Question

Has anyone seen problems when using a Mackie MCU Pro with Studio One 4 in Windows 10?

The controller appears to work normally for the most part, but the MCU Pro randomly zero’s out the Master Fader periodically.  It almost appears like their is a hidden automation track doing this — because when the master fader gets zero’d, there is a little resistance to me moving the fader back up to Uniity — but as soon as I start to slide it, then it slides freely, an the fader in Studio One tracks accordingly.

This behaviour is making the MCU Pro unusable with Studio One.  I have never seen this behaviour when I used it with Sonar Platinum (though sometimes Sonar would mess up the scribble script meters).

So I was wondering - has anyone seen this problem with their MCU Pro?

Or put another, is anyone using their MCU Pro with Studio One 4 successfully, without this problem?

At this point I suspect it is a software driver problem , or a problem in Studio One..

Thanks for your help.

Richard

(Ottawa, Canada)

Answer 1

I've got exactly same problem using latest version of studio one and windows 10. Is this a studio one problem or windows 10 or Mackie mcu pro ??
If anyone solved this let me know thanks
Vaughan

Answer 2

@vaughanwatson:  As it turns out 99.99% of this problem went away when I disabled my virus scanner (BitDefender).  I have no idea why.  I think I accidentally discovered this by troubleshooting a problem with another vendor, and they said the sometimes anti-virus software can cause problems with DAW software.  This problem went totally away for a number of months, but I noted it happened once or twice since upgrading to Studio One 5, but I can’t recall for sure if this happened in S1 4.  The problem is called when S1 sends a Pitch Bend command to the MCU Pro. So the problem is not with the MCU Pro.

Answer 3

My issues with the MCU Pro go even further.  Since version 5 not only does the master fader zero out but as edits begin to pile up the MCU goes nuts.  The scribble strip shows odd characters if it works at all, the light up buttons (select, mute, solo) stay lit and wont go out when touched even though it does perform the the operation and shows properly on the mixer page.  The really crazy thing though is when I close a song file the MCU begins reacting like it's playing a song!  The timing and measure displays start counting up from some arbitrary number and the faders jump up and down as if following some imaginary automation lane.  This continues until I shut off the MCU.  I never had these issues before S1 v5, so I guess it's time for a faderport 16.  I will miss the dedicated master fader and large jog wheel though.

Answer 4

That is really disconcerting @richardblewett. Fortunately I have not seen that behaviour yet. You didn’t mention in your post — did you try disabling your anti-virus software on your computer?  I dont know why - but it did fix most of my problems...  My MCU Pro and C4 seem to be working ok now. I think I may seen one fader being zeroed out once since the v5 upgrade, but have not been able to replicate it..

Answer 5

I have the same problem here on my Mac (OS Catalina). No anti virus installed at all.

I have been using Studio One Pro, version 2, 3, 4 and now 5. The first time I had the problem was with version 4 on my windows10 PC. When I changed my PC to an iMac, I was hoping that the issue disappeared. But it didn't.

As far as I remember, the faderport 8 was introduced at the same time as S1 ver.4 came out and MCU Pro users were stocked with a piece of hardware that didn't worked at all. Untill an update came a few weeks later with a bug fix. But exactly this master fader problem remained.

I really hope for a solution.

Answer 6

Thanks guys for your comments.  I’m sorry you are having problems still.

I’m running S1 Ver 5.1.2 on Windows 10.

I had some minor problems after I went to S1 version 5. S1 was sending spurious C#46 messages to MCU Pro. I filtered these out using Bome Midi Translator Pro, and now things seem to be working well for me — mind you, I suspect I am probably not pushing S1 capabilities as hard as some as you may be with many tracks, many edits.  Time will tell over the coming months..  I have logged the problems on V5 in a separate trouble ticket.

Answer 7

It taken me a long time troubleshooting this, but I have now concluded that I have a defective fader on my MCU Pro, and the source of the problem is not Studio One.  I was able to confirm this with Bome MIDI Pro without using Studio Once.

So my problems were NOT caused by Studio One.