Miidi "mixer" Controller

I was wondering if there’s a way for me to control for example the internal delay effect with some kind of a mixer-looking thing? So I could adjust the amount of delay feedback and stuff like that?

You mean tweaking the parameters on a hardware midi device much like the behringer bcr/bcf series? Yes, that’s working nicely.

Thanks, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, at least now I know what I’m looking for.

I just wish I could find one for cheap because I spent most of my savings on a tenor saxophone last year, and unless I manage to sell it I won’t have enough money at the moment.

Would anyone happen to have any experience in trying to get either of those Behringer controllers working with Renoise on Ubuntu/Linux?

Well, you can plug in every type of midi controller to your system and let it work with Renoise together. It’s because it works with midi, which is a one of the standards within using hardware. Every knob on the controller has it’s own Midi command code and Renoise can map every slide to such midi command.

We use a CME Bitstream3x for our liveset and it’s very easy to use. Normously people advise something like Ableton or something, but Renoise can also work really well with equipment like this.

Simply rightclick on the effect you want on one of your knob or slide and choose the MidiMap option. Now you can simply click on the slide of the effect and tough one of the sliders, or knobs on the midicontroller and voila. B)

Thanks, I didn’t know it has been made that easy in Renoise. Will have to try and find one of those controllers now.

After a quick look at some I’m guessing I should either go with the Behringer or the CME Bitstream when taking value for price into mind? I’m really tempted to just cough up a few extra hundred and get the CME, but I’m not sure.

Oh and since you have one already, just one completely newbie question. I can assign any of the 32 rotary knobs (or the 8 sliders) to any effect in Renoise, right? (In other words the 4 knobs above each slider aren’t some extra knobs that somehow control the same effect as the slider) I’ve never worked with any hardware before so my questions might seem silly.

You really have to think about it before buying. Asking yourself the question: “What would I really want to do with this controller, does it really help me with the things I’m about to do?”. Like I said, we use it for our liveset to add multiple effects at the same time. We don’t use any “touchable” knobs or sliders for the productions of our tracks. Why should we, when you can also draw everything in the automation tab (Which is more accurate than recording a live jam session). So think about this before you throw away your money to something you not really need.

But to answer your quation about the CME Bitstream, you can map every single knob and sliders on this device, on every effect slider in renoise. ^_^

I’ve had a Behringer BCR-2000 in the past and recently swapped to a Bitstream 3X. I don’t play live and at first it was purely because of its size and form that I replaced the Behringer with it (it’s the size of a computer-keyboard, opposed to the BCR which is the size of a small mixer).

Quality-wise, I have to say that the Bitstream feels much more solid, it even came in a cool case. The display proves you with useful information (f.ex. the X/Y-position of the joystick) and you can also use it to start/stop Renoise or alter the tempo of the song. What I really like though, is that it is powered by USB and don’t need any drivers. When I got it, I hooked it to my computer via an USB-cable, turned on the Bitstream, started Renoise and I was all set! I’m not used to that kind of plug and play, so that felt great! :)

Also, it works as a MIDI-interface (just like the BCR), it features an arpeggiator, LFO and Motion-schemes (I’ve mostly used the arpeggiator, this stuff is mostly useful when controlling external MIDI-gear imho). For me, the CME is just a much nicer piece of equipment to have in the studio, which does the same stuff I did with the BCR, and takes up less space. I haven’t tried programming synthesizers with it using sysex though (which I did with the BCR on a couple of occasions) but I think it manages that bit as well.

My 50 euro-cents.