Popular MCU compatible devices include the Icon Platform M+, Behringer X-Touch, and the PreSonus Faderport 8.
Reasonably detailed documentation is provided in the GitHub repository in PDF & PowerPoint form.
My initial design goal was to have a simple mechanism for linking knobs, faders, and buttons to widgets and having their labels show on the display. I also wanted to be able to change Racks/Variations/Songs/Songparts using button rows. It has expanded a bit since then to allow “bank switching” along the lines of how MCU units are typically used in a DAW (i.e., shifting from controlling tracks 1-8 to 9-16, or from Volume/Pan to other functions on demand) and a few other things.
Oh man - you have to be kidding — this is awesome I actually just borrowed a Behringer One Touch from a friend and somebody else is about to lend me an actual Mackie MCU Pro
Excellent. You’ll have to let me know if it works with an actual Mackie MCU.
When Mackie initially made them there was a “secret” handshake protocol that a DAW had to use with the MCU to get it to respond. Supposedly that was so they could charge software companies to license the protocol. I assume they abandoned that years ago (and the clones never used it) but I guess you’re about to find out!
First off, great work. I have not used extensions before. After a little read up, I downloaded and placed the .dll file in my Windows directory, according to the path necessary. I then opened GP4 and opened your gig file demo. However I did not see any option that displays a Mackie type mixer (as you have shown, like the iCON. Should I see a mixer view?, or was this pic, just for representation purposes. I have my Logic Control MCU connected to my Behringer XR18 via midi IN and Out. Set to MCU mode. I have moved faders and knobs on the Panel View of your various racks, with no results yet. Thanks for all your hard work, and hopefully I can put this to use.
Then you won’t see a mixer - the picture from the post above shows a template for “Open Stage Control” which is a platform to use OSC (Open Sound Control) which can be run on diffrent systems. Introduction - Open Stage Control (ammd.net)
This extension only gives Gig Performer the needed “vocabulary” to properly communicate via the MCU protocol… the exact steps on how to connect Gig Performer’s widgets with a MCU-controller or how to use it with OSC are provided in the documentary of the extension.
I’d suggest one step at a time to keep it simple. Let’s get your MCU talking to the extension first before getting into the OSC stuff.
The first page of the documentation goes through the basic steps. Most important, the extension has to know what MIDI port your MCU device is on. Because there are a lot of different MCU compatible devices it doesn’t (presently) have a good way to figure it out automatically.
In the Global Rackspace in the demo gig you’ll see text widgets toward the bottom left that look like this:
As the text in the image says, you need to change the text in those to include the names of your MCU controller’s MIDI ports (as Gigperformer shows them in the Options → MIDI Ports" window). You can leave the vMCUout and vMCUin parts and just change the “Platform M+ v.215” to whatever your MCU device midi ports are. You’ll also need those ports enabled in GP.
After you change the port names you’ll have to let the extension know you changed them. If the extension is loaded you’ll have a new “Extensions” menu item at the top of the GP window. Choose “Extensions → MCU Extension → Re-initialize extension” and it will re-scan the widgets and (hopefully) find your device. If it finds your device but it doesn’t look like it’s working quite right you may have to save the gigfile, exit, and restart Gigperformer.
Once you have it working, let us know what hardware device you’re using, and what the default MIDI port names are in GP. I’d like to add common ones to the list that the extension searches for to make this part easier or more automatic at some point.
Thank you Schamass, for taking the time to give me more info. I will check this out. I did have touchosc on my old android that died on me. I will look into the possibilities for this. Have a good day sir!
(It occurred to me, I did not have touch OSC, I had touchDaw, which emulated and worked with the Mackie MCU) So it looks like I need to buy some more software… lol
