3 title: Using the Presonus Faderport
4 menu_title: Presonus Faderport
8 Since version 4.5, Ardour has had full support for the Presonus
9 Faderport. This is a compact control surface featuring a single
10 motorized fader, a single knob (encoder) and 24 buttons with fixed
11 labels. It is a relatively low-cost device that functions very well
12 to control a single (selected) track or bus, along with a variety of
13 other "global" settings and conditions.
16 <h2>Connecting the Faderport</h2>
18 The Faderport comes with a single USB socket on the back. Connect a
19 suitable USB cable from there to a USB port on your computer. As of
20 the end of 2015, you should avoid USB3 ports - these cause erratic
21 behaviour with the device. This issue might get fixed by Presonus in
25 Ardour uses the Faderport in what Presonus calls "native" mode. You
26 do not need to do anything to enable this - Ardour will set the
27 device to be in the correct mode. In native mode, the Faderport
28 sends and receives ordinary MIDI messages to/from the host, and the
29 host understands the intended meaning of these messages. We note
30 this detail to avoid speculation about whether Ardour supports the
31 device via the HUI protocol - it does not.
33 The Faderport will be automatically recognized by your operating
34 system, and will appear in any of the lists of possible MIDI ports
35 in both Ardour and other similar software.
38 To connect the Faderport to Ardour, open the Preferences dialog, and
39 then click on "Control Surfaces". Click on the "Enable" button
40 in the line that says "Faderport" in order to activate Ardour's
41 Faderport support. Then double click on the line that says
42 "Faderport". A new dialog will open, containing (among other things)
43 two dropdown selectors that will allow you to identify the MIDI
44 ports where your Faderport is connected.
47 <img alt="the Faderport configuration dialog"
48 src="/images/faderport_dialog.png">
51 Once you select the input and output port, Ardour will initialize
52 the Faderport and it will be ready to use. You only need do this
53 once: once these ports are connected and your session has been
54 saved, the connections will be made automatically in this and other
57 You do not need to use the power supply that comes with the
58 Faderport but without it, the fader will not be motorized. This
59 makes the overall experience of using the Faderport much less
60 satisfactory, since the fader will not move when Ardour tells it
61 to, leading to very out-of-sync conditions between the physical
62 fader position and the "fader position" inside the program.
65 <h2>Using the Faderport</h2>
67 The Faderport's controls can be divided into three groups:
69 <li>Global controls such as the transport buttons</li>
71 <li>Controls which change the settings for particular track or
74 <li>Controls which alter which track or bus is modified by the
75 per-track/bus controls.</li>
79 Because the Faderport has only a single set of per-track controls,
80 by default those controls operate on the first selected track or
81 bus. If there is no selected track or bus, the controls will do
85 <h3>Transport Buttons</h3>
87 The transport buttons all work as you would expect.
92 When pressed on its own, starts the transport moving backwards. Successive presses
93 speed up the "rewind" behaviour.
96 If pressed while also holding the Stop button, the playhead will
97 return to the zero position on the timeline.
100 If pressed while also holding the Shift button, the playhead will
101 move to the session start marker.
104 <dt>Fast Forward</dt>
107 When pressed on its own, starts the transport moving faster than normal. Successive presses
108 speed up the "fast forward" behaviour.
111 If pressed while also holding the Shift button, the playhead
112 will move to the session end marker.
117 Stops the transport. Also used in combination with the Rewind
118 button to "return to zero".
122 Starts the transport. If pressed while the transport is
123 already rolling at normal speed, causes the playhead to jump to
124 the start of the last "roll" and continue rolling ("Poor man's
127 <dt>Record Enable</dt>
128 <dd>Toggles the global record enable setting
133 <h3>Other Global Controls</h3>
135 The Mix, Proj, Trns buttons do not obviously correspond any
136 particular functions or operations in Ardour. We have therefore
137 allowed users to choose from a carefully curated set of possible
138 actions that seem related to the button labels in some clear
139 way. This can be done via the Faderport configuration dialog
140 accessed via <code>Preferences > Control Surfaces</code>. Each
141 button has 3 possible actions associated with it:
143 <li>Plain Press: action to be taken when the button is pressed on
145 <li>Shift-Press: action to be taken when the button is pressed in
146 conjunction with the Shift button.</li>
147 <li>Long Press: action to be taken when the button is pressed on
148 its own and held down for more than 0.5 seconds.</li>
150 Click on the relevant drop-down selector to pick an action as you
154 The User button also has no obvious mapping to specific Ardour
155 functionality, so we allow users to choose from <em>any</em>
156 possible GUI action. The menu for selecting the action is somewhat
157 confusing and it can be hard to find what you're looking
158 for. However, all possible actions are there, so keep looking!
164 Possible actions include:
166 <li>Toggle Editor & Mixer visibility</li>
167 <li>Show/Hide the Editor mixer strip</li>
174 Possible actions include:
176 <li>Toggle Meterbridge visibility</li>
177 <li>Toggle Session Summary visibility</li>
178 <li>Toggle Editor Lists visibility</li>
179 <li>Zoom to session</li>
188 Possible actions include:
190 <li>Toggle Locations window visibility</li>
191 <li>Toggle Metronome</li>
192 <li>Toggle external sync</li>
193 <li>Set Playhead at current pointer position</li>
199 Undo Causes the last operation carried out in the editor to be
200 undone. When pressed in conjuction with the Shift button, it
201 causes the most recent undone operation to be re-done.
206 When pressed on its own, toggles punch recording. If there is no
207 punch range set for the session, this will do nothing.
210 When pressed in conjunction with the Shift button, this moves
211 the playhead to the previous Marker
217 See above. Any and all GUI-initiated actions can be driven with
218 by pressing this button on its own, or with a "long" press.
221 When pressed in conjunction with the Shift button, this will move
222 the playhead to the next marker.
228 When pressed on its own, this toggles loop playback. If the
229 Ardour preference "Loop-is-mode" is enabled, this does nothing
230 to the current transport state. If that preference is disabled,
231 then engaging loop playback will also start the transport.
234 When pressed in conjunction with the Shift button, this will
235 create a new (unnamed) marker at the current playhead
242 <h3>Per-track Controls</h3>
247 This toggles the mute setting of the currently controlled
248 track/bus. The button will be lit if the track/bus is muted.
252 This toggles the solo (or listen) setting of the currently
253 controlled track/bus. The button will be lit if the track/bus is
254 soloed (or set to listen mode).
258 This toggles the record-enabled setting of the currently
259 controlled track/bus. The button will be lit if the track is
260 record-enabled. This button will do nothing if the Faderport is
265 The fader controls the gain applied to the currently controlled
266 track/bus. If the Faderport is powered, changing the gain in
267 Ardour's GUI or via another control surface, or via automation,
268 will result in the fader moving under its own control.
270 <dt>Knob/Dial/Encoder</dt>
273 The knob controls 1 or 2 pan settings for the current
274 controlled track/bus. When used alone, turning the knob controls
275 the "azimuth" or "direction" (between left and right) for the
276 panner in the track/bus (if any). This is all you need when
277 controlling tracks/busses with 1 input and 2 outputs.
280 If controlling a 2 input/2 output track/bus, Ardour's panner
281 has two controls: azimuth (direction) and width. The width
282 must be reduced to less than 100% before the azimuth can be
283 changed. Pressing the "Shift" button while turning the knob
284 will alter the width setting.
287 The knob can also be turned while the "User" button is held,
288 in order to modify the input gain for the currently controlled
294 Enables playback/use of fader automation data by the controlled track/bus.
298 Puts the fader for the controlled track/bus into automation
299 write mode. While the transport is rolling, all fader changes
300 will be recorded to the fader automation lane for the relevant track/bus.
304 Puts the fader for the controlled track/bus into automation
305 touch mode. While the transport is rolling, touching the fader
306 will initiate recording all fader changes until the fader is
307 released. When the fader is not being touched, existing
308 automation data will be played/used to control the gain level.
312 This disables all automation modes for the currently controlled
313 track/bus. Existing automation data will be left unmodified by
314 any fader changes, and will not be used for controlling gain.
319 <h3>Track Selection Controls</h3>
321 You can manually change the track/bus controlled by the Faderport by
322 changing the selected track in Ardour's editor window. If you select
323 more than 1 track, the Faderport will control the first selected
324 track and <em>only</em> that track/bus.
328 <dt>Left (arrow)</dt>
330 This causes the Ardour GUI to select the previous track/bus
331 (using the current visual order in the editor window), which
332 will in turn cause the Faderport to control that track. If there
333 is no previous track/bus, the selected track/bus is left
334 unchanged, and the Faderport continues to control it.
336 <dt>Right (arrow)</dt>
338 This causes the Ardour GUI to select the next track/bus
339 (using the current visual order in the editor window), which
340 will in turn cause the Faderport to control that track. If there
341 is no next track/bus, the selected track/bus is left
342 unchanged, and the Faderport continues to control it.
347 Pressing the Output button causes the Faderport to control
348 the fader, pan, mute and solo settings of the Master bus. If
349 your session does not contain a Master bus, it does nothing.
350 This is a toggle button - pressing it again returns Faderport
351 to controlling whichever track/bus was selected before the
352 first press of the Output button.
355 If your session uses Ardour's monitor section, you can use
356 Shift-Output to assign it to the Faderport in the same way
357 that Output assigns the Master bus. This is also a toggle
358 setting, so the second Shift-Output will return the Faderport
359 to controlling whichever track/bus was selected before.
362 If you press Shift-Output after a single press to Output
363 (i.e. control the Monitor Section while currently controlling
364 the Master bus) or vice versa (i.e. control the Master bus
365 while currently controlling the Monitor Section), the press
366 will be ignored. This avoids getting into a tricky situation
367 where it is no longer apparent what is being controlled and
368 what will happen if you try to change it.
373 The "Bank" button is currently not used by Ardour