Old 02-07-2013, 08:38 AM   #1
tehsux0r
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Default BCF2000 + Klinke: step by step

Thanks to KevinW for proofreading and suggestions.
Attached Images
File Type: png Configuring BCFView.png (3.0 KB, 9069 views)
File Type: png Adding the surface.png (13.8 KB, 9109 views)
File Type: jpg Labelled BCF2000 (MCSo).jpg (65.7 KB, 15584 views)
File Type: png Installing KMCUD.png (20.6 KB, 9506 views)

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Old 02-07-2013, 08:38 AM   #2
tehsux0r
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Default Introduction

Despite the excellent resources on these forums, I still spent over a day exercising my deductive reasoning skills (i.e. flailing around) trying to get a fully working BCF2000+REAPER setup in folder mode. I hope this article can get others up and running more quickly, and if you find anything unclear or incorrect, please PM me so I can revise it.

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Old 02-07-2013, 08:40 AM   #3
tehsux0r
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Default Basics

This is here for those of you who haven't yet bought a BCF2000 or, like me, didn't immediately understand the concepts and terminology.

Mackie Control Universal (MCU)
This has, for years, been one of the most popular control surfaces, featuring faders, knobs, buttons, and a small dot-matrix display overlying the per-track controls. Virtually all DAWs can use an MCU and talk to it using MIDI messages, which are are sent over either an actual pair of MIDI cables or one USB cable.
MCUs are not cheap, though, and take up a lot of desk space.

B-Control Fader BCF2000 (BCF)
In a savvy bit of marketing, Behringer released the cheaper and smaller BCF2000, also a MIDI device with USB, that features several built-in emulation modes that imitate subsets of the MCU's controls. One of the BCF's drawbacks (the lack of a display) is partly compensated by a display-emulator program Behringer developed called BCFView.

REAPER surface support and Klinke's MCU driver (KMCUD)
REAPER supports both the MCU and BCF2000 natively, but those drivers are fairly basic, so Klinke wrote a much more powerful MCU driver. This might not seem immediately useful to BCF owners, but in combination with the BCF's emulation modes, much of the power of a genuine MCU can be ours.

Last edited by tehsux0r; 02-07-2013 at 09:21 AM.
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Old 02-07-2013, 08:40 AM   #4
tehsux0r
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Default How it works

  1. REAPER talks to KMCUD as it would any control-surface driver, exchanging information about tracks, parameters, levels, pan settings, etc..
  2. KMCUD talks to the BCF via a MIDI interface; the plugin doesn't care whether the virtual device uses physical DIN connectors, MIDI-over-USB links, or something else entirely; all that matters is that it has one in and one out assigned to it, and that the device on the other end behaves like an MCU.
  3. The BCF2000, in one of its emulation modes, masquerades as an MCU by sending and accepting the same MIDI byte-strings a real MCU would. When the host tells it to display something on its screen via an MCU command, it bounces that information back to the host as a BCF-specific display message.
  4. BCFView runs as a stand-alone program and listens to the BCF, but doesn't talk to it, so it only needs a single incoming MIDI device. It intercepts the display messages bounced back from the BCF and emulates an MCU's display in a window on the host computer.

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Old 02-07-2013, 08:42 AM   #5
tehsux0r
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Default My experience

I've installed this setup twice, first on Windows 7 64-bit, and later on Windows XP SP3, both running the same REAPER build (4.25). The second setup was easy once I'd conquered the first.

Behringer's USB-MIDI drivers have had problems in the past, so you might see some recommendations on the boards to use actual MIDI leads or avoid the custom drivers; as of this writing (January 2013) I've only ever used USB between the host and the BCF, and have never had any problems other than those caused by my own confusion, so I recommend that you thoroughly try the USB option before using DIN connectors. Since the BCF exposes its physical MIDI ports via its USB connection, doing this will also give you the option of connecting external instruments while using the surface.

Thanks to the advantages of 64-bit Windows, I find 64-bit REAPER unnecessary for even the largest projects, so although I keep it installed, I don't use it and haven't yet tested the 64-bit build of KMCUD.

Last edited by tehsux0r; 02-07-2013 at 08:48 AM.
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Old 02-07-2013, 08:43 AM   #6
tehsux0r
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Default What you'll need

  • The latest versions of Behringer's USB MIDI driver, BCFView application, and “B-CONTROL BCF2000 Emulation modes” manual, all from the “downloads” tab of Behringer's BCF2000 Web page:
    http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/bcf2000.aspx
    Note: you do NOT need the B-CONTROL EDIT application for this setup!
  • The latest version of KMCUD:
    https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=81818
    Note: There was no permanent URL at the time of writing (Klinke's tinyurl address leads only to a Dropbox item), so this link might be out of date – search the forums for a newer version to be sure.

Last edited by tehsux0r; 02-07-2013 at 09:08 AM.
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