I've finally cracked the X-Touch Compact! Controlling every plugin I want!
Watch the video to see it all in action!
Like many of us Reaper users who have bought a Behringer X-Touch Compact and found it doesn't work, we've done a bit of research and found Geoff Waddington's CSI software to be the answer.
However, without presets it only allows the X-Touch Compact to control the track:
Mute
Pan
Select
Solo
Volume
You cannot use the X-Touch Compact to control plugins because nobody has made any presets to control plugins.... UNTIL NOW!
After many weeks between hospital trips after my accident I've spent my free time learning to write some presets for the X-Touch Compact to be able to use it to control plugins.
You can even control 8 panels in the Steven Slate Virtual Mix Rack!
I have to write these on a plugin-by-plugin basis so it's a lot of time and effort for me to help get things up and running. Though ultimately I'd like to make a lot of presets to allow people control over the vast majority of major plugins from:
Brainworx
FabFilter
Steven Slate
Reaper Stock Plugins
Waves
Here's where I'd like some help:
I recently had a motorcycle accident where I lost my left arm through spinal damage and as such I've had to do all of this with one arm in between constant hospital trips and operations.
I'd like to sell my presets for a small fee to help cover the cost of my time, plugins, and bills, and would be making regular donations from sales to Geoff for creating the CSI platform.
I would like to thank Geoff and FunkyBot for all their help along the way, as without both of them I would never have made the dots connect to crack on.
If you wish to donate to Geoff directly please use his PayPal address here: waddingtongeoff@gmail.com
If there is enough interest/need for my presets I will make them available, but for now I'm just focussing on getting as many plugins working as possible for the X-Touch Compact in Reaper for myself.
Let me know in the comments which plugins you'd like to be able to control and if I have them I'll add them to the list!
Plugins currently mapped:
Brainworx SSL 4000E
Brainworx Townhouse Buss Compressor
FabFilter Pro Q3
Slate VMR*
Waves CLA-2A Mono+Stereo
Waves CLA-3A Mono+Stereo
Waves CLA-76 Mono+Stereo
Waves L1 Ultramaximizer Mono+Stereo
Waves MV2 Mono+Stereo
WavesFactory Spectre
WavesFactory Trackspacer
*Slate VMR has one 8 panel layout pictured above, it comprises of the VCC for console emulation, FG-N EQ, 2 FG-S EQ's, FG-116 compressor for fast attack, FG-2A compressor for slower attack/cleanup work, CS-EQ2, and CS-Lift for sweetening post correction. Custom layouts will be available for order.
-Joseph Parry
FREE BONUS (click me)
Global Plugin Manual Database; This is where I upload .pdf manuals to every plugin I use, so feel free to save it in your favourites for quick access on the go etc.
...with the section in brackets representing the parameter steps.
Now, you probably already figured that out but you still may have "big jumps". CSI lets you tweak that! Here, I've set it so every 5 encoder ticks changes each step. That's the number in parenthesis at the start of the brackets. Just follow this exact syntax.
If your encoders are REALLY sensitive you may need to go the other way and have 30 ticks per step. You can enter any integer you want in there to dial it in.
...and you can tweak it per parameter to dial in each one just right. For instance, some plugins have a LOT of steps like a Fairchild "Input Gain" knob. When that happens, I want very few steps to make it increment because I want it to feel responsive as it moves through the steps. But if an FX parameter only has 3 or 4 steps, I'll slow those down considerably to try to make it feel a bit more natural.
Hope that helps!
BTW, I realized I removed the section that covered that from the CSI wiki when I made the 2.0 updates and consolidated some pages, but I will figure out where to add it back in.
Absolutely incredible Funky! Coming to the rescue yet again, thank you so much! It there’s any interest in this one day I’ll definitely throw you some dollar to say thanks!!
And you were right! I did figure it out to that point, but that tick jumping addition looks to be the missing key! Love it!!!
I in fact once did some basic steps to use my Compact with CSI, but I decided to use the standard MIDI mode, as here all rotaries of the Compact are in place, which I find rather important. Moreover you perhaps can use the Layer for some tricks (even though IMHO it would be better to have the act as normal buttons when used with CSI but the firmware does not support this).
Why do you use the MC mode ? IMHO this does not make sense when using the compact with dedicated support software.
Regarding plugins supported by this project, of course the ones that come with Reaper make a lot of sense !!! ReaEQ of course would be the first on my list. (Why) do you think ReaEQ would be inferior to FabFilter Q ?
-Michael (owning a Compact, up till now only using it for live playing. Having tried to prepare it for mixing long ago, but at that time CSI was too limited for the task)
I in fact once did some basic steps to use my Compact with CSI, but I decided to use the standard MIDI mode, as here all rotaries of the Compact are in place, which I find rather important. Moreover you perhaps can use the Layer for some tricks (even though IMHO it would be better to have the act as normal buttons when used with CSI but the firmware does not support this).
Why do you use the MC mode ? IMHO this does not make sense when using the compact with dedicated support software.
Regarding plugins supported by this project, of course the ones that come with Reaper make a lot of sense !!! ReaEQ of course would be the first on my list. (Why) do you think ReaEQ would be inferior to FabFilter Q ?
-Michael (owning a Compact, up till now only using it for live playing. Having tried to prepare it for mixing long ago, but at that time CSI was too limited for the task)
Hey Michael!
Thanks for the great questions!
Q: Why do I use MCU mode?
A: I just didn't realise I could use the standard mode with CSI. I couldn't get any input with or without CSI So I'm very open to rewriting everything if you could help me switch over to standard getting input etc! I really dislike the mcu mode killing the rotary 9-16 etc.
Q: Why haven't I written presets to make stock plugins work?
A: I just don't use them, I use Slate, Waves, and Fabfilter for everything. I just enjoy the way they look and sound. I have nothing against the stock plugins at all, and I'm more than happy to write presets to get them working etc.
Q: Why haven't I written presets to make stock plugins work?
A: I just don't use them, I use Slate, Waves, and Fabfilter for everything. I just enjoy the way they look and sound. I have nothing against the stock plugins at all, and I'm more than happy to write presets to get them working etc.
I'll warn you on this front: the stock plugins do not map all that well to CSI. The parameter ranges are all over the place and were not made with hardware controllers in mind. They're otherwise totally fine plugins, but I never use them for that reason.
I'll warn you on this front: the stock plugins do not map all that well to CSI. The parameter ranges are all over the place and were not made with hardware controllers in mind. They're otherwise totally fine plugins, but I never use them for that reason.
Challenge Accepted
*edit*
Got it all linked as no doubt you have also done a long time before me haha! I now understand what you mean about the parameters jumping as you twist hardware rotaries etc. For this reason I'd rather not include Cockos plugins as officially supported.
AFAIU, regarding the CSI software it does not make any difference if using standard Midi or MCU protocol. But for the devices that do provide MCU, the configuration files that are available only support MCU mode. Hence when using standard Midi with the Compact, you can't build on something existing for that device.
But standard Midi obviously has advantages with the Compact (e.g. more Rotaries, more straight forward GUI possible especially regarding plugins. )
Theoretically MCU mode provides 11 (?) Bits for the sliders, while Standard Midi only provides 7. But I tested that with the Compact (seemingly other than with the other Behringer Control Surfaces Devices) the firmware only outputs 7 relevant bits even in MCU mode. I did not find any firmware upgrades yet
If you once might want to switch to standard Midi mode, I'd be happy to collaborate.
Moreover, I'd be happy to provide add.ons for the stock plugins I use.
(I also use the free "space360" plugin which is a good candidate for hardware control...)
Did you ask Geoff regarding the extended turning necessary with certain rotaries, that you describe in the video ? I am positive that there is a solution or Geoff might add some goodies for this
AFAIU, regarding the CSI software it does not make any difference if using standard Midi or MCU protocol. But for the devices that do provide MCU, the configuration files that are available only support MCU mode. Hence when using standard Midi with the Compact, you can't build on something existing for that device.
But standard Midi obviously has advantages with the Compact (e.g. more Rotaries, more straight forward GUI possible especially regarding plugins. )
Theoretically MCU mode provides 11 (?) Bits for the sliders, while Standard Midi only provides 7. But I tested that with the Compact (seemingly other than with the other Behringer Control Surfaces Devices) the firmware only outputs 7 relevant bits even in MCU mode. I did not find any firmware upgrades yet
If you once might want to switch to standard Midi mode, I'd be happy to collaborate.
Moreover, I'd be happy to provide add.ons for the stock plugins I use.
(I also use the free "space360" plugin which is a good candidate for hardware control...)
Did you ask Geoff regarding the extended turning necessary with certain rotaries, that you describe in the video ? I am positive that there is a solution or Geoff might ass some goodies for this
-Michael
I believe the manual states mcu mode is 7-bit, so it led me to believe standard was a higher resolution? I didn’t get any input in standard mode via midi learn with it enabled as a device in reaper, or as a csi controlled device, so I’m not really sure where to start with porting everything over to standard.
I’d be up for it though as there are lots of advantages!
As for the rotary turning Funky very kindly posted the fix above! It was really simple it just wasn’t in the wiki at the time so I couldn’t learn it hahaha! I’m really thankful for this place and how awesome everyone is at sharing knowledge!
I did start doing CSI files for the standard Midi mode with the Compact some time ago. I never had any problem regarding the "connection". In fact MCU is just standard Midi with some modifications (i.e. using the four channel bits as high bits in certain messages).
I did start doing CSI files for the standard Midi mode with the Compact some time ago. I never had any problem regarding the "connection". In fact MCA is just standard Midi with some modifications (i.e. using the four channel bits as high bits in certain messages).
-Michael
Well the entire unit had to be mapped in csi before you can start using it to do anything, so I don’t know how to start with that.
I can see the input via csi raw but unsure how to go about mapping the whole desk, especially rotary left vs right twisting. It would be an insane amount of time to map the whole desk out!
There is an issue with the Slate VMR and that is it uses generic mapping names assigned in the order the modules are added to the interface.
This means you can't map parameters to specific modules. You can only create a default in VMR and assign your controls and leave it like that, which makes setting up a mapping to a console almost useless.
I wish Slate would allow you to dump the rack and use individual plugins with unique parameter mapping.
There is an issue with the Slate VMR and that is it uses generic mapping names assigned in the order the modules are added to the interface.
This means you can't map parameters to specific modules. You can only create a default in VMR and assign your controls and leave it like that, which makes setting up mapping to a console almost useless.
I wish Slate would allow you to dump the rack and use individual plugins with unique parameter mapping.
It does make it less than ideal for sure, especially for other people. But I've set mine up so that it loads a default layout and I use that all the time. If I want less I can remove the other panels and the names remain the same.
I agree with you though, not a good way to make a panel, every plugin should have a letter assigned to it then it would work with no problem.
Well the entire unit had to be mapped in csi before you can start using it to do anything, so I don’t know how to start with that.
I can see the input via csi raw but unsure how to go about mapping the whole desk, especially rotary left vs right twisting. It would be an insane amount of time to map the whole desk out!
I posted a Test JSFX that demonstrates that / how Compact Rotaries in Standard Mode can be used to produce high resolution data (like "encoders" in MC mode".
I posted a Test JSFX that demonstrates that / how Compact Rotaries in Standard Mode can be used to produce high resolution data (like "encoders" in MC mode".
I've finally cracked the X-Touch Compact! Controlling every plugin I want!
Linear Mode
