Author Topic: MF V5.x Autopsy  (Read 1427 times)

WK154

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MF V5.x Autopsy
« on: December 26, 2019, 05:15:31 AM »
I will try to autopsy MF V5.1 from what Mackie has made public. Since Apple has successfully blocked all executable file transfers via iExplorer AFAIK it doesn’t allow that source of information for this. About five years ago that was not the case but paranoia lives on. However the legal requirements show me some insight of what makes up MF. The five year old info indicated that the firmware OS was AD’s Blackfin uCLinux, uBoot, GCC, GDB and Buildroot (hence the GPL notice) iOS of course was Apple's platform. As far as I know V5 is still based on the Blackfin uCLinux that is now no longer supported by Analog Devices (March 22 2019 notice). Added to that is the iOS GUI package PureLayout for V5 (Seems that Mackie’s quite busy with GitHub by using PureLayout and other packages).
https://github.com/PureLayout/PureLayout
 For their GUI needs PureLayout is open source as is Swift and that may be what MF is based on. All speculation for now but I would like to hear reasons to the contrary.  Although PureLayout is written in Objective-C it integrates well with Swift (Apple Swift) so my choice would have been Swift which also makes MacOS cross-platform easy. Whether they used the Android/Swift integration is questionable since it is relatively new.
https://academy.realm.io/posts/swift-on-android/   ).
This would leave the PC version Swift for Windows (10) to round out their cross platform application. A Linux version is also possible which would put it on par with Behringer. The USB code is the module manufacturers code Archwave. I don’t know if the DL32R module is used in the S series until someone takes a DLxxS apart.
Speculate on!
Merry Christmas
« Last Edit: December 26, 2019, 04:41:37 PM by WK154 »
When in doubt KISS

WK154

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Re: MF V5.x Autopsy
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2019, 06:05:54 AM »
If you want to avoid the pitfalls of the above approach for the various mixers there are off course alternatives. One is David Schumann’s Mixing Station that now covers four brands and 24 mixers. Here is the list and blatant plug for Dave’s products. There are free versions but the pro versions won’t break anyone’s bank.

Please make sure your mixer has the latest compatible firmware.
App               Mixers                                                    Required firmware             Notes
XM32       Any X32/M32 mixer                              V1.15 or newer    
XAir               Any XAir mixer                                   V1.12 or newer    
Qu               Any Qu mixer                                   V1.90 or newer    
SQ               Any SQ mixer                                   V1.4.1    
GLD             Any GLD mixer                                   V1.61    
Si               Any Si Performer/Expression/Impact    V1.8 / V1.8 / V1-2        See HiQNet guide
Wing       Any Wing mixer                                   Any                                Coming soon

He now covers Android, iOS, Windows platforms.
https://dev-core.org/mixing-station/

There is however another solution and that is Soundcraft's Ui series of mixers. Christmas was a good time to check out the Ui24R version (another addition to my collection). Platforms only need a HTML5 based browser to work. This certainly eliminates the lock into iPads. Unfortunately Mackie’s BenO decided against providing Dave with the marvelously useless Mandolin protocol several years ago.
   
« Last Edit: December 28, 2019, 06:08:17 AM by WK154 »
When in doubt KISS