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Monday, May 10, 2010

Setting up the iPad and AC-7 Pro for Final Cut Pro

I've been playing some more with the AC-7 Pro. A very cool thing I didn't realize before: you can move more than one slider at once: that's something you can't do with a mouse - very cool!

Apple iTunes


Final Cut Setup Instructions
Here are the steps for installing the software and configuring Final Cut Pro to work with the AC-7 Pro Control Surface app for the iPad:

1) Download and install the “DSMI Server for OSX”
You can find it here: http://code.google.com/p/dsmi/downloads/list. The Support Page says to download 1.01 as 1.02 is buggy, so search in Depreciated Downloads for "DSMI Server for OSX" and download 1.01



2) Install DSMI Server for OSX
Just run the installer and copy the DSMidiWifi application icon to your Applications folder


3) Run DSMI Server for OSX
A small application window appears (and not much else)

4) Start AC-7 Pro on the iPad

5) Make sure the Mode is set to "LC" in AC-7 Pro
Tap the MODE button just above the Master Vol slider to switch between the different modes

6)Launch Final Cut Pro

7) Go To the Tools menu and choose Control Surfaces...


This opens the Control Surface Configuration dialog, with nothing selected


8) Click the Use: pop-up and choose Mackie


9) Click the "+" button (half-way down the screen on the right)
The new Control Surface will be set to Mackie, and the Input and Output Connection will be set to DSMIDIWIFI-in and -out [Or at least it should be: it's possible it will default to something else if you have other hardware/software already installed.] Click OK

10) A mixer icon appears in the Control Surface Configuration dialog. Click OK to save


11) Switch to the Audio Mixing layout
Choose Window>Arrange>Audio Mixing


12) In the Audio Mixer window, click Record Audio Keyframes
This will record the actions of the mixer as you play the movie

You should be all set to go!


If you run into problems:
Quitting Final Cut and restarting it, as well as restarting the AC-7 Pro app, sometimes seems to be necessary to get everything working right the first time. But once you have things working, it seems to work fairly consistently from then on. When you relaunch the applications it starts working again (i.e. you don't have to go through this configuration each time you launch Final Cut) - just remember to relaunch the DSMidiWifi app before restarting Final Cut.


The short video below shows the AC-7 Pro app and Final Cut Pro interacting:

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