7 The Nucleus, from Solid State Logic, is a 16 fader Mackie Control
8 device that includes many buttons, separate meters, two LCD displays
9 and other features. The device is not cheap (around US$5000 at the
10 time of writing), and has some <a href="#design">design features</a>
11 (or lack thereof) which some Ardour developers find
12 questionable. Nevertheless, it is a very flexible device, and makes
13 a nice 16 fader surface without the need to somehow attach an
14 extender to your main surface.
17 <h2>Pre-configuring the Nucleus</h2>
20 Your Nucleus comes complete with a number of "profiles" for a few
21 well-known DAWs. At the time of writing it does not include one for
22 Ardour (or related products such as Harrison Mixbus).
25 We have prepared a profile in which as many buttons as possible send
26 Mackie Control messages, which makes the device maximally useful
27 with Ardour (and Mixbus). You can
28 download <a href="https://community.ardour.org/files/ArdourNucleusProfile.zip">the
30 and load it to your Nucleus using the <code>Edit Profiles</code>
31 button in SSL's Nucleus Remote application. Be sure to select it for
32 the active DAW layer in order to make Ardour work as well as
33 possible. <em>Note: unfortunately, the Nucleus Remote application
34 only runs on OS X or Windows, so Linux users will need access to
35 another system to load the profile. We will provide notes on the
36 profile settings at a future time.</em>
39 <h2>Connecting the Nucleus</h2>
42 Unlike most Mackie Control devices, the Nucleus uses an ethernet
43 connection to send and receive the MIDI messages that make up the
44 Mackie Control protocol. Specifically, it uses a technology called
45 "ipMIDI" which essentially "broadcasts" MIDI messages on a local
46 area network, so that any connected devices (computers, control
47 surfaces, tablets etc.) can participate.
50 All other DAWs so far that support the Nucleus have chosen to do so
51 by using a 3rd party MIDI driver called "ipMIDI", which creates a
52 number of "virtual" MIDI ports on your computer. You, the user,
53 tells the DAW which ports to connect to, and ipMIDI takes care of
57 Ardour has builtin ipMIDI support, with no need of any 3rd party
58 packages, and no need to identify the "ports" to connect to in order
59 to communicate with the Nucleus. This makes setting it up a bit
60 easier than most other systems.
63 Unless ... you already installed the ipMIDI driver in order to use
64 some other DAW with your Nucleus. If ipMIDI is configured to create
65 any "ports", it is not possible for Ardour's own ipMIDI support to
66 function. We decided to offer both methods of communicating with
67 your Nucleus. If you regularly use other DAWs, and appreciate having
68 ipMIDI permanently set up to communication with the Nucleus - that's
69 OK, you can tell Ardour to use the ipMIDI driver you already
70 have. But if you're not using other DAWs with the Nucleus (and thus
71 have not installed the ipMIDI driver), then you can ignore the
72 ipMIDI driver entirely, and let Ardour connect directly with no
76 <h3>Connecting via Ardour's own ipMIDI support</h3>
78 <p class="alert alert-info">
79 This is usable only on computers with no 3rd party ipMIDI
80 driver software installed and configured. If you have the OS X or
81 Windows ipMIDI driver from nerds.de, it <strong>MUST</strong> be
82 configured to offer <strong>ZERO</strong> ports before using this
87 Open <code>Preferences > Control Surfaces</code>. Ensure that the
88 Mackie protocol is enabled, then double-click on it to open the
89 Mackie Control setup dialog.
92 Ensure that the device selected is "SSL Nucleus". The dialog should
93 show a single numerical selector control below it, defining the
94 ipMIDI port number to use (it should almost always be left at the
95 default value of 21928).
98 Communication is automatically established with the Nucleus and you
102 If this does not work, then make sure your network cables are
103 properly connected, and that you are <strong>not</strong> running
104 other ipMIDI software on the computer.
107 <h3>Connecting via 3rd party ipMIDI support</h3>
109 <p class="alert alert-info">
110 This is usable only on computers with 3rd party ipMIDI
111 driver software installed and configured for (at least) 2 ports.
115 Open <code>Preferences > Control Surfaces</code>. Ensure that the
116 Mackie protocol is enabled, then double-click on it to open the
117 Mackie Control setup dialog.
120 Ensure that the device selected is "SSL Nucleus (via platform MIDI)". The dialog should
121 show four combo/dropdown selectors, labelled (respectively):
124 <li><code>Main Surface receives via</code></li>
125 <li><code>Main Surface sends via</code></li>
126 <li><code>1st extender receives via</code></li>
127 <li><code>1st extender sends via</code></li>
130 You should choose "ipMIDI port 1", "ipMIDI port 1", "ipMIDI port 2"
131 and "ipMIDI port 2" for each of the 4 combo/dropdown selectors.
134 Communication should be automatically established with the Nucleus.
137 If this does not work, then make sure your network cables are
138 properly connected, and that you are running the approprate ipMIDI
139 driver and have configured it for 2 (or more) ports.
142 <h2><a name="design">Nucleus Design Discussion</a></h2>
145 You might be reading this part of the manual seeking some guidance
146 on whether the Nucleus would make a suitable control surface for
147 your workflows. We don't want to try to answer that question
148 definitively, since the real answer depends on the very specific
149 details of your workflow and situation, but we would like to point
150 out a number of design features of the Nucleus that might change
156 <dt>No Master Faster</dt>
157 <dd>It is not possible to control the level of the Master bus or
158 Monitor section. Really don't know what SSL was thinking here.</dd>
159 <dt>No dedicated rec-enable buttons</dt>
160 <dd>You have to press the "Rec" button and convert the per-strip
161 "Select" buttons into rec-enables</dd>
162 <dt>No dedicated automation buttons</dt>
163 <dd>You have to press the "Auto" button and convert the first 4
164 vpots into 4 automation-related buttons, losing your current view
166 <dt>No buttons with Mackie-defined "Marker" functionality</dt>
167 <dd>Mackie's design intentions for the interoperation of the
168 Marker, rewind and ffwd buttons requires profile editing in order
169 to function properly.
171 <dt>No "Dyn" button</dt>
172 <dd>This is hard to assign in an edited profile. To be fair, other
173 Mackie Control devices also lack this button.
179 <dt>Single cable connectivity</dt>
180 <dd>No need for multiple MIDI cables to get 16 faders</dd>
181 <dt>Broadcast connectivity</dt>
182 <dd>Connecting to multiple computers does not require recabling</dd>
183 <dt>16 faders from a single box</dt>
184 <dd>No need to figure out how to keep extenders together</dd>
185 <dt>Meters separated from displays</dt>
186 <dd>Contrast with the Mackie Control Universal Pro, where meters
187 interfere with the display
189 <dt>DAW profiles</dt>
190 <dd>Easy to flip profiles for use by different DAWs.</dd>
196 <dt>Ability to make buttons generate USB keyboard events</dt>
197 <dd>The extent to which this is useful reflects the target DAWs
198 inability to manage all of its functionality via Mackie Control
200 <dt>Sophisticated "profile" editing</dt>
201 <dd>It is nice to be able to reassign the functionality of most
202 buttons, but this is only necessary because of the relatively few
203 global buttons on the surface.
205 <dt>Builtin analog signal path</dt>
206 <dd>SSL clearly expects users to route audio back from their
207 computer via the Nucleus' own 2 channel output path, and maybe even
208 use the input path as well. They take up a significant amount of
209 surface space with the controls for this signal path, space that
210 could have been used for a master fader or more Mackie Control
211 buttons. The USB audio device requires a proprietary driver, so
212 Linux users can't use this, and OS X/Windows users will have to
213 install a device driver (very odd for a USB audio device these
214 days). The analog path also no doubt adds notable cost to the
215 Nucleus. There's nothing wrong with this feature for users that
216 don't already have a working analog/digital signal path for their
217 computers. But who is going to spend $5000 on a Nucleus that
218 doesn't have this already?</dd>