With laidback, exotic grooves and richly-coordinated interlaced cello, saxophone, turntable, and electronics, Archie Pelago’s music relies on some serious technological savvy. To be sure, all you really need to play instruments and computers and turntables together is to get into a room and start jamming. But to realize their specific musical vision, the trio of Hirshi, Cosmo D and Kroba have turned to an advanced Ableton Live rig, centered around The Bridge to couple Serato and Live. Here’s a look at their music – and all the gory details that combine to make their setup tick.

Grab the free EP for some music:

END004: Shrinin EP by Archie Pelago by end fence

To be honest, after a lot of launch hype, it hasn’t always been easy anecdotally speaking to find a lot of people using The Bridge. The software, combining Ableton’s clip-launching facilities with Serato’s digital DJ setup, perhaps demands a lot conceptually and musically of its users. But boy, are these three using it – and pushing its envelope to the breaking point. I caught up with virtuoso cellist and technologist Greg Heffernan (Cosmo D) at the lovely Percussion Lab party in New York. Greg sends a full description on how the setup works technically, as he originally wrote for the folks at Ableton (who I imagine were quite interested). There’s a lot to follow, so happily, there’s a gear diagram, as well:

To start, there are three of us. I play cello, Zach ‘Kroba’ Koeber plays saxophone and Dan ‘Hirshi’ Hirshorn is on two turntables + mixer. We play our instruments into and alongside Ableton, recording, manipulating and effecting our sounds on-the-fly. Dan provides the rhythmic foundation for our music and because of The Bridge, all of us are in sync with each other.

I’m running my cello into a MOTU Ultralite Mk3 Firewire interface, which is connected to my MacBook Pro running Ableton and Serato simultaneously. I use a Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal (connected via an M-Audio UNO [MIDI] interface into my computer) to record clips of my cello playing, cue effects and generally navigate around the Session View of Ableton. I record my cello live into the Session View as clips, then run these clips through an effects chain on an effects rack. I then use the two expression pedals on the FCB1010 to crossfade between my ‘dry’ cello sound into an effected sound. The effects are controlled with two Korg Nano Kontrols situated below my laptop. I also use a Korg nanoPAD to play sampled clips of various found audio.

Zach’s setup mirrors mine, to an extent. Using a mic to capture his live sax sound, he runs his signal into a Tascam US100 [audio] interface which goes his computer running Live. He uses his FCB1010 to capture and record clips of his own, alongside a Korg nanoKONTROL to control effects. The reason why we chose the FCB1010 and the Korg nanoKONTROL is because they’re relatively inexpensive, easy to carry around the city and on the subway, and have a lot of buttons, knobs and faders for their size. Zach’s computer is connected to mine via an Ethernet cable and his Live set is slaved to mine via Midi Sync, so we’re always locked in the groove together.

The linchpin of this whole setup, however, is Serato and The Bridge. In addition to my running Ableton, I have Serato running via a Rane SL1 [mixer] also connected to my laptop. Coming out of my laptop is a cable going into an external monitor. Dan uses this monitor to display Serato, enabling him to do what he does with his two turn tables, Serato control vinyls, and his Behringer DJ Mixer. Because of the Bridge, my Ableton rig is locked in with whatever he’s spinning, whether it be our original dubs or tunes that inspire us. With everything sync’d up, Zach and I, through our instruments and software, react musically and rhythmically to Dan’s DJing. Dan, via the effects on his mixer and control of his vinyl, reacts musically to us as well.

In terms of audio routing, my audio and Zach’s audio are running into Dan’s mixer, so he’s mixing our sounds as much as he’s controlling Serato.

The Gear

Cosmo D:
1 cello
1 MacBook Pro 13″
MOTU UltraLive Mk3 Firewire Interface
2 Korg nanoKONTROLs
1 Korg nanoPAD
1 Behringer FCB1010

Zach:

1 saxophone
1 MacBook Pro 15″
1 Tascam US100 interface
1 Korg nanoKONTROL
1 Behringer FCB1010

Dan:

1 Rane SL1 DJ Interface
1 Behringer DJX750 DJ Mixer
1 Dell 17″ Flatscreen Computer Monitor
2 Turntables (Technics SL 12000)
2 Custom needles.

Lots of cables.

In Videos

New York public radio station WNYU hosted the trio on their program Table Tennis. Three highlight excerpts below, followed by the full program for those of you who want it:

For those of you who aren’t quite ready to leap into The Bridge yet, but do want to loop your instrument, here’s a great place to start. Cosmo D talks about his live looping process in Ableton Live, at the site Bangbang.

And in an interesting way of visually interpreting their music, dancer Genna Baroni choreographs a dance to a track from the trio’s Chocolate Waveplates EP in a music video:

There – now no one has any excuse for not dancing at an Archie Pelago jam. The setting and videography is pretty informal, but it’s nice to see movement as a way of interpreting music.

Music:
Chocolate Waveplates EP Sampler [Slime Recordings] by Archie Pelago

And lastly, a live show from earlier this year at Glasslands in Brooklyn.

Official site:
http://archiepelago.com/

Practical iPad Music Making: Connecting Hardware

What’s this MIDI thing about?

Creatively, music is about assembling a new whole out of lots of pieces. So it makes sense that in a music workspace, making connections is important. Like traditional computers before it, part of what makes the shiny, new iPad musically useful is its ability to work with other gear.

Enter MIDI. For the uninitiated, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is the de facto industry standard means for communicating musical events between different hardware and software. It doesn’t transmit sound, but it does transmit information like pitch, note events, knob twists, button presses, and clock and transport information.

I’ve been working with Tekserve, an independent Apple service and sales shop in Manhattan, to help show iPad owners how they can use this protocol – now more than a quarter century old – to make all their gear work together. Tonight at an event Tekserve titled “the future of music,” then, I’m the Ghost of Music Technology Past.

In the video at top, co-produced by CDM and Tekserve, I show a hands-on with MIDI gear and the iPad. Of course, by definition, what I’m saying also applies to other computing platforms that can support MIDI, which includes Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.

MIDI and iOS: Seen in this Video

Various iOS apps let you send MIDI (or other protocols, like OpenSoundControl) wirelessly, via the WiFi connection. (Bluetooth seems not to be an option, because of how Apple provides access to that connection.)

But here, we’re using good, old-fashioned hardware connections, which means you can work with hardware from the 80s through today – and you don’t have to have your computer with you. So, we need a hardware adapter.

Apple Camera Connection Kit: Works with USB devices that support MIDI class, and USB MIDI interfaces that connect to hardware with a 5-pin MIDI DIN port. Below, here’s a demo of the CCK with the Korg iMS-20.

Line6 MIDI Mobilizer: Works with any device with a 5-pin MIDI DIN port, no additional hardware required. Also the only device that works with the iPhone and iPod touch and not just the iPad. Line6 points out that it also theoretically supports faster speeds, but the thing I like most about it is that you get little LED lights that flash when MIDI is sent or received – ideal for troubleshooting! SonicState did a great video hands-on review:

If you’re serious about MIDI, you probably won’t regret having both.

MeeBlip is an open-source, hackable synth designed by James Grahame and sold and supported in collaboration with Create Digital Music. And if you don’t necessarily want a $500 iPad, here’s a demo video of the MeeBlip “gex0008″ shot with a used Yamaha QY10, a portable MIDI sequencer.

Synthetic Bits little midi machine: A hardware-style analog step sequencer.

Edirol UM-1 EX is a USB MIDI interface that has those 5-pin MIDI DINs on one side and USB on the other. It’s now discontinued, but the UM-1 line lives on — see the UM-1G, now sold as Cakewalk by Roland. Just like its predecessors, there’s a little “advanced mode” switch that you can toggle to “OFF” for driver-free operation with the iPad.

MIDI Touch is a brilliant little app for making custom MIDI controller maps. (It works wirelessly, too.) I need to actually make a template for the MeeBlip. Check out microKORG and Shruthi-1 templates on Palm Sounds. Version 2.0 recently arrived.

Audio interfaces work, too. There are various driver-free audio gadgets out there; the $30(!) Behringer UCA-222 just happened to be sitting out Tekserve’s show floor and worked just fine.

The Akai LPK25 is a cute little music keyboard; Akai now offers a whole mess of controllers that work without drivers. That’s also true of similar, portable options like Korg’s nano series. I might opt for the Akai MPK mini, as then you get pads and encoders, too.

No iPad music demo would be complete without the insanely-deep iMS20 from Korg, which is what I use with the Akai keyboard (sorry, Korg) at the end. You could forget every other app and immerse yourself in the Korg app and probably be happy.

More Essential MIDI Apps

I’m not a believer in the notion of loading up your iPad with a zillion apps – I learned that lesson the hard way long ago loading up my computer with a zillion plug-ins. For me personally, I’d rather have a few good apps I depend on. For MIDI, here’s what’s on my machine:

• StepPolyArp is the other MIDI sequencer I use, aside from little midi machine. It supports wireless DSMidiWifi and Line 6 Midi Mobilizer, and it’s utterly brilliant – you get to just focus in on editing a MIDI pattern with some truly powerful tools. I actually wanted to fit it into the video, but just didn’t really get it in.
• Midi Monitor from iOSMIDI is a must-have app for heavy MIDI users: it’s perfect for diagnosing hardware support, messages in and out, and even comes with a layout for testing gear, modeled after Midi Touch from the same developer.
• MidiVision is a simpler monitor app; this is an iPad story, but MidiVision is your best bet for an iPhone or iPod touch (and doing MIDI monitoring fits a handheld nicely).
• S1 MIDI Trigger works really nicely with hardware MIDI. Like MidiTouch, it’s a custom layout app; it started out wireless-only but added hardware support. I haven’t yet decided which I prefer; stay tuned.
• AC-7 Core is easily the most powerful controller app out there. It’s primarily for controlling your DAW on your computer, but it has MIDI support for hardware, too.
• Synthetic Bits’ FunkBox is a fun little drum machine, focusing on simple, finger-friendly, hardware-style interaction like the awesome aforementioned little midi machine. Bonus here: it will send MIDI clock in version 2.0, which will allow tempo-synced fun. (That means you could use this with an iPad and something like an old Yamaha QY10, as seen above, and have it all clocking together.) Must-download. Get it. I wish there were more desktop apps this simple and fun.
• One Red Dog Media’s Molten is similarly excellent. It also has MIDI clock support. As with FunkBox, it’s a standalone drum machine, too, but the fun part is that you can also use it as a controller or sync other devices (or your computer) via MIDI clock.

S1 was spotted this week on Synthtopia, demonstrating how you can use an iPad to extend tangible controllers you already have:

Here’s FunkBox in action, using MIDI clock:

And while it’s at the very end of the video, at around :50 you can watch Molten synced up to a MacBook Pro running Apple’s UltraBeat drum machine. This video does not show hardware MIDI, but that’s possible, too, via Core MIDI, the Camera Connection Kit, and a MIDI adapter.

What I really desperately wish had hardware MIDI / Core MIDI support: Shiverware Musix, a hexagonal music grid, and Audanika SoundPrism, which aligns music to a sophisticated pitch array.

Caveats

There are some details to be aware, lest this seem that I’m simply advocating the iPad – I’m not; I’m really advocating using MIDI to keep everything compatible.

MIDI clock is pretty rare. Molten is the only app I know of at the moment that both transmits and receives MIDI clock over a hardware connection for synchronizing tempo. The MIDI Mobilizer evidently only recently added clock as a feature, so that could have something to do with the delay.

Bluetooth isn’t yet, as far as I and developers can tell, possible — too bad, as it’s a good option for wireless MIDI.

For hardware support, power is a consideration – a lot of gear has to be externally powered. Here’s one good write-up on that.

Let’s say that again: if you expect anything other than a very simple MIDI input device or adapter to be powered by the iPad, you’ll be disappointed. Even on desktop computers, we often find issues with power availability. Imagine that an order of magnitude worse on iPad; most devices beyond things like that portable MIDI keyboard above will require external power. We had a hub handy while we were shooting this. I like Richard Lawler’s idea of hacking together a battery-powered hub as a workaround for this (and other mobile devices likely to suffer the same issue).

There’s some serious fragmentation. Core MIDI works via a camera adapter – an unrelated device – but a lot of developers haven’t added it to their apps, and it doesn’t work on the iPhone. The Line6 MIDI Mobilizer is great, but it requires using a proprietary set of APIs (though some developers do say they prefer its simplicity). Apps tend to support one or the other, but not both – and a lot of apps don’t support hardware MIDI, period.

One thing I found in the demo that I can’t stress enough is that that tiny 30-pin dock connector is very, very delicate. The iPad seems a little precious to use in a gig. Sweat and multi-touch don’t mix, some people have told me, and the dock connector has a tendency to pop out. Akai’s dock might be a good solution, but I haven’t tested it yet. And using up the dock connector means you have to plan ahead and power up your battery, since the iPad doesn’t have a separate power jack. (That makes docks appealing, but then you may wind up spending more than you intended on your tablet.)

Maybe it’s so obvious that people forget to say it, but because MIDI has been around so long, traditional computers, netbooks (at half the price), and even used MIDI hardware are very competitive options. If you’re in the market for an iPad and trying to use this to justify the purchase, you’ll probably need some added reason – like, for instance, you love these apps or have other uses for the iPad.

Those things said, what is great about MIDI and enduring standards is that it means technology isn’t disposable, and isn’t cut off from other technology. You can have a synth you’ve loved for 25 years that works with something you’ve just bought. That’s pretty great.

Where to Find Resources

At top, a hands-on video with iSequence by Hank Lepstein on Noisepages.

Compatible device round-ups:
Synthtopia has reader reports with the Camera Connection Kit

Midi Touch and Midi Monitor developer has a nice round-up of other apps with CoreMIDI support

Notably, SyntheFX and Luminair are your choice if you use DMX and lighting.

iosaudio is keeping a running list of apps with support for different MIDI (and even OSC) features. You can see some of the fragmentation that’s happened, but you certainly don’t lack options.

Akai is the first company to offer integrated docks for MIDI support. The SynthStation49 is a big keyboard. More useful, at least from my perspective, is the Alesis iO Dock. (At the NAMM show, Alesis called it “StudioDock” but seems to have changed branding.) It helps alleviate some of the issues I had, with spaghetti cables and easily-disconnected dock connectors. But pricing and availability are uncertain, and since it’s not done, no one has yet tested how good it is.

If there’s interest, one developer suggested starting a spreadsheet on which readers could collaborate; I’d happily start one.

See also our Noisepages iPad/iPod musician group.

Lastly, iConnectMIDI is a high-end MIDI interface box. It looks pricey at nearly US$200, but it also works as a standalone MIDI box and with computers as a 2-port MIDI interface. That plus dedicated USB and power connections for an iPad means that for serious users, you could probably justify the purchase, especially since you can use it with your computer. It also works with the iPhone and iPod touch, so it will be a direct competitor with the Midi Mobilizer (albeit not nearly as portable). I hope to review it, because apparently I’m a MIDI fanboy. (Who knew?)

Want wireless support and compatibility with hardware? See our previous story:
The Missing Link OSC/MIDI Translator Makes Your Electronic Music Gear Wireless

Developers? Android?

If you’re a developer and want to talk more about this stuff, we have two excellent running groups:

There’s an epic thread running about using the open source Pure Data (Pd) environment on iOS.

We also have the mobile music + visual hack group for developers.

Pete Goodliffe has some terrific, open source sample code for using CoreMIDI in iOS. I’d love to see more.

Android developers, the future looks a bit murkier as far as hardware MIDI support, though most everything else is possible on Android (and even, increasingly, in mobile and desktop browsers). But if you’re curious to play around with Bluetooth MIDI – something you can’t do on iOS – Peter Brinkmann just shared some sample code with Pd and has it available open source on Gitorious.

iOS and Android developers may both want to check out libpd; see my previous write-up.

Will MIDI be available on mobile devices that aren’t on iOS? Signs point to yes. MIDI is (conceptually, at least) about the age I am, which is an eternity in computing, but it appears to be going strong.

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers

I hope this guide can evolve to be a comprehensive starting point for people wanting to integrate their iPad with their MIDI rig. So if you have questions, ideas, tips, apps of your own, sample code, sample apps, templates, or … you know, music, let us know!

Huge thanks to our friends at Tekserve for co-producing this video, especially to Chad Carino for shooting and editing.

http://www.tekserve.com/

In pointing out Behringer’s clone of Apple’s homepage, I may have left some things unclear. I was honestly surprised to find a number of people rushing to Behringer’s defense. I wasn’t trying to score cheap and easy points against the brand, but while venting frustration, I may have underestimated the response of people who own Behringer gear. If you do, and it’s working for you, as always – that’s a good thing.

The conversation got me excited, and I stepped into the comment fray. I shouldn’t have in this case, and unless asked to, I’ll stay out of this conversation. I enjoy being involved in those threads, but there are times when I should keep my writing to this space and let you have at it in the space below – the one labeled “comments.”

I think the reason Behringer inflames some people boils down to two things. Those people may have been burned by gear that proved not to be a bargain, or offended by a history of gear designs copied from recognizable models, or both. The former, of course, can happen with any vendor, but it does illustrate that saving money doesn’t always save time or money. Caveat Emptor is therefore true with any vendor. The latter is really the sticking point. Here’s a loose timeline of the cases in question:

Behringer and Mackie: In 1997, Mackie sued not only Behringer but distributor Samson and retailer Sam Ash. Mackie claimed that Behringer mixers were intended as exact copies of Mackie mixers – not only of external look and feel, but circuit design and individual components. In 1999, Behringer and Samson claimed a decision by the US Copyright Office “vindicated” the company. That supposed vindication is fairly empty, however. The US Copyright Office didn’t say that Behringer’s circuit designs were original. Instead, they said that the circuit board designs weren’t covered by the US Copyright Office. That has more to do with peculiarities of US intellectual property law than it does a vindication of Behringer.

Behringer and Roland/BOSS: In 2005, Roland sued Behringer for duplicating the look and feel of its guitar pedals. The blog Music Thing had a nice visual of just what this looked like. In this case, there was no claim about underlying circuit design, but the look and feel or “trade dress” is covered legally. Again, Behringer was not exactly vindicated. The two companies reached a settlement. The terms remained confidential, but Behringer did modify the look of its pedals.

Behringer and Line 6: What’s more disturbing to me is that, after reaching a legal settlement with Roland, Behringer simply moved on to a different vendor. In 2007, Behringer introduced a new line of pedals copying Line 6 instead of BOSS. Again, Music Thing’s Tom Whitwell did a visual comparison. Less extreme, but demonstrating Behringer continues to try to steal Line 6 market share by looking like Line 6, even the prize for the web design competition (the V-AMP) is intended to clone Line 6′s POD.

These are not the only cases of Behringer products that are designed to look like someone else’s products. As noted in comments, even the screenshot of the Behringer website is of monitors intended to look like those from KRK. Part of why I’m taking up the Behringer stories is that Music Thing isn’t around to do it any more, but here are some of Tom’s best hits:

In 2006, Behringer again copied Mackie, answering Mackie’s ONYX with mixers-plus-digital-I/O called the XENYX. (They copied the look and feel of older Mackie mixers rather than newer ones, but this was also clearly intended to look like Mackie’s product.)

Some amount of cloning, of course, should be forgiven – it’s expected practice for software emulations to mimic the look and feel of classic analog gear, so I can’t really fault Behringer for that. (That said, of course, I still think there’s far too much of that, and far too little original thinking about how to lay out controls and design interfaces.) The difference between cloning a classic product and a currently-shipping product is that making something look like something else that you can buy new suggests you want to create confusion. There are laws around that – “trade dress” – but more importantly to me is the question of whether it’s ethical.

Please, if, in comments, you want to fill out this timeline or offer more details of each case, on either side, I’m happy to hear it.

Apple and Behringer: In the case of the Apple site, while I wish websites in general would stop cloning Apple’s design – good as it may be – Behringer crossed a line by copying product pages, the color weight, gradient values, pixel weights, and radius of the Apple site. My small images in the story didn’t do that justice. This is not about the “cult of Apple.” Let me make myself plain: please, stop making sites look like the Apple site. Behringer’s case I think was worse than most, but I’d be happy if other sites flirted less with some of the particulars of Apple’s designs. Apple’s solution is not always the “best” design solution. There are others.

(Side note: the basics of Apple’s current website design really have been tremendously influential – so much so that it’s easy to overlook how much of this is derived from Apple. The earliest version of the current look dates from around 1997. But you can be influenced by a design and make it your own, rather than copying every detail or copying every detail poorly. To pretend otherwise would be to say design doesn’t matter, and I can’t do that.)

Let’s consider the larger issues:

Cheap can be great. One thing I won’t do is discriminate against musicians because what they’re using is cheap. “Ghetto fabulous” I believe is the proper term. Far from that, I hope on CDM we can find every opportunity to champion finding ways of doing cool stuff with cheap things. However…

Cheaper doesn’t always save you money. Because value is important, because you’re on a budget, you don’t want to throw your money away. Assume for a moment the allegations that Behringer cloned Mackie’s mixers down to individual circuits and components were true. That still doesn’t cover issues like manufacturing quality assurance or support. Larger than any one vendor – Behringer or otherwise – we urgently need to consider value. We can’t afford disposable gear. Our musical electronics are made out of toxic materials, and they impact the environment as they’re made, shipped, and disposed. And we need them to last for our music, too. I’m certainly guilty of having made this mistake, but it’s something that – as a community – we can all do better. Again, perhaps you have a good relationship with Behringer gear, which is great.

Copying is good; plagiarism, not so much. There’s a huge benefit to making copies and improving on them. A certain amount of copying is part of design. There is a difference, however, if the copy is intended to create confusion, to substitute for something else dishonestly. It’s the difference between Kia competing with the Honda Accord, as mentioned in comments, and someone making a car that looks exactly like an Accord called the Monda Schmaccord, and steals the design of its drivetrain. Likewise, in music, sampling can be a beautiful thing. Taking someone else’s work and trying to pass it off as your own is something different.

I believe it’s essential to draw these lines. It’s only going to get tougher from here. If you think these isolated Behringer cases were bad, brace yourselves: an army of music technology cloning companies is waiting in the wings.

My plea to Behringer: kick your copying habit, if you can. I could forgive you if you didn’t keep doing it over and over again. That suggests to me, and many others, that it’s malicious, that you hope consumers won’t notice and will buy your cheaper version because, cosmetically, it looks the same as something else. If it really is different, and if it really is better, then that only makes this more of a tragedy.

I’m going to leave the Behringer discussion at this point, having provided some of the historical background. But I certainly won’t let go of these other issues. And the uprising of Behringer support says to me that CDM and I do need to spend more time talking about affordable gear, affordable software, and — not necessarily because it’s “cheap” or “free” — free and open source hardware and software. I welcome your suggestions.

Look out: Behringer, already a notorious rip-off artist, is taking the “first step in [the] company’s reinvention of online presence.” I shudder to think what the coming steps will look like. But yes, the new site looks a wee bit familiar. It actually gets worse as you dig into the layout.

In fairness, for over a decade now, Apple’s site has perhaps the most ripped-off Website design on the Internet. But then, Behringer is special.

Back when the blog Music Thing was publishing, it was able to do an annual series on cloned Mackie and Roland/BOSS gear, some down to colors, typography, and control layouts. (Check out the MT archives for some of this hall of shame, or lack thereof.)

And Behringer doesn’t just copy the Apple layout like other sites. They actually send out a breathless press release that brags about their pixel-perfect, color-perfect clone.

Update: Apparently, you can thank readers of the Behringer Website for the choice. Mr. Tunes notes via Twitter that this design was chosen in a survey among other mock-ups, for which you could win a blatant rip-off of the Line 6 Pod. I could comment on that, but the things I might say would not make me a team player for “Team Behringer.”

After months of hard work from a 9-person development team, BEHRINGER launched a dramatically upgraded website today. Sporting an elegant, efficient aesthetic and an intuitive interface, the new site boasts a feature-rich series of upgrades…

Indeed, an inspection of image assets and CSS reveals that the development team really did re-create the design from scratch using their own images and code. (There’s 81 months of human development time the planet will never get back.)

Here’s the great irony: Behringer’s Terms of Use for their site.

This Site is provided for your personal and non-commercial use only. The purpose of this Site is to provide information on BEHRINGER and its products. All content included in this Site, including but not limited to any text, graphics, images, logos, button icons, data compilations, software, audio and video (collectively, "Materials"), is the property of BEHRINGER or its content suppliers, and you may not distribute, exchange, modify, reproduce, perform, sell or transmit the Materials for any business, commercial or public purposes. The Materials are protected by applicable laws and international copyright and trademark laws, and any unauthorized use of any Materials may violate copyright, trademark, and other applicable laws. You may not frame or utilize framing techniques to enclose any portion of this Site or any Materials without express written consent of BEHRINGER. You are granted a revocable and nonexclusive right to create a hyperlink to this Site so long as the link does not portray BEHRINGER, its affiliates, or their products/services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise offensive manner. You may not use any BEHRINGER trademark, logo or other Materials as part of the link without express written consent of BEHRINGER or as provided herein. If you breach any of these Terms, your authorization to use this Site automatically terminates and you must immediately destroy any downloaded or printed Materials herefrom.

Of course, the idea of Behringer’s proprietary intellectual property in this case is more than a bit absurd. Here’s Apple’s Terms of Use:

All text, graphics, user interfaces, visual interfaces, photographs, trademarks, logos, sounds, music, artwork and computer code (collectively, “Content”), including but not limited to the design, structure, selection, coordination, expression, “look and feel” and arrangement of such Content, contained on the Site is owned, controlled or licensed by or to Apple, and is protected by trade dress, copyright, patent and trademark laws, and various other intellectual property rights and unfair competition laws.

Indeed.

By the way, wasn’t “Seeing is Believing” the tag on one of the images on Apple’s site at some point? (Why would I not be surprised if that was, you know – nine months ago?)

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

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.

How To: Setting up the Behringer BCF2000 for Logic Express 7.2

Conclusion:

The Behringer BCF2000 is not a Logic Control. You have to jump through some hoops to make it work, it won’t emulate all the features. But it will get you a good way there at way below the price. The documentation of the Behringer BCF2000 is crap. But if you follow the above How-To then you will at least get set up and going.

Check out the tutorial and see how it works for you.

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:

Behringer FCB1010

Brad has a great idea: Behringer should open source the firmware. Unfortunately, I think the odds of Behringer doing that are about the same odds as CDM naming Behringer our “Product Manufacturer of the Year.” We’re just getting over our rage and frustration involving Behringer’s BCD2000. Short version of that story: Behringer finally fixes the screwed-up firmware on that model, but orphans its existing users, repaints the thing, and renames it the BCD3000. No, thanks.

So, I have mixed feelings. I love hardware mods and user communities and cheap gear. But if you’re curious which gear Behringer ripped off to create the FCB1010, it’s this:

Roland FC-200

More than a passing resemblance, huh? Now, the Roland costs twice as much — US$300 — and it lacks the second expression pedal. (Oh, yeah, and Behringer moved the display. And that is a slightly different typeface.) But a quick look through the product manual reveals Roland’s MIDI implementation makes a lot more sense, even if Roland also failed to produce a software editor. Programming is actually logical, and the manual is great. Well, okay, it’s a music gear manual, so “great” might be the wrong word — let’s just say accurate, detailed, and far better than Behringer’s.

Just one paid gig could make up the difference in price. I’m torn. As much as I love the community support, I’m about ready to toss my FCB1010 for the Roland on principle alone. I can mod the Roland’s gear, too — and I probably won’t need to touch the firmware.

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.

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.

3 days later there’s a release, and he’s gone further: Working on a system which will allow OSX users to actually customize mappings on their BCD:

I have just finished building and testing the Universal Binary driver for the BCD2000. So now you should be able to use the BCD2000 on your PowerBook, iBook, iMac and PowerMac, as well as your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or Mac Pro. As always, you can find the download link over at the “Links” box on the right.

On other news, I’ve been working on a GUI for MIDI Rules, which should make setting up Traktor a bit easier. After that’s done being polished, I’ll release it and write up the HOW-TO for getting Traktor up and running with the BCD2000 on Mac OS X.

Right now, though, I’m being rather intrigued by how audio works on the BCD2000. My pleas for documentation have fallen on deaf ears at Behringer (you’d think they’d be a bit more supportive when you’re doing them a favor like this one), so I’m staring at hex dumps from USB Snoop on my Windows machine trying to figure this stuff out.

This is absolutely stellar news for users, and shockingly poor form from Behringer. That they had both an obvious demand and a 2 year head start and were still beaten to OSX compatibility by a hacker with hex dumps is a pretty apt reflection on their pathetic attitude to customer support.

I’ll be picking up a Macbook (my first) in the coming month or so, but until then I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been able to give this a spin on their Mac. I’ve emailed Evinyatar to get some further information on his process, and I’m thinking of propositioning him to work on an updated Windows driver. Any other frustrated BCD2000 owners out there willing to chip in to fund work on this?

In the meantime, lucky Mac-based BCD2000 owners can download Version 0.0.1 Universal Binary and give them a go.