MIDI Remote Overview

TotalMix can be remote controlled via MIDI. It is compatible to the widely spread Mackie Control protocol, so TotalMix can be controlled with all hardware controllers supporting this standard. Examples are the Mackie Control, Tascam US-2400 or Behringer BCF 2000.

Additionally, the stereo output faders (lowest row) which are set up as Main Out in the Control Room section can also be controlled by the standard Control Change Volume via MIDI channel 1. With this, the main volume of the MADI FX is controllable from nearly any MIDI equipped hardware device.

MIDI remote control always operates in View Submix mode, even when the View Option Free is currently selected in TotalMix FX.

MIDI Remote Mapping

TotalMix supports the following Mackie Control surface elements*:

Element:

Meaning in TotalMix:

Channel faders 1 - 8

volume

Master fader

Main Out channel fader

SEL(1-8) + DYNAMICS

Activate Trim mode

V-Pots 1 - 8

pan

pressing V-Pot knobs

pan = center

CHANNEL LEFT or REWIND

move one channel left

CHANNEL RIGHT or FAST FORWARD

move one channel right

BANK LEFT or ARROW LEFT

move eight channels left

BANK RIGHT or ARROW RIGHT

move eight channels right

ARROW UP or Assignable1/PAGE+

move one row up

ARROW DOWN or Assignable2/PAGE-

move one row down

EQ

Master Mute

PLUGINS/INSERT

Master Solo

STOP

Dim Main Out

PLAY

Talkback

PAN

Mono Main Out

FLIP

Speaker B

DYN

TrimGains

MUTE Ch. 1 - 8

Mute

SOLO Ch. 1 - 8

Solo

SELECT Ch. 1 - 8

Select

REC Ch. 1 - 8

select output bus (Submix)

RECORD

Recall

F1 - F8

load Snapshot 1 - 8

F9

select Main Out

F10 - F12

select Cue Phones 1 - 3

*Tested with Behringer BCF2000 Firmware v1.07 in Mackie Control emulation for Steinberg mode and with Mackie Control under Mac OS X.

Setup MIDI Control

To allow Remote Control via external MIDI messages:

  1. Open the Preferences dialog (menu Options or F3). Select the MIDI Input and MIDI Output port where your controller is connected to.

  2. When no feedback is needed select NONE as MIDI Output.

  3. Check Enable MIDI Control in the Options menu.

Operation

The channels being under Mackie MIDI control are indicated by a color change of the name field, black turns to brown.

The 8-fader block can be moved horizontally and vertically, in steps of one or eight channels.

Faders can be selected to gang them.

In Submix View mode, the current routing destination (output bus) can be selected via REC Ch. 1 - 8. This equals the selection of a different output channel in the lowest row by a mouse click when in Submix View. In MIDI operation it is not necessary to jump to the lowest row to perform this selection. This way even the routing can be easily changed via MIDI.

Full LC Display Support: This option in Preferences (F3) activates complete Mackie Control LCD support with eight channel names and eight volume/pan values. When Full LC Display Support is turned off, only a brief information about the first fader of the block (channel and row) is sent. This brief information is also available on the LED display of the Behringer BCF2000.

Disable MIDI in Background (menu Options, Settings) disables the MIDI control as soon as another application is in the focus, or in case TotalMix has been minimized. This way the hardware controller will control the main DAW application only, except when TotalMix is in the foreground. Often the DAW application can be set to become inactive in background too, so that MIDI control is switched between TotalMix and the application automatically when switching between both applications.

TotalMix also supports the 9th fader of the Mackie Control. This fader (labelled Master) will control the stereo output faders (lowest row) which are set up as Main Out in the Control Room section.

MIDI Control

The hardware output which is set up as Main Out can be controlled by the standard Control Change Volume via MIDI channel 1. With this, the main volume of the HDSPe AoX-D is controllable from nearly any MIDI equipped hardware device.

Even if you don’t want to control all faders and pans, some buttons are highly desired to be available in 'hardware'. These are mainly the Talkback and the Dim button, and the monitoring option Cue (listen to Phones submixes). Fortunately a Mackie Control compatible controller is not required to control these buttons, as they are steered by simple Note On/Off commands on MIDI channel 1.

The notes are (hex / decimal / keys):

Dim: 5D / 93 / A 6
Mono: 2A / 42 / #F 2
Talkback: 5E / 94 / #A 6
Recall: 5F / 95 / H 6
Speaker B: 32 / 50 / D3

Cue Main Out: 3E / 62 / D 4
Cue Phones 1: 3F / 63 / #D 4
Cue Phones 2: 40 / 64 / E 4
Cue Phones 3: 41 / 65 / F 4
Cue Phones 4: 42 / 66 / #F 4

Snapshot 1: 36 / 54 / #F 3
Snapshot 2: 37 / 55 / G 3
Snapshot 3: 38 / 56 / #G 3
Snapshot 4: 39 / 57 / A 3
Snapshot 5: 3A / 58 / #A 3
Snapshot 6: 3B / 59 / B 3
Snapshot 7: 3C / 60 / C 4
Snapshot 8: 3D / 61 / #C 4

Trim Gains: 2D / 45 / A 2
Master Mute: 2C / 44 / #G 2
Master Solo: 2B / 43 / G 2

Switching off Mackie Protocol support in Settings / Mackie Control Options will also disable the above simple MIDI note commands, as they are part of the Mackie protocol.

Furthermore, all faders of all three rows can be controlled via simple Control Change commands. The format for the Control Change commands is:

Bx yy zz

x = MIDI channel yy = control number zz = value

The first row in TotalMix is addressed by MIDI channels 1 up to 4, the middle row by channels 5 up to 8 and the bottom row by channels 9 up to 12.

16 Controller numbers are used: 102 up to 117 (= hex 66 to 75). With these 16 Controllers (= faders) and 4 MIDI channels each per row, up to 64 faders can be controlled per row.

Examples for sending MIDI strings:

  • Set input 1 to 0 dB: B0 66 68

  • Set input 17 to maximum attenuation: B1 66 0

  • Set playback 1 to maximum: B4 66 7F

  • Set Output 16 to 0 dB: B8 75 68

Note: Sending MIDI strings requires to use programmer’s logic for the MIDI channel, starting with 0 for channel 1 and ending with 15 for channel 16.

Further functions:

  • Trim Gains On: BC 66 xx (BC = MIDI channel 13, xx = any value)

  • Trim Gains Off: BC 66 xx or select a submix

Select submix (fader) in third row:

  • channel 1/2: BC 68/69 xx

  • channel 3/4: BC 6A/6B xx
    etc.

Loopback Detection

The Mackie Control protocol requires feedback of the received commands, back to the hardware controller. So usually TotalMix will be set up with both a MIDI input and MIDI output. Unfortunately any small error in wiring and setup will cause a MIDI feedback loop here, which then completely blocks the computer (the CPU).

To prevent the computer from freezing, TotalMix sends a special MIDI note every 0.5 seconds to its MIDI output. As soon as it detects this special note at the input, the MIDI functionality is disabled. After fixing the loopback, check Enable MIDI Control under Options to reactivate the TotalMix MIDI.

OSC (Open Sound Control)

Besides simple MIDI notes, the Mackie Protocol and Control Change commands, TotalMix FX can also be controlled by the Open Sound Control, OSC. For details on setup and usage see Settings.

An OSC implementation chart can be downloaded from the RME website:

https://www.rme-audio.de/downloads/osc_table_totalmix_new.zip

RME offers a free iPad™ template for the iOS™ app TouchOSC (by Hexler, available in the Apple App-Store):

https://www.rme-audio.de/download/tosc_tm_ipad_template.zip

The RME forum hosts further information, more templates (iPhone…​) and lots of useful user feedback.