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