Mackie Control Universal

Instruments
1

So I recently got a nice deal on an old Emagic Logic control.
Updated the firmware to the Mackie Control Universal and have been having a great time ever since. Truly the way to use the protocol (having been through the BCF2000 route among other daw controllers), everything feels so natural.

The LCD was getting a bit dim, so I got a replacement “el-panel” that slides in beneath the LCD and makes it bright again. Unfortunately, I have damaged the LCD display in the process! This is a real pain, as replacements are not available as an official part from Mackie (end of life), and the only real alternative I’ve found is these horribly expensive (albeit a LED display so wont wear out as quickly) panels.

But if anyone could whip up something alà “BCVIEW”, an app from Behringer to show the LCD info supposed to display on the MCU on a virtual screen on your monitor… for the Electra E1?

Or in other words, why has no-one made a full MCU preset for the E1?
Nothing beats nice faders, but the space-saving would make it portable in the studio. And it’s been the DAW controller script used by any and all DAW controllers for ages, with exceptions of maybe Eucon and whatever Protoolers use (MCU has HUI tough).

So to the inclined… I dare you to make a fully fledged MCU preset for the E1! And if you’d be so kind, start with the LCD-info part, while I sort out my hardware woes ;=)

2

The LCD display on a mackie controller is handled via sysex messages. If I remember correctly the text for the entire display is sent as a single message which you then need to break up for Track1 / Track 2 etc.

It’s relatively simple to map the electra to the mackie control protocol

I did at one stage start doing this for my own Logic Pro template. But never bothered going the whole hog with 8 channels as was happy with a single fader type solution. So I just cherry picked the MCU commands that were interesting to me then mapped other commands in Logic that were not part the the mackie control

This is probably useful for anyone wishing to decode the LCD sysex message

1 Like
3

Yeah I got two MCU’s in great condition for under 200$, so I never looked into this further. They just work, and proper long throw, motorized faders are hard to beat.

4

Btw these are really great. I have one in my mcu pro. Also they usually do a black friday sale where you can get them for a 100 € iirc