2 years after its initial release the BCD is almost in the same position as it started. Almost.

Evinyatar has commented on our early BCD2000 Not Mac Compatible post to announce that he - sick of waiting for Behringer to actually do something useful with their gear - has written and released OSX Universal drivers (MIDI only so far):

My first subject is Behringer’s BCD2000. When it was released about two years ago it was rumored that MacOS X drivers would be released by the end of 2005. Rather than waiting for those to appear (which they probably won’t) I decided to have a go myself. The result is quite good, if I say so myself. It works, which is more than I expected.

Currently only MIDI in and output works. Audio does not. That means you can control Traktor the way you would on a Windows computer, but you won’t hear anything through the BCD2000’s audio ports or record anything trough them. You can still, of course, use other audio outputs, built-in or external, that do work with MacOS X.

Right now the MIDI input and output are should be identical to the Windows driver in B-DJ mode. Which means a reasonable amount of pain is implied when trying to configure Traktor for the BCD2000. Basically, the same hack that works for Windows (using MIDI-Rules and a loopback device, in our case Apple’s built-in IAC) is also required for Mac. I hope to incorporate similar functionality inside the driver in the future, eliminating the need for the hack. For now, this will have to do. A more detailed guide to setting this up will be posted sometime later this week.

We posted a review by our own Jaymis Loveday of Behringer’s BCD2000 DJ computer control surface. It’s a useful piece of kit, with DJ-style mixer controls, scratch surfaces, and built-in audio. Only one problem: Mac drivers and the product itself appear to be MIA.

Update 2006-01-13: We have learned that a BCD2000 user, Evinyatar has released an OSX compatible driver (Universal Binary, MIDI functions only), and has plans for more customizations. -JL

Behringer’s North American PR rep Derrick Davis tells us the BCD2000 isn’t shipping in quantity yet; Jaymis got his hands on a limited-release shipment. The Mac is currently unsupported; that much we can confirm, as we’ve received a couple of reports in which Mac users tell us they’ve been unable to get it working. (The device itself is not class-compliant and requires drivers for the control surface to communicate with the computer.) Behringer expects to ship in quantity soon, though Davis didn’t know whether Mac drivers would be included. It would be surprising if they were not, given the BCD’s fader and rotary controller siblings (The BCF- and BCR2000, respectively) are Mac-compatible. But, really, we won’t know until it ships. Stay tuned.

An inexpensive MIDI controller with useful scratch and mixer controls, for DJing, live laptop performance, and VJing? We’ve all been anxious to know whether the BCD2000 delivers. Our resident live visualist gives it a spin (so to speak).

Update 2007-01-13: We have learned that a BCD2000 user, Evinyatar has released an OSX compatible driver (Universal Binary, MIDI functions only), and has plans for more customizations. -JL

After waiting over a year, I finally have it. The Behringer BCD2000 was announced in January 2005, initially shipped small numbers in August, and then incessantly delayed until finally being delivered worldwide in late April 2006. Considering that the device has been in the wild for over a year there is a surprising lack of information online. Not that it was a nerve-wracking purchase decision at AU$265 street (US$200), but I couldn’t do the usual review harvest before picking it up. I was looking for a midi controller to compliment my BCR2000 and bridge the VJ/DJ divide. I think I may have found it.

As Peter has already dropped the Create Digital Motion word I feel like I’ll be able to get away with calling this a CDMotion preview.

“What midi controller should I use for VJing?” is similar to “How long should my piece of string be?”. Without knowing what you’re using the string to produce, what kind of environment the string is going to be used in and what programs the string is going to control, there isn’t really an answer. So I’m going to start with “How are the midi-controller requirements for VJing unique”, and then give you my current solution for “What midi controller should I use for VJing with Resolume, if I don’t have enough money to buy the ReACT custom Resolume controller?”.

Keeping up with low-end audio gear maker Behringer is getting harder, with their “87 products in 2005″ promise. Here’s the latest:

The B-Control Nano BCN44 is a box with four knobs and four buttons, plus an LED. That’s it. It’s just a simple, programmable MIDI box, but it’s dirt cheap: US$64.99 /39 GBP, available now in Europe. (US availability soon.)

More interesting, though also infinitely more ugly, is the new Tweakalizer DFX69 DJ effects box. Aside from real-time scratch capabilities, the box has a BPM counter, transposition, full filter and EQ sections, and even LFO-driven delay and flanger effects. My personal favorite copy writing moment: “you can adjust track speed using the virtually inaudible Pitch Transposer.” Wow — did you say inaudible effects? Is it more like the digital silence of the Dead Quietenator, or the analog warmth of the Moogerfooger silence effect. (Sarcasm mode off)

Anyway, I have no idea what this thing sounds like as it’s also Europe-only at the moment, but it’s got that Behringer-low price: US$149.99 / 86 GBP. Behringer’s been awfully hit-or-miss, with some great kit (fantastic foot pedal box and motorized control surface) and some crap (mixers ranging from so-so to lousy), as readers have discussed at length here on CDM. We’ll wait and see. In the meantime, do you have a preferred real-time scratch system? Let us know.

Hold on! Thanks to the fact that I don’t reprint press releases, we’ve gotten through this whole story without any breathless PR prose! Here goes, in regards to the BCN44. Sure, it’s a box with four knobs on it, but remember, its “miniscule size doesn’t stop it from being a formidable contender for both studio and pure controller applications.” Its ability to run on a power adapter OR a battery gives you “the ultimate in ease of operation and mobility.” (This new “battery” thing is exciting, no?) Why, I’d say it’s “compact to the max and a price that simply blows you away!”

There, don’t you feel better now? Tune in tomorrow, same hype time, same hype channel.