Modding Behringer's X-Touch

[CDolar]

Hi,

it seems that what DeBased has done is exactly what I am looking for. I am running Reaper on MacOS, have an X-Touch at my disposal, and I am an experienced developer. So if help is needed with this (to what extend whatsoever), please let me know, I'd be very happy to help out.

Best regards and thanks a lot
Carsten

[mr.cello]

This thread was super active then stopped. Any updates on this - would be great to have higher resolution fader support, and colored scribble strips! I checked to dropbox, and the linked thread but seems to have died down.

[dronenb]

Guys, I just figured out how to send colored scribble strips to the XTouch (both full size and extenders!) in Mackie Control mode! This eliminates the need for any software to interpret XCtl. This means you can have the best of both worlds (14 bit faders and colored scribbles) on both the full size XTouch and the Extender in regular old MC mode, and you can use it over USB or network with no extra software!!!

The colors of the entire unit are set with a single Sysex message. The message is as follows:

Full size XTouch (all scribbles red)
F0 00 00 66 14 72 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 F7

Extender (all scribbles red):
F0 00 00 66 15 72 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 F7

All Sysex messages begin with F0 and end with F7, those are not special. The first 5 bytes after the F0 (00 00 66 14 72) are required. The next 8 bytes are what set the colors of each scribble (in order from left to right), followed by F7. The colors are mapped as follows:

00 - Blank
01 - Red
02 - Green
03 - Yellow
04 - Blue
05 - Purple
06 - Cyan
07 - White

So for example, sending this message to a full size XTouch:

F0 00 00 66 14 72 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 F7

Would make the scribble strips blank, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, cyan, and white respectively.

You can test this for yourself inside REAPER using the ReaControlMIDI plugin that is included in REAPER installs by default (exclude the beginning F0 and ending F7, since the plugin automatically includes them). Just enable the X-Touch in Audio->MIDI Devices as an output, then set the Hardware MIDI output of the track you are working on to be the X-Touch.

This is huge. I figured this out because one of my friends was using OSIMidi with his M32 and his XTouch and Extender and the colors were working in plain old Mackie Control mode, so we looked at the MIDI it was sending out and it worked. Kudos to the writers of OSIMidi for figuring it out first.

These MIDI messages just need to be implemented in some control surface software like CSI or a custom controller. I currently don't have the time to do this but I imagine it would be pretty straightforward. Anybody feel as though they have the capacity to do so?

[dronenb]

According to the description of this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTMfWd_i50k) this feature may require firmware version 1.22.

[dronenb]

Wow, just looked into it more and this feature is available in REAPER using DrivenByMoss4REAPER, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ7CnNEQncw

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by dronenb

Guys, I just figured out how to send colored scribble strips to the XTouch (both full size and extenders!) in Mackie Control mode! This eliminates the need for any software to interpret XCtl. This means you can have the best of both worlds (14 bit faders and colored scribbles) on both the full size XTouch and the Extender in regular old MC mode, and you can use it over USB or network with no extra software!!!

The colors of the entire unit are set with a single Sysex message. The message is as follows:

Full size XTouch (all scribbles red)
F0 00 00 66 14 72 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 F7

Extender (all scribbles red):
F0 00 00 66 15 72 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 F7

All Sysex messages begin with F0 and end with F7, those are not special. The first 5 bytes after the F0 (00 00 66 14 72) are required. The next 8 bytes are what set the colors of each scribble (in order from left to right), followed by F7. The colors are mapped as follows:

00 - Blank
01 - Red
02 - Green
03 - Yellow
04 - Blue
05 - Purple
06 - Cyan
07 - White

So for example, sending this message to a full size XTouch:

F0 00 00 66 14 72 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 F7

Would make the scribble strips blank, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, cyan, and white respectively.

You can test this for yourself inside REAPER using the ReaControlMIDI plugin that is included in REAPER installs by default (exclude the beginning F0 and ending F7, since the plugin automatically includes them). Just enable the X-Touch in Audio->MIDI Devices as an output, then set the Hardware MIDI output of the track you are working on to be the X-Touch.

This is huge. I figured this out because one of my friends was using OSIMidi with his M32 and his XTouch and Extender and the colors were working in plain old Mackie Control mode, so we looked at the MIDI it was sending out and it worked. Kudos to the writers of OSIMidi for figuring it out first.

These MIDI messages just need to be implemented in some control surface software like CSI or a custom controller. I currently don't have the time to do this but I imagine it would be pretty straightforward. Anybody feel as though they have the capacity to do so?

Wow, thanks for this, just added preliminary support in CSI !!

My X-Touch is firmware 1.21 and it worked fine.

[dronenb]

Wow, quick work Geoff, thank you so much. Can't wait to try this out once it is in an official release. DrivenByMoss is a good concept but is quite buggy, so I am very happy to hear it will be coming to CSI in the near future.

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by dronenb

Wow, quick work Geoff, thank you so much. Can't wait to try this out once it is in an official release. DrivenByMoss is a good concept but is quite buggy, so I am very happy to hear it will be coming to CSI in the near future.

X-Touch Track colouring is now fully implemented.

https://stash.reaper.fm/v/42044/CSI%20Exp.zip

You will also need the new support files.

https://stash.reaper.fm/v/44740/CSI%...rt%20Files.zip

[mr.cello]

Color coding is great! Thanks for the speedy work Geoff!

Some of the color mappings don't work as expected, in particular some purples map to the blue, only way to get a deep color in Reaper is to do fuchsia (which makes my head hurt - is there a way to update the color mappings?

Also is there a printable template for the x-touch control buttons, like: utility, automation, encoder assign? Would be good to know what does what, and have that labeled on the surface itself.

[helgoboss]

This is now implemented in ReaLearn as well (triggered by this request). Thanks for the detailed sys-ex specs, dronenb. Thanks to this, I was able to implement it without actually having the X-Touch.

I wish this would work on the X-Touch One, too! It has a color LCD but AFAIK it only works in MIDI mode. Also, there doesn't seem to be an editor for it, so I wouldn't know where to start with reverse engineering.

[mschnell]

The one works in MC Mode. See -> https://www.thomann.de/de/behringer_x_touch_one.htm: "Das MC-Protokoll betreffend, bietet der X-Touch One die Möglichkeit, im MC-User-Mode die meisten seiner 34 Buttons mit speziellen MC-Funktionen zu belegen. "
-Michael

[dronenb]

Originally Posted by helgoboss

I wish this would work on the X-Touch One, too! It has a color LCD but AFAIK it only works in MIDI mode. Also, there doesn't seem to be an editor for it, so I wouldn't know where to start with reverse engineering.

Thanks for implementing this in ReaLearn! Very cool! Unfortunately I do not have an X-Touch One to test this out with, only a full size X-Touch (had to figure out the extender sysex for that from a friend). However, if I were trying to make this work, I would just try incrementally changing the 5th byte of the sysex message (the one in parenthesis) "F0 00 00 66 (14) 72 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 F7". I think the single fader units that emulate MCU store 8 channels in memory, but not sure, but if they do, then this may work, just have to figure out what that 5th byte is supposed to be? If anyone has an X-Touch One and would be willing to test this out, that would be cool!

[helgoboss]

Originally Posted by mschnell

The one works in MC Mode. See -> https://www.thomann.de/de/behringer_x_touch_one.htm: "Das MC-Protokoll betreffend, bietet der X-Touch One die Möglichkeit, im MC-User-Mode die meisten seiner 34 Buttons mit speziellen MC-Funktionen zu belegen. "
-Michael

Sorry, I meant the color feature of the LCD only works when it's in MIDI mode. The LCD itself also works in MC mode.

Originally Posted by dronenb

Thanks for implementing this in ReaLearn! Very cool! Unfortunately I do not have an X-Touch One to test this out with, only a full size X-Touch (had to figure out the extender sysex for that from a friend). However, if I were trying to make this work, I would just try incrementally changing the 5th byte of the sysex message (the one in parenthesis) "F0 00 00 66 (14) 72 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 F7". I think the single fader units that emulate MCU store 8 channels in memory, but not sure, but if they do, then this may work, just have to figure out what that 5th byte is supposed to be? If anyone has an X-Touch One and would be willing to test this out, that would be cool!

I have one. I will give it a go, good idea.

[helgoboss]

FYI, I tried swiping through the 5th byte but I didn't see any effect on the X-Touch One. Also experimented with the 4th byte without luck.

[spkr4thdd]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Wow, thanks for this, just added preliminary support in CSI !!

My X-Touch is firmware 1.21 and it worked fine.

Geoff, first off, even having the ability to set standard colours for views has been a godsend, thanks for all your efforts! Sorry if this should have been posted in the CSI threads, but I've only just found this one again after watching it in the early stages.

I note from the Xctl Protocol Guide for X-Touch (written before the new firmware gave us access via MC mode to the colours) that they listed 16 'colours' for the X-Touch. It's actually just the 8 as listed (light text dark strip - current default), then the same 8 but with the lower line inverted (dark text light strip)

LTDS Colour DTLS
00 Blank 00
01 Red 41
02 Green 42
03 Yellow 43
04 Blue 44
05 Purple 45
06 Cyan 46
07 White 47

Is there any way to add those inverted options to the code? I'm not sure if it will be as the Xctl sent a hex string per scribble rather than the 'all colours in one string' version we have for the MCU. (This is what allowed it to do it per track rather than per view I suppose).

[MrHans]

Originally Posted by DeBased

firmware hacking would be cool. I'd like the scribble colour sysex supported in MCU mode, so it can be used via USB (right now only the XCtrl mode supports it, and that doesn't work via USB).

this isn't really my area, but if we can find pics of the internals we'll see what processor is running the firmware. if they encrypt it though it might get tricky. but otherwise the sysex code is already in there, it would just need to be added to the MCU mode code.

do we have any hackers here?

in my crazier moments it would be tempting to just completely replace the processor with custom firmware, and driving all the LEDs directly from that. That would give you more options - super high res encoders, fader interpolation, extra LED toggles (like the jog wheel). I'm unlikely to do that (massive project), but if I did I'd replace the LEDs with RGBs, and then you could have any colour and shade for every LED (including the scribble strips).

I work with RGB LEDs so that would be fun. But, time ...

Hello,

do you only need the information of the chip?
I think I can try open it up and make pictures of the chip