Tag Archives: BCR2000

Reason: Using Ableton Push As A Universal Controller

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This is gonna’ be the most detailed review / talking piece about using the Ableton Push with Reason you’ll ever find. So let’s start this by asking; what is a universal controller? A universal controller is a physical hardware device (“USB controller”) that allows you to control every aspect of a device. A universal controller typically won’t have as many buttons as the virtual device they’re controlling, they’ll have different “banks” of parameters and, if that isn’t enough, different “pages” of banks.

This is what the Ableton Push has. It can control eight things at a time per bank and has access to eight banks at a time, with additional (practically unlimited) pages of banks. So, using this method, a universal controller like the Push can control as many different buttons, knobs, sliders and whatever a device has.

In short, the purpose of a universal controller is to physically control every aspect of a device.

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Reason: How To Use Multiple BCF2000’s

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A while ago, I had bought two Behringer BCF2000 mixers with the intention of using them as a 16 channel mixer. I found they wouldn’t “cascade” like they do in other DAW’s, contacted both Behringer and Propellerhead and they both said it couldn’t be done. I even looked into it, saw even the remote map file didn’t support it and wrote a blog post titled “Using Multiple BCF2000’s Can’t Be Done”. Miguel Catalão then left a comment on how it could be done and recorded a video just for this post.

The process

This isn’t an easy method and I can’t personally vouch for it as I no longer have multiple BCF2000’s. The secret apparently lies in Miguel’s ability to figure out how to make the BCF2000’s act independently from one another instead of mirroring the same fader bank currently in focus.

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Reason: Why RE’s And VST’s Waste Your Time

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Something not a lot of people realize is that most additional instruments and effects you can add to Reason via rack extensions (RE’s) and now VST’s (bleh) not only aren’t needed, nearly all of them are features found in Reason masquerading as new concepts.

Don’t be fooled by fancy audio demos

The hard, unspoken truth about music production is that there isn’t many instruments and effects devices that are doing anything new. How many effects are doing anything actually new? That’s the thing; people aren’t inventing new effect categories… after 40 years of audio design, the music community isn’t going to be coming out with new concepts anytime soon. You’ve got categories like distortion, delay, reverb, repeaters, chorus, unison, phasers, pitch shifting, gaters, amps, filters, EQs… and of which all of these are already built into Reason (with the exception of a repeating device, but that’s why combinator patches exist I guess).

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Studio Hardware Walkthrough

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In this post, I detail the physical hardware I use for my desktop studio setup. Rack, mixer, music devices, audio interfaces, audio analyzers, monitors, speakers, power supplies and desktop configuration.

Rack

The rack is custom-built from two red IKEA tables. I stacked them and keep them in place with two “L” brackets. I then installed rack rails, cutting the metal rack rails with a dremel tool.

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Reason: Using Multiple BCF2000’s Can’t Be Done (Update)

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Update: check out the new post Reason: How To Use Multiple BCF2000’s.

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.

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Reason: Using A BCR2000 To Fully Control The SSL Mixer’s EQ Channel Strip

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[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.

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