PP and the Behringer X-touch Universal Control Surface

Report · Jul 04, 2018

I _finally_ found a way to make this device work with Premiere Pro as of July 4, 2018.

SETUP:

Turn on the Behringer while holding down the "Select" button above the first fader. In the LED screens, you can set the thing to boot as a Mackie or HUI interface, and whether it'll connect with USB or MIDI.

In PP:
Go to Edit/Preferences/Control Surface.
Add a Mackie device. Inputs and outputs should be set to X-touch.

To use the control surface to mix sound-- this was the hard part to figure out:
On the Behringer, make sure that the button "Global View" is lit.

Press the Play button to start the video playback.

When you want to start recording the levels, press the Record button.

Move the faders up and down to adjust the volume setting on each track/clip.

When you stop the playback, you will see that the Volume effects now have lots of timeframes indicating the levels you'd selected.

The Panner knobs at the top of each fader bank work the same way.

Report · Oct 24, 2018

Hi!

What is your opinion on using the X-touch with PP? I would very much like to do the same - if it works.

Please share your thoughts.

Thank you!

Best regards / Marcus

Report · Mar 04, 2020

I don't think it's designed to use with adobe premiere. I've been working on getting it working. I can use the x-touch to control the TRACK MIXER only as opposed the CLIP MIXER. The big difference is that when writing to the tracks with track mixer the keyframes you write stay where they are on the track which may be useful if and only if you are working with a fiished product where you will never have the audio move. if I go back to a project and try move something all the keyframes stay where they were on the track and don't move with the clip.

I can't get any of the knobs to work which was one of my big ideas. I use a tangent wave for color correction all the time. I move a knob on the wave and it applies lumetri for me and moves the appropriate setting like hue or brightness or whatever. This should be like that for audio.

I've read that you can assign things, but i just opened the button assignment panel and you really can't assign anything as it just isn't editable.

i had big hopes and dreams. seems useless.

Report · Feb 10, 2021

Did you see this that someone posted? Would you be willing to try it and let us know if it works?

From the adobe support page it talks about switching the control surface to work with the clip mixer instead of the track mixer.

"After selecting the control device in the Preferences dialog, select Toggle Control Surface Clip Mixer Mode from the pop-up menu in the Audio Clip Mixer. You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to use the Toggle Control Surface Clip Mixer Mode command.

The control surface supports faders, pan/balance, mute, and solo controls."

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/control-surface-support.html

Report · Mar 31, 2022

YES! I tried and it worked, just select Toggle Control Surface Clip Mixer Mode.

Report · Mar 17, 2023

The XTouch works with both mixers out of the box (at least now - I don't know if there were different times three years ago).

To toggle between the "Control Surface Clip Mixer Modes" you can also hit "Global View" on your XTouch. It's not documented anywhere (at least not that I'm aware of). For recording of automation data (track or clip mixer) you don't have to press record at all. Just select the mode how the data is written (write/touch/latch) on each track, hit play and move the faders - that's all.

As for the assignable buttons: go into preferences > fader controller (sorry if it is called differently, I'm not on an english Premiere right now) choose your device preferences and go to button assignment. There drag and drop commands from the lower list to the XTouch Button in the upper list you want it to be assigned to. Not to complicated after you know it works with drag and drop.

Balance is not displayed correctly in write mode and after you've written automation for it. This is the only thing that a would call a bug for now. And pressing down the rotary encoder doesn't reset the balance unfortunately. Everything else works as expected. So I definitely wouldn't call it useless.

The lack of documentation is the main problem with this thing in my opinion. You probably have to figure out what is supported and what not by trail and error. For now I personally still hope, there is some way to disable the faders temporarily in Premiere (because they can be annoying at times)

Report · Mar 04, 2020

I'm using a Tangent Elements and also have a Ripple. I can also map audio Track mixer pan/volume to my surfaces ... but the Clip mixer, no ... that doesn't work.

I've had a request in to the Tangent engineers, but I don't know if it's a Tangent issue or if the API they can use doesn't have a clip-mixer option.

So yea, it would be nice to get a few more of the audio controls mappable for more control surface hardware. I couldn't find a UserVoice post with the exact wish, so I created one ...

UserVoice: Allow Control Surfaces to set Audio Clip Mixer

Now, if people could go upvote that, we might get this fixed. Adobe's upper managers live by metrics ... let's give them some metrics!

Neil

Report · Mar 04, 2020

i wouldn't have dreamed of using the tangent for audio only because it's setup to apply lumetri color effects when i touch anything other than the jog/shuttle or other transport controls.

I'm looking at the PR Control software above and i'd buy it for $80 if you can choose which mixer you are controlling.

likewise I'd like to be able be able to turn knob 9-16 and have it apply EQ to my audio clip like the wave does with video.

Maybe on the Wave I could assign funtion buttons like F7 to make it work for audio. Who knows. Never thought of that. So, I just tried to edit the preferences for the Wave and the answer is a solid NO. When you select edit in the preferences for the Tangent nothing is selectable.

Report · Aug 14, 2020

Upvoted.

Report · Mar 04, 2020

I believe the Wave also uses the Tangent mapping utility app, which is completely separate from Premiere. Do you have that loaded and are you using it? From a quick glance at the Tangentwave.co.uk/ site, it looks like the Wave and Wave 2 use a Tangent mapper applet also.

I've done a ton of custom mapping of both the setups for the Elements and Ripple panels. My Elements has a few different 'banks' or 'modes' where my control balls/rings go into mouse emulation, left one set to a very fine touch, right one set to a very fast touch ... so I don't mouse much any more. In color or elsewhere. I've always though I've already got the Tangent rigs, with all the balls, rings, knobs, & buttons ... they take up space on my desktop. Why spend another X dollars when I've already got controls?

And having the knobs and buttons available for several audio functions is a joy. BUT!!!! The problem as you've noted is one can only affect the Track Mixer, not the Clip mixer. That is a royal pain!

Neil

Report · Aug 14, 2020

From the adobe support page it talks about switching the control surface to work with the clip mixer instead of the track mixer.

"After selecting the control device in the Preferences dialog, select Toggle Control Surface Clip Mixer Mode from the pop-up menu in the Audio Clip Mixer. You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to use the Toggle Control Surface Clip Mixer Mode command.

The control surface supports faders, pan/balance, mute, and solo controls."

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/control-surface-support.html

Does this do the trick?

Report · Jun 16, 2020

Does anyone know if the motorized faders at least work with the track mixer. That is, if you open a project will the faders move to the track mixer levels or will the fader position overwrite the track mixer settings?

Report · Mar 31, 2022

They will move to the setting you have in the mixer.

Report · Aug 14, 2020

The control surfaces seem to work about the same. If anyone wants to see a tutorial they can watch the video below.

https://youtu.be/buEN0OCk_0s

Report · Aug 14, 2020

Rather than use a bunch of control surfaces that take up desk space and need to be configured correctly I wish Adobe would implement true multi-touch support. They could blow away the competition.

https://youtu.be/_t7HxJn1AFQ