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.

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.

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.

What you get

The official Behringer “B-Control Deejay” page is heavy on marketing, so here’s the executive summary:

USB Audio Interface:

• 4 Channel USB audio interface (2 master out, 2 1/4″ headphone out)
• 2 Phono preamps (one switchable to line)
• Mic preamp

USB midi interface:

• Crossfader
• 2 upfaders
• 2 pitch controls
• 2 jog wheels
• 13 assignable rotary controllers (18 total)
• 37 assignable buttons (37 total)

Initial Impressions

If you’ve used a Behringer MIDI controller such as a BCR before, then this will be very familiar. The plastic BCD knobs and sliders aren’t as silky smooth as higher-end offerings, but they are rather chunky, which is great for a live performance environment. As the BCD rotaries aren’t endless, Behringer haven’t included the excellent LED rings seen on the light-tastic BCR. Instead, they’ve opted for a more traditional bump and a normalling detent on those controllers that need to be zeroed, such as EQ and gain. The cross- and upfaders are smooth and move quite freely, not as quick as a real DJ mixer, but definitely faster than the BCD’s main rival in the price range, the M-audio X-session. I was pleasantly surprised by the pitch controls which have a firm, precise action and “quartz lock” style detent. The buttons are ok; they’re not velocity-sensitive, but do have a good solid click when pressed.

Jog wheels: Now I haven’t spent any significant time using CD turntables, nor the similarly priced Hercules DJ Control, so I can’t currently compare these to any of the major competition. I’ve DJ’d enough with vinyl though to be able to confidently say “these ain’t no 1200s”. They’re comfortable enough, but definitely part of a cheap piece of gear. Ed: Note that the high-end scratch controllers, as found on products like Pioneer’s CD turntables, feel quite different because they add weight and a drive mechanism to provide the resistance of a real vinyl turntable. It’s simply not possible to get this same response without a huge jump in price. I did get to try the scratch controllers on the Behringer gear at NAMM, and they did feel reasonably good to me for a basic, rotating plastic controller; in my opinion, better than the Hercules device in both build quality and response. -PK

Overall, though, build quality is good. The steel chassis of the B-control series lends a hefty, solid feel, so you’re not afraid to bang away at them if the mood takes you. My BCR2000 is over a year old and has been lugged around the world in suitcases and backpacks to little ill-effect. I expect the BCD to be similarly robust.

One small but frustrating issue for the whole range is the included, pathetically tiny rubber feet. These adhere to the device’s own small plastic “legs” and it should take around 1-3 gigs before they’re knocked off through enthusiastic use and the controller starts to slide away from you. This isn’t a worry if it will be spending its life on a desk, but if you’re going to venture out of your studio with it eventually you’ll need to replace those feet with something more robust. The legs stand out by 5mm, but don’t have enough space to stick on a standard adhesive rubber dot, so I’m still looking for a suitable replacement.

Plugging It In

Interface is via USB1.1, and, happily, the included BCD2000 Control Panel drivers are relatively innocuous. The drivers install easily and without excess baggage. They’re ASIO- and WDM/MME-compliant, and allow you to change ASIO latency and select in/out channels. Ed: Behringer has previously supported Core Audio on the Mac, but doesn’t appear to have any Mac drivers in this release. -PK The device is also switchable between B-DJ mode (for use with the included B-DJ software, put together by xylio) and Advanced mode, for use as a MIDI controller/soundcard with other programs or devices.

I’ve been using the BCD as my primary sound source since I picked it up, and am quite happy. As I’m not a musician or producer by trade, I don’t have a professional soundcard to compare it to, but if you’re used to an on-board or low end card such as Creative or Hercules produce you shouldn’t have any complaints. I’m not going to go all stereophile on anyone; but running through rather nice, vintage NAD amps and Wharfedale speakers gave me plenty of clean, distortion free sound. This thing will be fine for DJing with MP3s, and I’ll venture it will serve well with club soundsystems. One possible issue for gamers: The BCD doesn’t support EAS, so games with hardware accelerated sound may not work properly, causing slowdowns and other unhappiness. I’m quite happy to switch back to on-motherboard sound for the occasional Oblivion session, but if you’re looking for a gaming soundcard, this may not be the product for you.

Headphone output is 1/4″ and drives well past my pain threshold. I can’t be sure that it would be enough if you were wedged between ceiling-high stacks of speakers, but it’s plenty to give you tinnitus in the privacy of your own studio.

Noticeably absent from the connection options are MIDIs In, Out, and Thru. I suppose as it’s designed for soundcard use as well the BCD will generally be plugged into a computer, but it would be nice to have the ability to connect other MIDI devices into it, rather than taking up more USB ports and requiring 3rd-party software to rout MIDI messages.

Bundled Software

I’ve spent enough time in Traktor and Live to know what I like, and B-DJ isn’t it. It is definitely a functioning digital DJ program and compliments the BCD perfectly – not so surprising considering that it was designed especially for this purpose. It works, but it doesn’t have the stability or any of the polish seen in the major DJ software offerings. For a budding DJ who wants to train their ear to beatmatch and find out what all those knobs on the mixer do, it’s excellent. For someone who’s more experienced and has a specific use in mind, well, you’ve got some customization ahead of you. Ed: My guess is anyone serious will skip over this application for tools like Live and Traktor, of course. If anyone comes up with a custom template — especially for Live — do let us know! -PK

One of the great features of the BCR and BCF is the included BCEdit software, which allows you to customize and save presets for every knob, button or fader on the device. You can choose the MIDI data type, send channel, note or controller number, value display, min and max controller value, LED ring display or button LED toggle, and so on. It’s a little clunky, but magnitudes better than the on-board configuration of many MIDI controllers. So you’ll understand my profound disappointment when I discovered that the BCD has none of this customization available. All button and controller assignments are fixed in the device.

So, instead of a happy lovefest of simple customisation, the first thing I encountered online as a new BCD owner was this 14 page thread on the Native Instruments forum about getting the BCD2000 jog wheels to work correctly with Traktor. Some clever types figured out a combination of Bome’s Midi Translator and Midi-yoke to get some useful control out of the jog wheels, and DJ Fresha’s ninja setup with Midi Translator 1.5 beta to use them for scratching in Traktor. Fortunately for me the jog wheels work fine out of the box for scratching in Resolume, but I don’t think VJs are the BCD’s primary target market, so if sound is your thing you might need to do some translating.

Throwing Bome’s Midi Translator or Hubi’s Transformator into the mix opens up a whole world of customisation, which I shall leave for another article. We’ve got a review copy of Midi Translator Pro, which has some very interesting features, so expect a look into that soon. The short version is this: As shipped the jog wheels are infinite rotaries sending CC19 and CC20, velocity 64 (move anticlockwise) velocity 65 (clockwise). If your program of choice can do useful things with this information: Congratulations. If not, get mapping or wait for Part 2 of this article.

So, should you get a BCD2000?

If you’re looking for a cheap entry into digital DJing: What are you waiting for? Go, now.
If you’d like a cheap midi controller/sound card to integrate with your existing software setup: This may be what you’re looking for, but some more research for your particular needs may be in order. I’ll have more to say on advanced uses and midi translation soon.

Updated: We’ve learned the BCD2000 is not Mac-compatible, though it’s possible it might be at a future date; you may also have difficulty acquiring one as it hasn’t yet started shipping in volume. Full details