AA 3.0 and control surfaces

Anyone wish to share their experiences with AA 3.0 and control surfaces such as M-Audio ProjectMix and Tascam 1884? How does it work (does it work?) with these sort of things? Does it work better with one brand/model than another?
thanks.

My experience with the Tascam 1884 has been that it works well enough to make me want full integration.

My main desktop machine runs XP with AA2 (and 1.5), and is hooked up to the FW-1884 most of the time. The basic transport functions and jog wheel work well and I really like the combination. The real trouble for my way of working is the mass of buttons on the Tascam that perform some unexpected function in AA, and can't be disabled.

I haven't done anything with AA3.0 and the Tascam because I've needed to concentrate on Vista on the machines that run AA3, and Tascam have only recently released their Vista drivers. A quick test seemed to show that AA3 was similar to AA2 when used with the Tascam, but I really need to spend some time looking at this.

I don't do much mixing these days, mainly restoration, although there is a huge project hanging over me that involves remixing and recovering a large number of 4-track live concert recordings. I'll probably try that on AA3.0 and the Tascam.

Wildduck-
Does the 1884 use a Mackie Control Emulation mode or does it have a native Audition plugin(cv2)?
Frugal

I've tried my Yamaha 01x with AA3 - seems to integrate well.  This unit does have Mackie emulation, so I assume a real Mackie would also work well.

Wildduck-
Does the 1884 use a Mackie Control Emulation mode or does it have a native Audition plugin(cv2)?
Frugal

It uses Mackie Emulation. Adobe have, however, just brought out a new SDK to help developers of cv2 plugins for AA3.

I didn't get far with the previous versions of the sdk that spoke to previous versions of AA, and had to re-write some C++ code to make them work at all. One problem was that I was familiar with Borland C++, and had to move to Microsoft C++ for this. Recently someone else discovered that the sdk doesn't work for us in VC++ debug mode, which is where I had got stuck. The last problem was caused by my attempting to work in Vista, and failing to make Visual C++ 2005 work correctly under that OS.

When I get time, I plan to try again with the new sdk under XP, and perhaps under Vista but using the new Visual C++ version.

I don't give up easily, so I still welcome contact from anyone else with C++ skills and an interest in this.

I don't give up easily, so I still welcome contact from anyone else with C++ skills and an interest in this.

Well, I have the C++ skills, though no suitable control surface to test with and, more to the point, very little free time.

I don't give up easily, so I still welcome contact from anyone else with C++ skills and an interest in this.

Well, I have the C++ skills, though no suitable control surface to test with and, more to the point, very little free time.

I think the little free time applies to most of us. I also think we have exchanged PM's in the past about this.

I've suddenly been sucked into a huge installation job, so I'll not be able to do much for the next few months, but, as I say, I haven't given up.

My Mackie MCU worked with 3.0 the same as 2.0. Make sure it has firmware v2.1.2 or later. Unfortunately the latest version did not address the quirks from 2.0 as listed below. I have not upgraded to the new version yet because I have a project that will complete soon and I do not want to have any delays due to conflicts. I know some of the issues listed below can be addressed within the AA control menu, I just haven't had the motivation to try it.

1. Display does not show track name information until a channel is selected. Not a big deal but it is different from before.
2. With the Fader Bank Buttons, You can only select banks of 8, 1-8, 9-16... Even if you use the channel select buttons. Also the Flip/Global buttons no longer function.
3. The record LED above the button does not work in 2.0
4. AA2.0 has scrub capabilities. Can the scrub button be made active?
5. Anchor L and Anchor R transport buttons do not function.
6. Nudge Button does not function.
7. Organizer button no longer functions.

Doug

When I get time, I plan to try again with the new sdk under XP, and perhaps under Vista but using the new Visual C++ version.

I don't give up easily, so I still welcome contact from anyone else with C++ skills and an interest in this.

I took a look at the SDK, didn't get real far.  Unfortunately my last real programming was nearly 20 yrs ago, and in Assembly at that!  I'm starting to get a grasp on the vb scripting through midiox.  That may get be by for now.  There's quite a bit of info on dlls, c++ and MIDI on the net so I might yet make some progress on that path.  Let me know if you need another guinea pig with a simple controller and minimal programming skills.
Frugal