Ableton Forum

I am currently playing with Ableton Live 5 and am looking for a decent controller.

I am after endless rotary's and motorised faders.

So far the best seems, BCF2000 or BCR2000 (I can afford both together if this would work with Ableton????), the others are the Mackie Control (slightly pricey) or the Tascam 1082 (which can also be used as an audio mixer but slightly cheaper than the Mackie).

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks

Pete

although I love the BCx's (and yes, you can use two with Live) I'd still buy the mackie control.

use the search feature.

the search won't show a comparison between the behringer, mackie and tascam units...

try waveidea bitstream 3x

2 days to go before the week-end ... hopefully i'll get my 3X tomorrow!

else...the long wait till Monday

Kr.

Got my Faderfox LV1 just before coming away on business...I can't wait till saturday to try it out. Initial tests show it's superior (for me) to the Evolution UC33 and UC17s that used previously.

Endless Rotaries and Motorised Faders.....

Now that strips your choice down to the Mackie or the Behringer.

Personally I'm a faderfox guy with LIVE! and a CMlabs user for Protools

BUT! I have used a Behringer combo in LIVE! and the fader unit in protools and I was quite simply blown away by the features, Price, Performance benchmark..

If I had to choose between the Mackie and the Behringers, I'd go behringer for "bang per buck"

I do use Mackie controls in another studio, but remain unconvinced in regards their price bracket and with all due respect to Mackie control users, the feedback I get from owners is not exactly glowing for a £900 midi controller.

Remember also that some people do pay for a brand name. The Kudos in having a Mackie on your desk as opposed to a Behringer is a tempting proposition and it is a sexy peice of kit.

I believe the term is gear porn...

and before I get flamed, this is in no way a reflection on all mackie owners, merely an example.

cheers

Freaky

Im looking for a new controller also, the bitstream 3x looks great, I hadnt heard of it before, I like that it has 4 knobs on each channel thats a 3 band eq abd pans for me just what i want but yeah if it had motorized faders and endless rotaries it would be perfect.

How much of a difference does that make though, I mean, I am not that experienced, does it really help heaps if your surface has total recall, it usually only takes me a minute or so to reset all my levels etc...? Suppose if your using it a lot would be nice. Both the mackie control and behringer only have one row of rotaries though, so thats not much good for djing, like pete said you would want the bcr and as well so that you have enough rotaries ? would be nice if it was all in one though rather than having two seperate controllers ?

Freakybeatz wrote:Endless Rotaries and Motorised Faders.....

Now that strips your choice down to the Mackie or the Behringer.

Lemur. Endless endless rotaries, even.

Admittedly pricey, but as many of everything that you could possibly want.

And when Uli Behringer reverse-engineers it and farms it out to the Chinese sweatshops, maybe we can all afford one!

i've recently started using a bcr2000 for this after working with a peavey1600 for a long time, and i have to say that the bcr is pretty sweet. it's nicely set up to provide access to a lot of live controls per channel (because of the endless rotaries and the lcds).

for example, you can have 3 controls per channel switch between eq and sends and switch back and forth between the two control groups way faster then you could with motorized faders.

the build quality is a little suspect, but shxt man, at $120 you could buy a couple replacements

plus there's the mackie control emulation preset that namhei recently cooked up, which means you can almost do away with mousing...

I'm happy to say that 2 bcr2000s and two Trigger Fingers are closer to what I want than the Lemur - and I'd have enough cash left over to have a custom case made.

Sure, the lemur is great and all, but if you have to use menus to get to the controls, then the idea is kind of lost for me.

I have just picked up the BCR2000 (to start with) I may get the BCF later I'll see how I get on with the BCR2000. My Initial comments are below

First build quailty for the money is very good it's a very solid unit and the endless rotary's work perfectly in Reason 3, and it was very easy to set up (it automatcially knows which instrument you are using). I haven't had time to try ableton live 5 yet not quite as simple to set up controllers as reason. I'll update you later in the week.

The only Issue I have found (an insignificant one)is there doesn't appear to be any overlays availble for the BCR, you have to make your own by the looks of it. This is a bit of a pain well learning which rotary changes what, particularly for Reason where you are swapping betweening different instruments.

But yes the BCR and BCF are definately the best controllers for the money and I would recommend either of them. I simply chose the BCR because I use Reason as well as Ableton Live, plus I can always add the BCF to the setup at a later date (as both units can be linked via midi so that you can use them both at the same time).

Pete

I have a BCF2000 and all the pots were broken off at a party and they aint the type you can just push back in

I also have the Faderfox LV1 and LX1 and i reckon nothing can touch them for a live Live performance, not as great for production as the pre-assigned controller templates restrict workflow, i wish they had something like Mackie HUI emulation which i've yet to try with my broken BCF. I don't really miss the endless rotary or instant recall functions as much as i thought.

ikeaboy wrote:I have a BCF2000 and all the pots were broken off at a party and they aint the type you can just push back in

How did they get broken off ?