It’s been one of the few constants in music technology. To use Pro Tools software, you need Pro Tools hardware – that means M-Audio interfaces for M-Powered (and now Essentials) and Digidesign interfaces for LE and HD. Without M-Audio or Digidesign hardware actively plugged in, the software refuses to run. And there’s no way for a third party to get their audio hardware working with the software.

Or so everyone thought. Without the cooperation of Avid, Mackie says they have managed to get their Onyx-i mixer line working with Pro Tools, and they’ll even “certify” compatibility. At the end of July, a number of audio sites (including Mix and Sonic State, but not CDM) received a package with one of Mackie’s new mixers, a video, and a copy of Pro Tools M-Powered. The message: a “secret” driver provided compatibility between Mackie’s mixer-audio interface package and Pro Tools. (See Sonic State’s writeup.)

So, what’s going on?

Onyx-i – What’s “i”mproved

Before I get into that, first, a word about Mackie’s new Onyx-i mixers. Viral videos aside, I already know many CDM readers don’t actually like Pro Tools, and the Onyx-i has plenty of other features to recommend it. The original Onyx was already an interesting solution, with the potential to combine a full-blown Mackie mixer with a FireWire audio interface. But the hardware was bulky, and adding FireWire support required buying and installing a separate add-in card.

The Onyx-i solves both problems. The entry-level Onyx 820i model adds a compact, inexpensive (street just US$500) 8-channel by 2-channel output option. Also, all of the new Onyx line (up to the 16×16 1640i) have FireWire built-in – no expansion needed. The line still has a rather hefty bulge that sits below the mixers, but at least with the addition of the 820i, there’s an option I could imagine throwing in a backpack. (That’s good news, I think there are more scenarios where you might want simple mixing than need to lug around a 16×16 mixer-interface.) The cheaper Onyx-i models are also competition for the Cakewalk VS-100 I reviewed recently. The Onyx lacks the VS control surface, flash recorder, and the Cakewalk software bundle, but if you were more interested in the mixer to begin with, the Onyx series could be worth a look.

At the high end, the 1640i can stream full 16 x 16 audio channels in and out of your DAW.

The Onyx also makes “universal” compatibility a selling point, and that’s where this Pro Tools saga comes in. The Onyx-i is “qualified for use with all major DAWs,” including Logic, SONAR, Cubase, Ableton Live, and … Pro Tools M-Powered 8. Of course, the last entry was assumed to be technically impossible, and Avid has, to my knowledge, never been compatible with any hardware other than their own. (The only exception I can recall is the brief availability of something called Pro Tools FREE, which worked with standard audio drivers and cost nothing, though it had a number of other limitations.)

Mackie’s announcement came with this disclaimer:

The Onyx-i Series Mixers are qualified by Mackie for use with Pro Tools® M-Powered™ 8. Mackie will release a driver (via www.mackie.com) together with full details of how to use the Onyx-i series with Pro Tools® M-Powered™ 8 in the coming weeks.

Avid has declined to comment for the time being on the Onyx-i compatibility claim, though they at least confirmed that they were not involved.

Shaunna Thompson of Mackie emphasized to CDM that there was “no reverse engineering” involved in creating the Onyx-i driver for Pro Tools M-Powered, and that they were “in discussions” with Avid but could not comment further on those discussions or how Avid would respond.

Conventional wisdom about Avid and Pro Tools has been that hardware “lock-in” – the reliance on their hardware – is good for their business. That may well be, and I do believe in hardware choice; it’s part of why Pro Tools hasn’t ever been my main DAW. I do have to point out, though, that every other audio software maker, from big developers to people maintaining open source software, will tell you compatibility is a huge pain. Massive amounts of time get spent on testing and compatibility, particularly when you start combining different operating systems and different combinations of hardware and drivers. So there’s no question that the other thing Avid has been able to do is to reduce some of that complexity, some of the additional sources of support problems, and all the costs associated with both.

But that made me all the more curious about just how the Onyx-i support works.

Q&A with Mackie

CDM: Can you comment on the inclusion of Pro Tools M-Powered?

Mackie: The “Ransom Packages” that were sent out as part of a viral campaign included a copy of Pro Tools^® M -Powered^™ 8. However, the mixers do not come with a copy of Pro Tools; users will need to purchase this separately.

CDM: I’m sure you can’t talk about all the details, but is there anything you can say about how the M-Powered support was reverse-engineered?

Mackie: Mackie did not ‘reverse engineer’ support for Pro Tools M-Powered 8. We created a custom universal driver that enables use with all major DAWs including Pro Tools^® M -Powered^™ 8.

CDM: For that matter, at the risk of asking the obvious, why would Mackie want to support Pro Tools given support for other hosts and your own DAW (Tracktion)?

Mackie: The Onyx-i Series interfaces with all major DAW’s including Pro Tools^® M -Powered^™ 8 and our very own Tracktion Software. Our customers have been telling us for years that they want a mixer that can interface with Pro Tools^® – we are simply giving our customers what they want. 

CDM: Aside from the Pro Tools questions, I’m a little unclear – what’s new in the "-i" versus the original Onyx predecessors?

Mackie: The biggest difference is that the Onyx-i Series has deep FireWire integration. Now you don’t have to buy a separate FireWire card because it’s already built into the mixer offering a significant increase in performance and value over the older Onyx Compact Series. This effectively means you get a premium analog mixer AND an ultra-high quality digital interface. These are the tools you need for serious computer recording.

Every channel on the mixers can be routed pre- or post- EQ to the computer, allowing the user to choose whether to implement EQ to tape or not. Returns from you computer can be routed back through the channel strip for integration into the mix or for mastering the Perkins EQ.

So, Does it Matter?

It seems that if this had happened a few years ago, it might have been explosive news, which is not the sense I got with Mackie’s attempt to “go viral” with that guy, his little dog, and his pantyhose mask. Then again, I’d better not speak too soon, lest I wind up with 100 comments on this post…

For many users, people who want hardware choice may already have found DAWs with which they’re happy. Pro Tools has its loyal users, and people make great music with it – it just happens that the same can be said of Ableton Live, Apple Logic, Reaper, and many others (just in descending order of recent reader interest on this site). And, of course, Mackie also makes their own Tracktion. Mackie actually risks overshadowing the other news here – the ability to buy a single piece of gear that’s both a Mackie mixer and a FireWire audio interface for under $500.

On the other hand, it’d be a fairly significant acheivement to release this driver, and perhaps even to get Avid’s support. And while I had to ask the question above, of course, Mackie wouldn’t do this if they weren’t getting customers bugging them for it. That’s why interoperability ultimately matters: users want certain choices, and (perhaps rightfully) don’t understand why they might be denied those choices.

I’m going to place the burden on Avid on this one, for one reason: Avid claims “interoperability” is one of their new corporate goals. It’s never been entirely clear what they mean. Some of that goal seems to have more to do with interoperability between products in their own product line. (In fairness, that seems a logical place to start!) So I hope whenever Avid and Mackie do finish their discussions, whatever Avid’s decision, we get clear communication for exactly what the “new” Avid’s interoperability goals are. If they feel they have a case for not supporting hardware like Mackie’s, that’s their prerogative. I’d just like to see clear communication from either company, to explain to their user base why they make those choices.

And, of course, I don’t expect that communication from either Mackie or Avid will come from anyone wearing a mask and a disguised voice.

I’ll be watching for the outcome of the discussions between these two industry giants. Stay tuned.

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.

Focusrite – Novation Beta

There’s a registration form for beta testers so you can stay up to date, but you can grab the download immediately. Sounds great to me, as more (quality) feedback can mean fewer bugs!

And what about the HUI support in Automap (which apparently includes the free Automap 3 Standard)? HUI, or Human User Interface, is the older version of Mackie’s control scheme, implemented over MIDI for more extensive control over DAWs’ editing features. HUI support (added first in the 2.0 ReMOTE SL operating system) gives you control compatibility with the wonderful, affordable Reaper DAW, plus Logic, Final Cut Pro (yes, the video app), Nuendo, Cubase, Ableton Live, and others. Some of those are supported separately by Automap, but others – like Final Cut, for instance – could be fun to try out.

Ableton Live controllers are suddenly everywhere, in commercial products and DIY creations. But an in-progress prototype being designed by Serbia-based creator Sasa Djuric, found on the CDM Flickr pool, goes the extra distance to integrate more effectively with the software. The hardware looks more like the on-screen UI, for starters – an elusive objective for many controllers. And by working with the Mackie Control protocol, Sasa is able to make communication between hardware and software fully bi-directional, so the controller gives you essential feedback. There’s even a facility for scratching. The design is based on the popular MIDIbox platform.

Sasa writes with details of what the creation process is like. It’s all still very much in progress, so we’re really excited to see how it evolves into a finished design.

Sasa explains (with videos to follow):

Hi Peter.

As you noticed the controller is still in production. It is in the final stage, but there is still quite a lot to be done. Most boring part of project is finished… assembling, engraving filling, sanding and polishing the buttons. Most of wiring is also done …I hate wires. I couldn`t afford to have messy wiring so I paid special attention to do it tidy because I wanted this controller to be as compact as possible without so really no place for mess.

This controller is designed especially for Ableton Live. There are two reasons for building it myself. First, I really enjoy building my own gear, and secondly, there’s no commercial controller that really comes close enough to what I wanted to have. Beside Live, it could be used with almost the same effectiveness with other music software as it’s heavily based on the Mackie protocol and it is completely configurable. I designed it for myself but I think it is very intuitive for somebody who is using it for the first time. I put a lot of effort into ergonomics and organizing so many controls on a small surface and it was a real challenge. Only thing I wanted to have but I left out is a touchpad, but I can live without it. Most of the digital controls (rotary encoders and buttons) have multiple functions and they are accessed easily using group buttons. Some are reserved for the system, like: window navigation, undo, redo, clip controls, and some are freely assignable for "dub style" sample triggering or FX parameter control. Critical functions like volume, start, stop, record, EQ, cue and sends have dedicated controls and have no multiple functions but it can be changed easily if needed. LEDs are activated from software feedback, not internally which is important for minimizing monitor usage. An interesting feature are LED bars which are common with encoders (LED rings) but not with pots. The controller receives the fader position feedback from Live and represents it as a bar on 15 LEDs. It is designed to be used in combination with faders that have snap function, which means there will be no ugly "jump" if the physical fader doesn’t correspond to the volume position in Live.

All internal construction and buttons are made out of 3,4 and 6 mm laser cut acrylic. I used white sub-panel as I wanted to back illuminate it with white LEDs to have nice rings around the pots, but I might left that idea if space become an issue which is likely to happen. Engraving on the buttons is also done using a laser cutter. Jog wheel is 40 steps optical. Quadrature and top disks are also made out of lasered acrylic. They are mounted on a hard drive spinner motor which serves just as a very durable spinning platform. The core of this controller is Thorsten Klose`s MB64E and MB64 (www.midibox.org). I’m also planing to integrate a MIDI mixer so I it can be used without a PC but only volume controls will be supported. If by any chance I find some more room left at the end I’m planning to integrate a USB sound card. After the controller is finished it will be finally housed into lasercut steel case with aluminum side panels. Those are the plans. But I don’t expect it to changed much.

Best regards and greetings from Serbia.

It’s really brilliant-looking work already. I can’t wait to see the finished project! Best of luck to Sasa with this.

fibra’s photo stream

I can imagine Music Technology: The Game, however. Fight the clock as you struggle to make weird MIDI controller messages match up with the jog function in your software! Discover realms of mystery and ancient puzzles as you struggle to decipher — the manual! Stare down a horde of vampire zombies carrying drivers incompatible with Windows Vista!

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

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.

Just after making the Mackie C4 Commander software free (which works even without the Mackie hardware), Mackie has unveiled Reason support for their C4 control surface:

Mackie Control C4

There’s a PDF there with setup instructions. The C4 is becoming the go-to control surface for just about everything, with robust support for software like Live and Logic as well as Apple and Adobe video software, LCDs above each control, 32 endless encoders, and a US$1000 street. I know we have a number of happy users here. I could even see supplementing the new control features for the same apps in Novation’s ReMOTE SL with the Mackie, using one for synths and one for mixing. Now, all this cheerleading aside, I’d still like to see a more generalized, open standard for connecting control surfaces to software; I think it’d make life easier for both hardware and software makers. But that’s another story, and certainly the C4 works for a lot of people, and it’s nice at least that Mackie built it on MIDI rather than some proprietary standard.

Here’s the idea: the interface is split into a docking station and mobile FireWire interface, so you can eliminate cable replugging and carry only what you need.

For studios, the docking station includes talkback and monitoring switching functions, vital to studio recording but often left off audio interfaces and requiring another piece of gear. (Sure enough, Mackie makes a piece of gear for just that purpose, the Mackie Big Knob.) The docking station also includes the extra I/O you probably don’t need as badly on the road: XLR, two balanced line ins, 1/4″ instrument on each channel, and insert points for outboard effects (something that just got taken off Digidesign’s mBox). Powered via FireWire bus or a power brick.

For mobile use, the Satellite Pod is pretty simple: Neutrik combo connectors for XLR or 1/4″ ins (with both instrument ins and 48V phantom power for mics), plus control room and dual headphone jack outputs. (I’m not sure if that headphone jack is independently assignable; I’ll check with Mackie.)

But what’s really nice here is, if all you need is some simple I/O on the road, you can dock the little Pod in the Base Station when you’re in the studio and pull it out for mobile use, all without repatching cords.

The whole package comes with Mackie Tracktion, the highly-underrated, simple DAW, plus Mackie’s Mastering Tools. I haven’t gotten the chance to try the Mackie Onyx line in my own studio yet, but I’ve been hearing great things about audio fidelity and reliability, and the price looks right. I keep walking into setups, particularly in academia, where someone blew all their cash on a huge Digidesign audio setup that can’t move, is tough to upgrade, and is far more than they need, thus leaving them with no cash for software and other equipment they do need. That’s nothing against Digidesign, but you do wish you could get people to think about their other options and find what’s best for them. This could be a perfect, flexible solution for people on Mac and Windows, and I’ll bet many people don’t consider their options beyond one or two brands.

As always, we’re glad to know what you think, though, particularly if you’ve had hands-on experience (positive or negative) with the Onyx equipment you’d like to share.

Mackie Satellite FireWire Recording System

C4 Commander Software: Information and Free Download [Mackie.com]

Now, of course, Mackie is hoping that once you start doing this you’re going to decide to run out and buy the C4 Commander hardware. That’s not a bad idea; it’s a great device. But, since we’ve had a couple of stories and an active comment thread going about how you can fool your Mac or Windows machine into thinking some existing device of yours is a Mackie Control device. In other words, this free software could help you with some clever two-way mapping for control of software or hardware. See our previous story:

How-to Fake (or Customize) a Mackie Control Device

Useful? Well, it’s certainly been useful to at least some of you who wanted the Mackie Control options with some other piece of hardware. And even if not, if you’re in the market for a Mackie Control it might be worth looking at this software first. It looks a lot better than software for many competing devices, so test-driving the software could help inform your buying decision after all.

Every keyboard, drum pad, and audio interface these days seems to be crammed with MIDI faders and knobs, and (if you’re lucky) LCDs. If you’re like me, you’re rapidly running out of money and/or room for yet another dedicated control surface. Wouldn’t it be great to take better advantage of these controls with programs like Ableton Live, Cakewalk SONAR, Steinberg Cubase/Nuendo, Mackie Tracktion, and even graphics and video programs? As we saw earlier today, on the Mac you can use LC Xmu with Apple’s Final Cut Studio, which otherwise doesn’t support generic MIDI devices, but it turns out that’s just the beginning.

Windows has an equally capable program called Wise Mix MCmu. (Thanks to CDM’s Adrian Anders, who discusses this further in comments.) Like the Mac equivalent, MCmu lets any MIDI hardware emulate the widely-supported Mackie Control control surface hardware. Any generic MIDI device can be configured, or you can use one of the plentiful overlays available. This isn’t just for cheap keyboards, either; it gives your Yamaha 01x the same features as a Mackie Control, but with additional options. And LCD feedback on your device means you can see what you’re doing on any hardware you want, using any Mackie Control-supporting software you want, as opposed to having to buy specific apps and hardware. Cost: EUR40.

If you do own Mackie Control hardware, this is equally useful, because you can view and modify controllers. It’s the “missing” config tool the Mackie left out. Plus, you can go from a Mackie Control setup in a studio to your keyboard onstage, by swapping a Novation Remote for your Mackie Control unit, for instance.

So there you have it, Windows or Mac, you’re set.

Here’s my big question: why don’t we just have a standard feature for bi-directional communication with devices, especially considering all of this can be built from MIDI — no fancy new communication specs needed? (I’m making my eyes wide and doing my best innocent Pollyanna impression. You can’t see that, because this is a blog.)