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10-30-2015, 11:47 AM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Folsom, California, USA
Posts: 302
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Do You Use a Control Surface With Reaper?
I'm seriously considering adding a control surface to Reaper, to make things hopefully easier and faster for me.
Just curious as to have Reaperians use a control surface? Which one? Do they interface well with Reaper?
Thank you.
__________________
I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member of the club...Groucho Marx
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10-30-2015, 11:56 AM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
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I use a Presonus Faderport along with an extended Reaper extension for it...
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=91053
There are some other control surfaces others use who will also hopefully chime in. MCU and AlphaTrack come to mind.
__________________
Music is what feelings sound like.
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10-30-2015, 12:10 PM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Norway
Posts: 7,318
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Faderport here as well.
Motorized fader is very important to me.
__________________
Reaper x64, win 11
Composer, text-writer, producer
Bandcamp
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10-30-2015, 12:22 PM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Italy and... world
Posts: 131
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Avid Artist Mix and Avid Transport.
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G66 Technical Manager for Italy
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10-30-2015, 12:27 PM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 3,670
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launchpad and bidule
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10-30-2015, 02:01 PM
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#6
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 708
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I use Notation Launch Control XL and Launch Pad S
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10-30-2015, 02:26 PM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 1,392
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I've tried various units over the years and always sold them on, much preferring the mouse. This was even when I was using Cubase and had to click and drag the faders.
Then when I moved to Reaper and could use the mouse wheel with the modifier keys for fine tuning I can't imagine anything being better for my tastes.
Possibly because I've got so much experience using a computer that I prefer this; perhaps a musician who isn't overly fond of computers would be much happier with faders.
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10-30-2015, 02:44 PM
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#8
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Folsom, California, USA
Posts: 302
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Sun
Faderport here as well.
Motorized fader is very important to me.
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Why is a motorized fader important?
__________________
I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member of the club...Groucho Marx
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10-30-2015, 04:15 PM
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#9
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Tbone
Why is a motorized fader important?
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Several reasons, easiest example is when switching between tracks you always want the physical fader to follow or you spend a lot of time trying to reset faders to where they were.
__________________
Music is what feelings sound like.
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10-30-2015, 04:17 PM
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#10
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Denton, TX
Posts: 201
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I just got the Behringer X-Touch Mini and I love it.
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10-30-2015, 04:21 PM
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#11
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Krefeld, Germany
Posts: 14,690
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A friend of mine happily uses a Behringer BCF2000.
-Michael
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10-30-2015, 04:36 PM
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#12
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,145
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Tbone
Why is a motorized fader important?
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If you have a, say, an 8 fader controller without motorized faders and you have a project with more than 8 tracks when you bank, that's moving from, say, tracks 1-8 to 9-16, and make adjustments to a track fader in bank 9-16, when you go back to tracks 1-8 the faders will be out of alignment on the controller compared to the actual positions in the DAW. Motorized faders adjust their fader and other parameter positions, pans, auxes, etc, to automatically mirror the fader positions in the DAW. Like wot karbo sez.
If yuh catch mah drift.
I use one of these:-
It is ab fab, and Reaper's integration with it is one of the primary reasons that I use Reaper. There are some great DAW's and some great controllers available these days. But that doesn't necessarily mean they work well together, if at all. Controllers that support MCU[Mackie] protocol usually work OK with Reaper and all the main DAW's. Most of 'em.
ns
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10-30-2015, 04:41 PM
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#13
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Folsom, California, USA
Posts: 302
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nightscope
If you have a, say, an 8 fader controller without motorized faders and you have a project with more than 8 tracks when you bank, that's moving from, say, tracks 1-8 to 9-16, and make adjustments to a track fader in bank 9-16, when you go back to tracks 1-8 the faders will be out of alignment on the controller compared to the actual positions in the DAW. Motorized faders adjust their fader and other parameter positions, pans, auxes, etc, to automatically mirror the fader positions in the DAW. Like wot karbo sez.
If yuh catch mah drift.
I use one of these:-
It is ab fab, and Reaper's integration with it is one of the primary reasons that I use Reaper. There are some great DAW's and some great controllers available these days. But that doesn't necessarily mean they work well together, if at all. Controllers that support MCU[Mackie] protocol usually work OK with Reaper and all the main DAW's. Most of 'em.
ns
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Great explanation of why the motorized faders are mandatory. Mackie protocol is very useful as well. Thanks much for the insight.
__________________
I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member of the club...Groucho Marx
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10-30-2015, 05:17 PM
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#14
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Oud West, NL
Posts: 2,335
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I'm as much of a gearhead as anybody, but after going through various setups I find it much simpler, easier and sometimes much faster to just user a good MIDI controller keyboard that also does channels well, combined with mouse. Even then, I often just prefer to use mouse for a lot of it. One thing I did do recently is purchase a top-notch 'gamers' mouse with a couple of extra controls and none of the squonky imprecisions of the cheapo $15 junk mouse. That's made a measurable difference, too.
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10-30-2015, 05:23 PM
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#15
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,145
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Tbone
Great explanation of why the motorized faders are mandatory. Mackie protocol is very useful as well. Thanks much for the insight.
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Yes, on reflection, I think it was pretty darn good. Though karbo's has the merit of brevity and conciseness. A trait I have yet to learn.
Other controllers wot I got.
BCF2000, which I had before the MCU about five years ago. I used it to death and it's still alive and will probably outlive me. I still sometimes hook it up at mix time to get an extra 8 tracks of control. Cheap and cheerful, absolutely nothing wrong with that, and most importantly works well with Reaper. Con one, no LCD, although you can use a Behringer supplied free application[Windows only] that's emulates the hardware LCD on the computer screen and it works fine. Con two, the faders though motorized, are not touch sensitive. The biggie about this is that you cannot adjust already written automation easily. If you don't do a lot of adjusting of written automation then it's not a very big biggie, if at all. Con three, faders bang about a bit. Not a real biggie for me, my wife bangs about a bit so we know all about that.
Novation SL Zero. Apply named, as it has zero motor faders. Better with Live and arcane synths with sysex and all that.
Controllers I haven't got or used so take with pinch of salt.
Avid Artist. Geoff Waddington has lashed up a Eucon setup with the Reaper and he don't get much wrong.
Other MCU protocol types.
New Behringer ones.
One thing I noticed about these is that the LCD is flat on the controller, unlike the MCU and iCon ones, which have the LCD tilted up so you can easily see them at long range.
iCon.
The current largish ones have a USB system stuck on the back behind the LCD mount. So you're paying for something you might not conceivably use. Then again, you might.
ns
Last edited by nightscope; 10-30-2015 at 05:29 PM.
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10-30-2015, 08:24 PM
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#16
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 509
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I used to own the Zoom R8 and it worked perfectly. But then I realised that I don't really need a control surface. Also, the down side is that if you accidentally bump the control surface you can entirely screw up your mix levels.
But this isn't a problem at all with the mouse.
Old school consoles with fader automation had moving faders that went to exactly where the automation fade curves were, and most modern MIDI control surfaces don't do that. So it's just not the same thing. You can pay alot of money to get those kinds of surfaces, or you can just adapt to the mouse and get work done.
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10-31-2015, 01:22 AM
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#17
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 1,392
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Telenator
I'm as much of a gearhead as anybody, but after going through various setups I find it much simpler, easier and sometimes much faster to just user a good MIDI controller keyboard that also does channels well, combined with mouse. Even then, I often just prefer to use mouse for a lot of it. One thing I did do recently is purchase a top-notch 'gamers' mouse with a couple of extra controls and none of the squonky imprecisions of the cheapo $15 junk mouse. That's made a measurable difference, too.
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I also use a gamers mouse which may be part of the reason I prefer that method.
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10-31-2015, 01:56 AM
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#18
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Near Cambridge UK and Near Questembert, France
Posts: 22,754
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Korg Nanos.
Used to have a bcf which worked but took up too much room.
Also a Novation Zero, which never really worked for me.
The Nanos are great - 100% reliable, tiny footprint.
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10-31-2015, 03:42 AM
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#19
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 9,090
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Telenator
I'm as much of a gearhead as anybody, but after going through various setups I find it much simpler, easier and sometimes much faster to just user a good MIDI controller keyboard that also does channels well, combined with mouse. Even then, I often just prefer to use mouse for a lot of it. One thing I did do recently is purchase a top-notch 'gamers' mouse with a couple of extra controls and none of the squonky imprecisions of the cheapo $15 junk mouse. That's made a measurable difference, too.
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Agree totally with this.
Which mouse are you using? I am on the hunt for a good one.....
__________________
The Sounds of the Hear and Now.
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10-31-2015, 03:48 AM
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#20
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 1,392
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richie43
Agree totally with this.
Which mouse are you using? I am on the hunt for a good one.....
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Logitech MX518 here, cracker
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10-31-2015, 09:01 AM
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#21
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 10,478
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I use an M Audio Projectmix with Reaper. Works well, with motorized faders. They are now obsolete but you may still find a used one on eBay for a few hundred bucks.
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10-31-2015, 12:36 PM
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#22
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Oud West, NL
Posts: 2,335
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richie43
Agree totally with this.
Which mouse are you using? I am on the hunt for a good one.....
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Razer's DeathAdderChroma. Even has purty colours if you want them. They have some with a few or many more extra buttons for more control but I didn't want them. DeathAdder just has two very useful and not where they get hit by accident. Also, I've totally given up on wireless mice and fooling with batteries, although Razer has plenty of those if that's what you like. I'm keeping things (and life) simpler these days.
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11-01-2015, 01:30 AM
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#23
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Berlin
Posts: 11,817
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Macke Control Universal, Novation SL61, Midi Fighter Twister and Novation Dicer. I mix and edit TV, film, docs, Youtube shows and game sound with that.
Customizations man.
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11-01-2015, 02:07 AM
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#24
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Northern Michigan
Posts: 6,919
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richie43
Agree totally with this.
Which mouse are you using? I am on the hunt for a good one.....
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Richie,
I'm using one of these (also used the previous versions of this mouse):
http://support.logitech.com/en_nz/product/mx-master.
The precision of this mouse is what got me.
Enjoy.
__________________
Peace...
bluzkat
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11-01-2015, 02:34 AM
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#25
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 499
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Another Presonus Faderport user here too.
If mine ever broke, I'd replace it immediately. It sits permanently between my keyboard and mouse.
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11-01-2015, 04:33 PM
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#26
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Folsom, California, USA
Posts: 302
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Lots of great information, advice and direction, for which I'm grateful.
Seems that a work surface would be the way to go for me.
What is the setup procedure typically? Does one instruct the work surface what type DAW it's connected Too?
Brand recommendations have been great, keep the ideas coming folks. Writing them all down, as part of my due diligence process.
Some surface specs state 45mm faders, others 100mm. I presume this indicates the rotation of the fader rather than the size of physical fader, is that correct?
I've learned a lot on this post, please keep throwing in more info Reaperians! Thanks.....
__________________
I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member of the club...Groucho Marx
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11-01-2015, 05:39 PM
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#27
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 499
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Tbone
Some surface specs state 45mm faders, others 100mm. I presume this indicates the rotation of the fader rather than the size of physical fader, is that correct?
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That spec is in relation to the throw of the fader(how far it moves). It's the actual size of the physical fader as a whole mechanism.
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11-02-2015, 09:40 AM
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#28
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Ontario
Posts: 1,676
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Superfly76
Another Presonus Faderport user here too.
If mine ever broke, I'd replace it immediately. It sits permanently between my keyboard and mouse.
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I agree. I love mine. I have it on the left side of my laptop. I use the fader all the time. When I'm mixing, it makes things very handy. A fader ride cannot be properly done with a mouse, imho. You can't nudge a mouse the same way as a fader. A fader is one of the most important tools in mixing. It's very easy to overshoot the mark with click and drag. A fader is very intuitive for me. You can push a compressor plugin like you would on an analogue console with a fader. The recall function of the motorized fader is extremely helpful. It feels like the mix is right at your fingertips.
The portability is really helpful too. If you have a long enough usb cable, you have a remote transport control for tracking.
It was also largely plug and play for me. I don't remember having any compatibility issues with Reaper. Follow the instructions and you're all set.
__________________
"I've never trusted Klingons and I never will. I can never forgive them for the death of my boy."
Last edited by kirk1701; 11-02-2015 at 09:47 AM.
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11-02-2015, 09:45 AM
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#29
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 10,478
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Tbone
Lots of great information, advice and direction, for which I'm grateful.
Seems that a work surface would be the way to go for me.
What is the setup procedure typically? Does one instruct the work surface what type DAW it's connected Too?
Brand recommendations have been great, keep the ideas coming folks. Writing them all down, as part of my due diligence process.
Some surface specs state 45mm faders, others 100mm. I presume this indicates the rotation of the fader rather than the size of physical fader, is that correct?
I've learned a lot on this post, please keep throwing in more info Reaperians! Thanks.....
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Usually the controllers have several "presets", e.g., Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live, etc.
My Projectmix works good enough when I use the "Cubase preset". Only thing that doesn't work is that the LED display does not display the track names, but I can live with that. Someone on these forums figured out a way to fix that as well but just wasn't able to make it work for me. But again it's okay with me.
The newer controllers now oftentimes have a dedicated preset for for Reaper, since Reaper has gained such a strong following in recent years. For example, the Icon Qcon Pro has its own Reaper preset (that is a really nice unit too, by the way, I use it for Pro Tools).
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02-12-2016, 02:58 PM
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#30
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Anglesey UK
Posts: 27
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Just added a Behrnger X-Touch to my studio
Seems to work quite well over USB and is happy working with the PreSonus Faderport connected as well
(Useful for me to keep that on my keyboard rig and the X-Touch in front of the PC monitor
Can't get all the functions in the master section to work but I'm not too good at this side of studio tech!
Anyone else using X-Touch yet, it's a nice solid bit of kit
Cheers
__________________
If only my vision was as good in foresight as it is in hindsight!
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02-12-2016, 03:09 PM
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#31
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 136
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Panorama nektar specifically integrates with reaper. It's great.
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02-12-2016, 04:11 PM
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#32
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Santa Cruz, Ca
Posts: 480
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Control Surface
Faderport
__________________
Reaper, Intel i7 machine with 24 gigs of ram, Win 7 , M-Audio FW 410, Alesis i02, i7 Laptop w Win 8.1, Fender Concert 2, Bugera V22, Fender Showman(Red Knob) Ibanez Artist335, Strat, Ibanez Les Paul, Epiphone Sheraton, ETC
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02-13-2016, 05:20 AM
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#33
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,717
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Tried one, but no controller for me. I find a normal qwerty keyboard is really the best controller together with mouse. A separate controller would just be moving the hand away from the qwerty to do things the qwerty and mouse would normally do, so a superflous time-waster really. I should add the qwerty is slightly enhanced with a macro program (Autohotkey).
It might be cool with knobs to write automation like synth filter etc, but there are anyway some on my MIDI keyboard. But then I usually end up correcting the automation writing with a mouse, so in reality could have done the whole thing there.
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02-13-2016, 07:42 AM
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#34
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: London
Posts: 1,211
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Using school's hardware. Most of the time I use an Artist Control, it works quite well with the beta Eucon plugin release a few years ago.
Sometimes I also switch to the bigger consoles. I haven't been able to use the SSL duality with the MCU protocol yet so I use it in HUI mode which works well even if it's not as complete. I also use the system 5. It's also a Eucon console but it doesn't work as well as the Artist Control. Automation works well but transport for example doesn't work. If you start deleting and adding track you start having problems. But I think it's a problem with the console itself.
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02-13-2016, 12:21 PM
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#35
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 421
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Novation Nocturn to control my go to plugins. Never had any issues with it.
My faderport got thrown into the wall ( by me ) Reaper wasn't always picking it up and the pan knob never quite worked. It proved to be a pain in the arse to work with.
I mostly control faders with my mouse wheel so it's not a big lost.
maybe someday i'll get something else.
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02-24-2016, 11:50 AM
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#36
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 7
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Nektar Panorama P1-P6
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02-24-2016, 11:52 AM
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#37
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Santa Cruz, Ca
Posts: 480
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Control Surface
Faderport
__________________
Reaper, Intel i7 machine with 24 gigs of ram, Win 7 , M-Audio FW 410, Alesis i02, i7 Laptop w Win 8.1, Fender Concert 2, Bugera V22, Fender Showman(Red Knob) Ibanez Artist335, Strat, Ibanez Les Paul, Epiphone Sheraton, ETC
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12-03-2016, 07:35 AM
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#38
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Forest of Dean, England
Posts: 11
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Frontier Alphatrack
Works great in Windows 10, even though it hasn't been supported for a while now.
Had to mess about to force it to load the Windows 7 driver when my PC was running 8.1 but when I upgraded to 10 there were no complaints about an unsigned driver.
I'd be lost if it broke, I don't use the motorized fader an awful lot -just to tweak the mixes - but the transport and macro buttons are indispensable, especially as I have the unit on a long USB cable. This enables me to control Reaper from the studio live area.
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09-25-2018, 11:31 AM
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#39
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Diego
Avid Artist Mix and Avid Transport.
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How do you get the artist mix working with reaper? I have two of them linked to protocols, but would love to use them with Reaper.
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09-25-2018, 12:06 PM
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#40
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Posts: 11,184
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mickmacneil
How do you get the artist mix working with reaper? I have two of them linked to protocols, but would love to use them with Reaper.
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You can either use the native approach: https://stash.reaper.fm/v/18477/EuCon%20Beta.zip and the map editor : https://stash.reaper.fm/v/17210/EuCo...p%20Editor.pdf
Or you can set up the mix to Mackie Control protocol and use:
The stock MCU
Klinke's MCU
Also, you can use the pre alpha version of CSI -- see sig below for thread.
__________________
To install you need the CSI Software and Support Files
For installation instructions and documentation see the Wiki
Donate -- via PayPal to waddingtongeoff@gmail.com
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