Very unhappy with new BCF2000 unit

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NashBackslash

NashBackslash

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Yesterday, I purchased those motorized control surface things Behringer came up with.

I live in Malaysia, and over here, everything seems more expensive. I bought it for RM 1200 (Ringgit Malaysia), which according to www.xe.com, roughly translates to USD$ 317.088. Probably all the shipping and profit-making from the local dealers and stuff.

I do know for a fact that these buggers cost around USD$ 200. Anyway, for Malaysians, a thousand ringgit is a LOT of money. I really mean a lot. You don't get that much money easily. You are considered "rich" if you buy anything that's more than a thousand ringgit, here. No, no way I am implying here that I am "rich", but, I am stating that a thousand ringgit is a damn lot of money that I had to painfully work, earn and save up for.

Anyway, I use Sonar 3.0, and I was very, VERY unhappy with the way that the BCF2000 and Sonar 3.0 just do NOT work together.

On top of that, the documentation that came with the BCF totally SUCKED. I really couldn't figure out how to get it to work.

I had the idea that I can use this thing to do my mixing with Sonar - instead of using the mouse, I would move these faders, and if I had more tracks in Sonar, I would press a "bank left" or "bank right" function that would scroll to the next/previous 8 tracks. Or something to that effect.

I also thought that the motorized faders on the BCF would "snap" to whatever the fader values are on the bank I am currently editing.

Nope, none of this is happening.

I am so frustrated!!!! I SO want to return this unit and ask for a refund!

Or if they won't refund it, I'll demand they let me exchange the BCF with RM 1200-worth of Studio Project mics (which I saw in the shop I bought the BCF from)!!!

Anyway, ahem. Ramblings aside, you probably wonder what is the point of this post.

Anyone got the BCF and Sonar 3.0 to work two ways? :P

(No, I am broke and don't have money to upgrade to Sonar 4 or soon-to-be-released 5).

Thanks for reading!

- Nash
 
Just a small addition the above post, is Sonar 3.0 supposed to be able to control the motorized faders?

Because I kind of remember the guy demo'ing the BCF at the shop, and he showed switching banks and stuff, and the faders remained exactly where they are regardless of bank. So you can't really, say, adjust faders on bank 1, then switch to bank 2, then go back to bank 1 and have the faders on the BCF adjust themselves according to what they are in Sonar.

I hope I'm wrong?

And more importantly, if I have automations in the form of envelops, do the faders on the BCF move as the song plays? And am I able to record fader movements using the BCF, too?

Or am I just dreaming of all this, and I really need to return it back to the store?

:(
 
Thank ye, thank ye.

I wasn't able to get a refund anyway (the shopkeeper DID offer an exchange of item(s) worth the same price, provided that the problem persists).

Now I can be a big fat liar and say that it still doesn't work, because some of the items he offered me were really tempting, but it's good to be able to operate the darn thing with flying faders and stuff.

For ONCE, something that's decent from Behringer.

Thanks!
 
I have a BCF2000 and for the price it can't be beat. Just remember to upgrade to the latest firmware and set it to SONAR-mode. Then use the Mackie Control plugin in Sonar and you're good to go!


I just love BCF2000! It's a little bit noisy if you have continuing moving faders, but hey: It's cheap! :)
 
Yep, I set the BCF to Mackie Sonar mode.

It works beautifully.

I will definitely get a second unit and link them together, whenever I have more money.

I'm also using the BCFView.exe utility. Not sure how that program would work with linked BCFs.
 
How do these things work (control surfaces in general)? I really just noticed their existence in the past week. Do they let you assign each fader/knob to whatever control you want in Sonar?
 
LfO:

Yep. Though depending on what control surface you will buy, some of the manufacturers are kind enough to upload presets that you can use so that you don't have to do the tedious job of assigning each knob and faders.

Some control surfaces are easy to setup, some aren't; the Behringer BCF2000 being one of the hard ones.

In fact, you can't get the BCF to work two-ways with Sonar right out the box - you'd have to install several upgrades and patches to both your computer and the BCF hardware itself. Once you DO get it work though, it totally rocks. The really impressive thing about the BCF is that you get motorized faders for a very low price.

Anyway I haven't really checked out other control surfaces so I don't know what they're like - like you, I also only recently read up about control surfaces (about a month ago). And being the impatient person that I am, decided to get one immediately without doing any research and expecting the thing to magically work the instant I plug it into the computer.

Fortunately, the internet has plenty of resources. :)
 
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