---
layout: default
title: Using the Presonus Faderport
menu_title: Presonus Faderport
---                        

<img align="left" alt="A picture of a Presonus Faderport device" src="/images/faderport-ssmall.png">
<p>
  Since version 4.5, Ardour has had full support for the Presonus
  Faderport. This is a compact control surface featuring a single
  motorized fader, a single knob (encoder) and 24 buttons with fixed
  labels.
</p>

<h2>Connecting the Faderport</h2>
<p>
  The Faderport comes with a single USB socket on the back. Connect a
  suitable USB cable from there to a USB port on your computer. As of
  the end of 2015, you should avoid USB3 ports - these cause erratic
  behaviour with the device. This issue might get fixed by Presonus in
  the future.
</p>
<p>
  Ardour uses the Faderport in what Presonus calls "native" mode. You
  do not need to do anything to enable this - Ardour will set the
  device to be in the correct mode. In native mode, the Faderport
  sends and receives ordinary MIDI messages to/from the host, and the
  host understands the intended meaning of these messages. We note
  this detail to avoid speculation about whether Ardour supports the
  device via the HUI protocol - it does not.
<p>
  The Faderport will be automatically recognized by your operating
  system, and will appear in any of the lists of possible MIDI ports
  in both Ardour and other similar software.
</p>
<p>
  To connect the Faderport to Ardour, open the Preferences dialog, and
  then click on "Control Surfaces". Click on the "Enable" button
  in the line that says "Faderport" in order to activate Ardour's
  Faderport support. Then double click on the line that says
  "Faderport". A new dialog will open, containing (among other things)
  two dropdown selectors that will allow you to identify the MIDI
  ports where your Faderport is connected.
</p>
<img alt="the Faderport configuration dialog" src="foo">
<p>
  Once you select the input and output port, Ardour will initialize
  the Faderport and it will be ready to use. You only need do this
  once: once these ports are connected and your session has been
  saved, the connections will be made automatically in this and other
  future sessions.
<p>
  You do not need to use the power supply that comes with the
  Faderport but without it, the fader will not be motorized. This
  makes the overall experience of using the Faderport much less
  satisfactory, since the fader will not move when Ardour tells it
  to, leading to very out-of-sync conditions between the physical
  fader position and the "fader position" inside the program.
</p>

<h2>Using the Faderport</h2>
<p>
  The Faderport's controls can be divided into three groups:
  <ol>
    <li>Global controls such as the transport buttons</li>
    
    <li>Controls which change the settings for particular track or
      bus</li>
    
    <li>Controls which alter which track or bus is modified by the
      per-track/bus controls.</li>
  </ol>
</p>
<p>
  Because the Faderport has only a single set of per-track controls,
  by default those controls operate on the first selected track or
  bus. If there is no selected track or bus, the controls will do
  nothing.
</p>

<h3>Transport Buttons</h3>
<p>
  The transport buttons all work as you would expect.
  <dl>
    <dt>Rewind</dt>
    <dd>Starts the transport moving backwards. Successive presses
      speed up the "rewind" behaviour.
      <br>
      If pressed while also holding the Stop button, the playhead will
      return to the zero position on the timeline.
    </dd>
    <dt>Fast Forward</dt>
    <dd>Starts the transport moving faster than normal. Successive presses
      speed up the "fast forward" behaviour.
    </dd>
    <dt>Stop</dt>
    <dd>
      Stops the transport. Also used in combination with the Rewind
      button to "return to zero".
    </dd>
    <dt>Play</dt>
    <dd>
      Starts the transport. If pressed while the transport is
      already rolling at normal speed, causes the playhead to jump to
      the start of the last "roll" and continue rolling ("Poor man's
      looping").
    </dd>
    <dt>Record Enable</dt>
    <dd>Toggles the global record enable setting
    </dd>
  </dl>
</p>

<h3>Other Global Controls</h3>
<p>
  <dl>
    <dt>Mix</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Proj</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Trns</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Undo/Redo</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Punch</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>User</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Loop</dt>
    <dd></dd>
  </dl>
</p>
  
<h3>Per-track Controls</h3>
<p>
  <dl>
    <dt>Mute</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Solo</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Rec</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Fader</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Knob/Dial/Encoder</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Read</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Write</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Touch</dt>
    <dd></dd>
    <dt>Off</dt>
    <dd></dd>
  </dl>
</p>

<h3>Track Selection Controls</h3>
<p>
  <dl>
    <dt>Left (arrow)</dt>
    <dd>
    </dd>
    <dt>Right (arrow)</dt>
    <dd>
    </dd>
    <dt>Output</dt>
    <dd>
    </dd>
    <dt>Bank</dt>
    <dd>
      The "Bank" button is currently not used by Ardour
    </dd>
  </dl>
</p>