The MIDI Forum

Yes.

Your audio interface has a MIDI to USB built in you said.

A standalone MIDI to USB is the same thing,

Hello,

The mackie MCU (Mackie Control Universal) seems to be a very sophisticated unit akin to a mixer for audio and midi (??). I've looked at a very detailed review of the device at https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mackie-control-universal and to be honest I'm not much the wiser. You really need to be asking directly of Mackie at mackie.uk@rcf-uk.com or via http://www.mackie.com.

I would comment however that it seems that a lot of the functionality of this unit related to it's use with/via your DAW, and the extent to which the DAW supports/communicates with the MCU. The review noted above suggests that this is better with some DAW systems than others. Maybe the answer to your question will depend more on the specific DAw you use, than anything else.

Have you tried connecting the MCU to your DAW using the midi/usb connector (hopefully NOT using one of the cheap Chinese ones which have various problems, as detailed here and other places), and did they communicate?

Geoff

Hello Geoff, and thank you very much for your response. I don't know if my question is being asked wrongly or in some strange format, but I will ask the question
one more time before I give up all together.... In fact, I don't think I will bother. I opened an account on this site to ask what I thought was a MIDI question on a MIDI site
and no one on this MIDI site is capable of answering a MIDI question. I don't know any other way to ask my question. What a bunch of cobblers.
Good day to you all at the MIDI.org

Hi Nabd,

I'm sorry you haven't received the answer you are looking for here, but if I may say so, this is not a MIDI question, it is a question about the capabilities of a specific device.
The MMA is concerned with publishing standards for the industry and end users to use, and the interpretation of those standards.
The MMA is not "in charge" of USB standards.

The people who should (N.B. should be able to answer your question are the makers of your MCU, i.e. Mackie. I suspect it will also depend upon the manufacturers of the MIDI to USB convertor that you buy. The very inexpensive ones tend to be faulty.

My only response to your question would be see if you can borrow a decent MIDI/USB interface and see if it works.
I don't have an MCU and don't know its MIDI implementation so don't know, or ... ask Mackie.

I think that's the best we can do.
JohnG.

I have a Mackie Control Universal, the original one with standard serial DIN MIDI jacks.

I use it all the time with a cheap M-Audio USB-to-MIDI adapter gizmo (USB on one side, the two DIN jacks on the other). It also works with a USB-MIDI-to-serial-DIN dongle I built with a Silicon Labs EFM8UB2 microcontroller.

In all cases, Logic recognizes the Mackie Control Universal as a control surface and it works as expected.

This works OK


There is one on EBAY now (not mine!)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333631169111