If anyone’s curious on setting up multiple Behringer BCF2000’s together in Propellerhead Reason (to go from 8 channel banks to 16 channel banks, etc)… from what I can tell it can’t be done and no one has provided real evidence of this. Because…
BCF2000’s are controlled by Reason uniquely
I couldn’t get Reason working with two Behringer BF2000’s, setting everything up as it’s intended (both via direct USB and MIDI cascading). When you look at the BCF2000 remote file, you see references for 8 faders groups at a time and no more. Reason loads in a temporary, on-the-fly preset for BCF2000 and BCR2000’s that other DAW’s don’t. This is where the issue happens. Who wants two or more BCF2000 mixers that are controlling the same exact channel banks? It’s stupid, and if you wanted a control surface, go with a BCR2000 instead of a BCF2000.
After creating my own audio patch cable experiment proved unreliable, I ordered some normal, boring looking 1′ (0.3m) black with red and white tipped RCA cables. But I still wanted the cables to have a distinctive look to them. So I decided to paint them. Supplying your own cables, it’ll cost you less than $10 to do it yourself too…
Materials needed
Spray paint. I highly recommend Krylon “Fusion For Plastic” (what I simply call Krylon Fusion). You don’t need any sanding or spray painting primer or none of that stupid mess.
I got myself an RCA patch bay for cheap ($20) and needed some short RCA patch cables. I saw they were crazy expensive online so I figured I’d make them myself. The end result isn’t up to my expectations. Here’s how you can do it and why you should probably avoid it…
Materials used
I bought some RCA terminals, the kind that you screw in wires. I wanted to try using heat shrink to go over the terminals that would melt down to the size of the wire, but I didn’t find any locally that were big enough so I got a size big enough just for the wire. I used speaker wire and electrical tape (vinyl).
There’s an issue that people who’ve started making music the past 10 years or so think an audio spectrum / waveform = what you hear. The sad fact is that it doesn’t.
One thing I’ve found that seemed to be a key to “professional” audio mixing / mastering people is that they had some kind of experience with real, studio mixers. They didn’t have access to spectrum windows, they mastered by tweaking dynamics knobs and using their ears. They didn’t have techy BS of calling out kHz or Hz numbers like “4,200”, “31.5” or other crap relating to decibel ranges like people using computer software so frequently do. This is because…
I’ve created a method to reuse mixer console (artist) tape for cheap ($6 or so) and anyone can do it. It involves using three things; console / artist tape, printer paper and Elmer’s “Tac ‘N Stik” (or a competing brand, white preferably). I also have a system for managing the strips, focused on music producing. This method is much more preferable as, when switching between songs, you can stack the scribble strips without having to worry about them getting stuck together, ruined, losing their adhesiveness or simply making your area look tacky with scribble strips stuck everywhere.
Cut paper into strips
We’re going to use the paper as an inner-material for the strips. A paper’s 8.5″ width is nearly perfect for eight channels. Take a pen and make little notch marks along the length (height) of the paper that matches the size of the console tape. Then, cut the paper into strips.
[05/10/2020 Version 1.5] I’ve created a way to fully control the entire Reason virtual SSL mixer and (most challenging), select and change mixer channels directly from only one BCR2000. I searched for months and found no one’s accomplished this. I’m sharing this specific method, along with a custom hardware profile (known as remotemap’s), and custom overlay graphics. I’ve also included some tweaks to the BCF2000 that add functionality.
Before creating this method, it wasn’t possible to control the individual channel settings of Propellerhead Reason’s virtual SSL mixer with a BCR2000. Before understanding how to do this, it’s important to understand why so many forum posts, videos and other information regarding Behringer BCR2000 and BCF2000’s are well-meaning but wrong when it comes to Reason. Instead of dumping files online and making people figure it out for themselves, I’m gonna’ explain this situation as no one else has.
One thing putting together a physical mixer console has taught me is how capable Reason’s original virtual rack-mounted 14 stereo channel (28 mono channel) mixer, known as the reMIX Virtual Tec MX 28-4-14, was / is. The reMIX has since been replaced by the virtual SSL 9000k mixing console and it, of course, blows the reMIX out of the water in terms of functionality.
But one thing it taught was the power of using what you have wisely. The reason is because you were limited to 14 channels (even if you were using a mono source, such as a subtractor, you still wanted to apply FXs, EQ or panning from the reMIX, which made you use up an entire channel strip). Of course, you could chain multiple reMIXes together without taking up a channel slot (as well as passing on the 4 FX’s to each mixer). But it still taught you a valuable lesson of doing more with less.
Here’s how to stream Propellerhead Reason audio directly to an iPhone, Android, iPad or other tablet (even Airplay devices) from PC or Mac. This method is detailed for Reason, but from what I know about other DAW’s, the process is also possible in Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio, FL Studio, Cakewalk Sonar, Logic Pro, Steinberg Cubase, Pro Tools and Cockos Reaper.
Why stream audio from Reason to a mobile device?
Simple; during the mixing / mastering stage (which you should be doing throughout the creation process), you want to hear what your music will sound like on a variety of devices. Particularly on devices that are brutal to your music, such as mono smartphones and tablets with very little low and mid-range audio capabilities.
