JLCooper Electronics MCS5 User manual

MCS5
USB Media Control Station
User Manual

MCS5 User Manual
2
MCS5 User Manual
Part Number 932458
May 8, 2014
©2014 JLCooper Electronics
142 Arena St, El Segundo, CA, 90245, USA
Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
web: www.jlcooper.com email: [e-mail]
MCS5 is a trademark of JLCooper Electronics.
All other brand names are property of their respective owners.

Table of Contents
.............................................................................................................Installation!5
.......................................................................................................System Setup!8
Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks)
Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
...........................................................Introduction to the MCS5 USB Hardware!11
............................................................Introduction to the MCS5 USB Software!12
Keysets
...................................................................................................Editing Keysets!13
......................................................................................................Bank Buttons!14
........................................................................................The Inspector Window!15
.........................................................................................................Action Tabs!17
Keystrokes Tab
Mouse Tab
MIDI Tab
Emulation Tab
Special Tab
Built In Actions Tab
.......................................................................................................LCD Display!38
Display Button Labels Tab
Built In Tab
Display Text Tab
Display MIDI Tab
Display Emulation Tab
..................................................................................Keyset Summary Window!44
......................................................................................Final Cut Pro™ Support!45
Final Cut Pro™ and Control Surfaces
Using the MCS5 with Final Cut Pro
The MCS5 Final Cut Pro Keyset
..................................................................................Final Cut Pro X™ Support!46
The Final Cut Pro X Keyset
............................................................................Adobe Premier Pro™ Support!47
The Adobe Premier Pro Keyset
....................................................................Avid Media Composer 6™ Support!48
The Media Composer 6 Keyset
..................................................................................Soundtrack Pro™ Support!49
The Soundtrack Pro Keyset
.............................................................Logic Pro™ and Logic Pro X™ Support!50
The Logic Pro Keyset
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..............................................................................................Nuendo™ Support!52
The Nuendo Keyset
.........................................................................................................Uninstalling!53
................................................................................JLCooper Limited Warranty!55
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Installation
Connect the MCS5 to a USB port on your Mac, or to a powered USB hub connected to your Mac.
After downloading and double-clicking the Install_MCS5_USB.dmg file, you should see the following
window:
Drag the icon labeled MCS5 USB Software over the icon labeled Applications alias then release the
mouse. This will cause the Finder to copy the MCS5 software to your Applications folder.
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Once the copy is complete, open the /Applications/MCS5 USB Software/ folder and double-click
on the MCS5 USB application.
If this is the first time you are installing this software, or if you are installing a newer version, an installation
dialog will appear. Click on Continue to finish the installation, or Cancel if you want to finish it the next
time you run the MCS5 USB application. The installation must be completed before the MCS5 software
will be fully functional.
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Once all the software components have been installed, click on the Finish button.
At this point a connection will be established between the MCS5 software and the MCS5 hardware, and
you can start working with the software.
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System Setup
The MCS5 software relies on Apple’s Universal Access to perform mouse emulation. In order for the
MCS5 software to work correctly, certain Universal Access settings must be enabled. This is
accomplished in different ways depending on which version of Mac OS X you are running.
Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks)
You don’t actually need to change any Accessibility settings before starting to use the MCS5 software.
In fact, you can’t change them before using the software. Just start using the software and Mavericks will
let you make the changes the first the time they are needed. Following is a description of how this will
happen.
Previous versions of Mac OS X had a setting called Enable access for assistive devices which was
found in the Universal Access pane in System Preferences. This setting has been moved and
renamed. It also has to be set for every application that makes use of Universal Access features.
This setting is now found in the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences under the Privacy tab.
When you click on Accessibility in the left-hand column, the applications that are allowed to use the
Accessibility features will appear in a list on the right.
Initially, the list will probably be empty. An application is only added to the list if it tries to use an
Accessibility feature. When that happens the OS will display a dialog box similar to the one below.
Click on Open System Preferences. System Preferences will open to the Security & Privacy pane and
Privacy tab with Accessibility selected. The application will appear in the list on the right. Make sure the
checkbox next to the application’s name is checked.
There are two applications that need to appear in this list in order for the MCS5 software to function
correctly. The first is the MCS5 application. The “MCS5 would like to control this computer...” dialog
should appear right after you click the Finish button. Then you will be able to add the application to the
list.
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The other is MCS5USBBackground. It will actually appear in the list as launchproxyls. It will be added to
the list the first time the MCS5 software tries to perform a mouse action or certain Built in Commands.
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Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion)
The MCS3 software relies on Apple’s Universal Access to perform mouse emulation. In order for the
MCS3 software to work correctly under Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8, you must open System Preferences
and go to the Universal Access pane. Make sure “Enable access for assistive devices” is checked
then quit System Preferences.
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Introduction to the MCS5 USB Hardware
The MCS5 is designed to always communicate with a host application or device.
The MCS5 consists of 5 Transport buttons, a Jog wheel and 8 application defined buttons (App Buttons),
situated four above and four below a two line 23 character LCD screen.
There are actually two banks of App Buttons, Bank 1 (buttons A-1 to A-8) and Bank 2 (buttons B-1 to B-8).
The banks are switched by the Bank buttons on either side off the LCD display. Both buttons behave
identically. The first time either one is pressed, the MCS5 switches to Bank 2. When either one is pressed
a second time, the MCS5 returns to Bank 1. “Bank 1” or “Bank 2” briefly appears on the LCD whenever
banks are switched.
The App buttons can have labels assigned to them, and under normal operation, these labels are
displayed on the LCD screen. However, the host application can display arbitrary text on the screen
instead of labels.
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Introduction to the MCS5 USB Software
The MCS5 Software enables the MCS5 hardware’s ability to control various applications running on your
Macintosh™. It does this by communicating with applications via MIDI and other messaging protocols
built into the Mac OS. It can also simulate mouse clicking and dragging, keystrokes and can even
emulate other control surfaces if necessary.
Keysets
The MCS5 software uses “keysets” which are sets of various actions that are taken when MCS5 controls
are pressed or turned. Different keysets can be applied to different applications, and the MCS5 will
choose the correct keyset for whichever application is in the foreground. If no keyset has been created for
the current foreground application, the MCS5 will use a built in keyset called the “Default” keyset.
To create or edit MCS5 keysets, open the application, “MCS5”. To create a new keyset, choose New
Keyset in the File menu and navigate to the application that will use the new keyset. You can also use
Import Keyset from the File Menu to get an existing keyset. Keysets that ship with the MCS5 are located
at /Applications/MCS5 USB Software/keysets/. You only need to use New Keyset or Import
Keyset once for a given application. After that, keysets are stored with the MCS5 software’s preferences.
You can use Export Keyset from the File Menu to save a copy of a keyset so it can be transported to
another Mac or archived for safekeeping. You don’t need to use Export in your daily use of the MCS5. As
previously pointed out, your changes are added to the MCS5 software’s preferences file automatically.
There are several sample keysets included in this package, including ones for Final Cut Pro™, Final Cut
Pro X™ and Logic™ and Premier Pro™.
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Editing Keysets
The application presents a graphical representation of the MCS5 front panel. When you click on an on-
screen control (or move a control on the MCS5 itself), that control is selected and information about it
appears in the floating Inspector window.
You can choose which keyset to edit within the MCS5 application using the Keysets menu. The menu
lists all keysets that you have created or imported. The name of the currently selected keyset will be
displayed at the bottom of the main window.
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Bank Buttons
The Bank Buttons can be used in two ways. Normally they are used to switch between the two banks of
App Buttons. However, some applications may do their own handling of bank switching, and need to
know when a Bank button has been pressed or released.
To handle these two situations, the Actions Menu has the commands Bank Buttons Change Banks
and Bank Buttons Send Messages. The default setting is Bank Buttons Change Banks. When it is
chosen, the MCS5 software handles bank switching.
If Bank Buttons Send Messages is selected, the Bank Buttons behave like any of the MCS5‘s other
buttons, and do not control bank switching. In this case, it is up to the third party application what
happens when these buttons are pressed.
This is a per-keyset setting. That is, it can be different in each application’s keyset.
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The Inspector Window
The Inspector window is where all your work takes place. It displays information about the currently
selected control and contains the facilities for editing that information.
The Label text box allows you to give a control a descriptive name. In the example above, “App Button 6”
has been assigned the action that Go to Previous Edit in Final Cut Pro, and the button has been given
the label “<Prev”. The App Button labels are normally displayed on the LCD screen, which makes it easy
to remember what functions the buttons perform.
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Immediately below the Label field are editing controls that vary depending on what kind of MCS5 control
is being edited. If the control is a button, you will see a “Latched” checkbox that lets you choose between
a momentary (pressing the button turns it “on”, releasing it turns it “off”) or latched (pressing and releasing
it turns it “on” and pressing and releasing it a second time turns it “off”) behavior.
If the selected control is the Jog Wheel, the Latched checkbox will not appear.
Next is a description of the action that is to take place when the selected MCS5 control is pressed or
turned while the target application is active. Below that is the area where this action can be edited. There
are a series of tabs representing the different kinds of actions that can be performed and clicking on one
of these tabs will display controls for editing its kind of action. The available actions are Built In,
Keystrokes, Mouse, MIDI, Special and Emulation.
Any changes made in one of these tabs are immediately applied to the selected control. The MCS5
software allows multiple levels of Undo, so you can easily get back to any starting point.
At the bottom of the Inspector window is the Delete Action button. When pressed it will delete the action
currently assigned to the selected control. This is also undoable.
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Action Tabs
Keystrokes Tab
The MCS5 controls can be assigned to send a sequence of keystrokes to an application just as if they
were typed on the Mac keyboard. These assignments are set up in the Keystrokes Tab.
Select a control to edit, place the cursor in the Keystroke field and type a key. If you hold down any
modifier keys (command, shift, option or control) while typing this key, the modifier checkboxes will be set
up accordingly. You can also manually change the modifier checkboxes by clicking on them.
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Some key/modifier combinations may be intercepted by the operating system before they reach the
Inspector window. If this happens, just type the key without any modifiers, then click on the appropriate
checkboxes to add the desired modifiers.
To add more keystrokes to the sequence, click on the Next button and repeat the above procedure. You
can move forwards or backwards in the sequence with the Next and Previous buttons. The Delete
Keystroke button will remove the currently displayed keystroke from the sequence.
If Repeat while pressed is checked, the keystroke (or sequence) will repeat as long as the MCS5 control
is held down. The speed of the repeat is controlled by the Repeat/Typing Speed slider. This slider also
determines how much time there is between keystrokes if the sequence is more than one keystroke.
If the key sequence in the example below was assigned to the W5 button, pressing W5 would be the
equivalent of typing the word “mark”.
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The Keystrokes tab will look different if the Jog Wheel is selected. For the Jog Wheel, different key
sequences can be assigned to each direction. Click on the Counter Clockwise or Clockwise radio
button to choose which direction’s sequence to edit.
In the example below, a counter clockwise turn would send a “-” and a clockwise turn would send a “+”.
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Mouse Tab
The controls on the MCS5 can be made to emulate the Macintosh mouse. Buttons can perform clicks and
the Jog Wheel can perform horizontal and vertical moves and drags.
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