Which control surface do you use, would like to use or have used for audio?

[slovill]

I am shopping control surfaces for mixing audio in Premiere Pro CC. I am buying used so I would sure like to get it right the first time. I am looking for feedback from those who have used a control surface as well as those who have just looked around. I have searched high and low for information from Premiere Pro users but have found very little. Even the Audition folks have not shared much information about experiences with audio control surfaces.

Here are some consoles I've looked at but cannot determine compatibility (due to lack of information):

• Mackie Control Universal MCU Pro 8
• Digidesign Command 8
• Digidesign Digi 002 Pro Tools Console
• M-Audio ProjectMix I/O Control Surface
• Icon QCon Pro USB Midi Controller Station
• Behringer B-Control Fader BCF2000
• Radikal Technologies SAC 2.2 DAW controller
• Avid Artist Mix Control 8 Fader Euphonix DAW Mixing Control Surface
• Tascam FW-1884 Firewire Control Surface
• Tascam FW-1082 Firewire Control Surface
• CM Labs Motormix
• CM Labs Motormix 2
• CM Labs MotorMate
• Novation ZeRO SL MkII MIDI DAW Control Surface
• Nektar Panorama P1 USB Midi DAW Control Surface
• Alesis Master Control

If you have experience with any of these consoles, or have any to add to the list, specifically with Premiere Pro, please leave a note here. I believe there will be others who will check this discussion looking for the same answers as I. Documentation of these control surfaces is very thin when it coms to discovering if they are MCU or EUCON protocol (or other) - and even if I was able to discern a flavor I still do not know which features will work in Premiere, such as transport controls, faders, plug-in modifiers, et al.

So I guess my goal here is to come up with a list of work/don't work features for each of these control surfaces and more so we can make informed bang for the buck decisions. My budget for a used control surface is $300-400, but I'd be willing to go to $500-600 or more if the features/integration were significantly better.

Thanks!

[johnv9117891]

I'm thinking about testing out the Behringer X-Touch one. Have you gotten it to work? I do a lot of dialogue editing. I believe using a physical board will speed up my pipeline. Essentially I need it to write keyframes.

[slovill]

My X-Touch is still running strong almost three years and 1 firmware update later. It went a little bonkers for a couple of weeks. I don't remember how I stopped the weirdness, but I remember going through the Mackie settings over and over again. The problem was mostly with write/touch/latch modes.

My system is set to:

Mackie, Settings= Mackie Control, MIDI In and Out - both=X-Touch. I've also remapped a few buttons without issue.

I'm a little old school for mixing audio, so this beats the heck out of keyframing most situations.

[Digitalman42]

Thanks for your report about the X-Touch.  That sold me on getting this over the lite version.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed I will have a similar experience with it.  I'm also hoping to include Bome Midi Translator Pro (https://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator​) in order to map some of the unused buttons to PP video editing functions and the jog wheel as well.  I just wish Adobe had better support for specific hardware like the X-Touch.  I'll try to remember to report back here my findings on the X-Touch in Mackie mode paired up with Midi Translator Pro.  If anyone else has experience with this software product and the X-Touch, please reply with your experiences.

[Boudewijn Pelt]

You can now do much more than mix audio with your MIDI controller. I have made a new control-surface plug-in, PrControl. With this plug-in you can edit lumetri, trigger commands, mix audio and control transport. And it is fully configurable.

https://peltmade.com/prcontrol.html 

[Diiorio]

I just bought the x-touch compact.  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.  Can you control the CLIP MIXER with your x-touch?

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'd love to hear how you set up your buttons.  I went to PREFERENCES > CONTROL SURFACE and that opened the window where I chose Mackie and Edit.  Then I went to Button Assignments.  In that panel I have no way of modifying anything.  What do you think I'm doing wrong?

i had big hopes and dreams.  seems useless.

[R Neil Haugen]

For each device, mapping things is done within the manufacturer's setup for that. I know Tangent has a separate app that handles all mapping, so one doesn't change the mapping through the Premiere preferences but in Tangent's Mapper.

The Tangent surfaces ... I've both a full Elements and a Ripple ... also can 'touch' the Track mixer, which makes that a valuable multi-tool for editing ... but can't be set for affecting the Clip mixer. As noted in your other post, I've asked the Tangent people for the ability to set Clip mixer values but I don't know if it's a Tangent mapping thing or if the Premiere API they use doesn't have a connection for the Clip mixer.

I do have a UserVoice for this ... and that is where "we" need to all pile on to get traction for fixing this. Adobe's upper managers live by metrics. UserVoice is their preferred metrics gathering device. Let's give them some metrics.

Neil

Allow Control Surfaces to Set Clip Mixer Values