- The FaderPort™ 8 is a production control surface with 8 touch-sensitive, motorized faders,
- monochromatic digital scribble strips and more than 60 buttons with fixed labels.
+ The FaderPort™ 8 is a production control surface with 8 touch-sensitive,
+ motorized faders, monochromatic digital scribble strips and more than 60 buttons
+ with fixed labels.
Connecting the FaderPort 8
@@ -48,16 +50,20 @@
saved, the connections will be made automatically in this and other
future sessions.
The FaderPort's controls can be divided into five groups:
-
+
+
Transport buttons
Session Navigation controls
Fader modes
@@ -72,15 +78,20 @@
- All buttons act on release (not press), exceptions are mentioned below.
+ Buttons generally act on release (not press), with exception
+ of transport-control (since 6.0pre) and individual exceptions mentioned below.
Transport Buttons
+
-
+
+
+ FaderPort8 Transport Buttons
+
-
+
+
Stop: Stops the transport. Press twice to return to
session start.
Loop: Toggles loop playback. A loop-range needs to
@@ -97,20 +108,23 @@
Record: Toggles the global record enable
setting.
-
-
Session Navigation
+
Session Navigation
Session Navigation allows quick navigation and provides access to
session-wide controls. Each of the eight buttons alters the function
of the push-button encoder and the Prev, Next buttons.
With exception of Click the seven modes are exclusive (radio buttons).
+
-
+
+
+ FaderPort8 Navigation Buttons
+
-
+
+
Channel: The Prev / Next
buttons select the previous/next mixer-strip. If no strip is selected,
Next selects the first, Prev the last mixer-strip in
@@ -166,12 +180,13 @@
Marker
Move to prev/next marker
Scroll the timeline (move playhead)
Drop a new marker
Press and hold Click
(mode dependent)
Adjust metronome Level
Reset metronome level to 0dBFS
-
-
Shift Button
+
Shift Button
-
+
+
+ The FaderPort8 Shift Button
+
The two Shift buttons are identical, they're copied to provide
@@ -186,20 +201,23 @@
The Shift button engages directly on press. Activating an action
while the button is held will void the shift-lock mode.
-
-
Fader Modes
+
Fader Modes
The eight faders on the FP8 can be assigned to various automatable
controls present in the current session. The four fader-mode buttons
change the behavior of the mixer-strip and scribble strip displays.
(Note: with the 1.01 firmware these buttons always act on press.)
+
-
+
+
+ FaderPort8 Fader Mode Buttons
+
-
+
+
Track: In Track-mode, the motorized faders display
and control a mixer-strip's signal level. The Pan/Param encoder modifies the
azimuth of the panner (hold Shift to control the width, if the
@@ -248,19 +266,24 @@
will display and control the panner's azimuth. The Pan/Param controls the
pan-width of the selected mixer-strip.
+
Shift + Track toggles timecode display on/off (middle
row of the scribble-strip). The timecode format can be configured in the
Control Surface Preference Dialog (Timecode, musical-time: bar/beat/tick).
-
-
Channel Strip
+
+
Channel Strip
+
-
+
+
+ The FaderPort8 Channel Strip
+
-
+
+
Touch-Sensitive Fader: The fader can be used to control
volume levels, aux send levels, panning, or plugin parameters, depending on
the fader-mode (see above).
@@ -279,18 +302,18 @@
Since selection is not limited to a single mixer-strip, the button acts in
tri-state. A mixer-strip light indicates selection:
-
+
Any Selected Track: The select button is lit with the
track's color.
Any Not Selected Track: The select button is off
(dimly showing the track's color).
Most Recently Selected Track: Only one track at a
- time. The select button is blinks width the track's color.
+ time. The select button blinks with the track's color.
Operations such as Edit Plugins or Sends use the
most-recently-selected (focused) track. To modify the selection, the
button's action depends on the current selection:
-
+
Select: The track is exclusively selected
and also becomes the most-recently selected.
Shift + Select any selected
@@ -301,6 +324,11 @@
+
+ In Track-mode, pressing the Select button of the most recently
+ selected track (blinking Select button) will reset the fader-gain
+ to unity (0dB). (since Ardour 5.11-207, Mixbus 4.2-66)
+
While holding the ARM button the Select button lights
change to red and the Select buttons controls the record-arm of
@@ -310,18 +338,21 @@
Shift + ARM record-arms all tracks in the session.
-
-
Mix Management
+
Mix Management
These buttons allows to select which mixer-strips are spilled on the FP8
channel-strips.
@@ -334,7 +365,7 @@
In combination with the Shift modifier ten total
filters are available:
-
+
Shift + AudioInputs:
shows all record-armed tracks (Audio and MIDI).
Shift + VIMIDI: View
@@ -346,9 +377,9 @@
Shift + AllUser:
Display all currently selected mixer-strips only.
-
-
Automation Controls
+
+
Automation Controls
The Automation Controls provide access to the currently selected mixer-strips.
The automation enable lights indicates the mode of the most recently selected
@@ -357,11 +388,15 @@
Track and Pan fader modes where they affect the fader
and pan automation modes respectively.
+
-
+
+
+ FaderPort8 Automation Buttons
+
-
+
+
Latch: Currently not available in Ardour.
Trim: Currently not available in Ardour.
Off: Select "Manual" automation mode.
@@ -371,12 +406,12 @@
mode.
Touch Select "Touch" automation mode.
-
+
The Automation Controls also double as session state controls
when combined with Shift.
-
+
Shift + LatchSave:
Save the session. The button lights up red if the session is modified.
Shift + TrimRedo: Redo
@@ -390,14 +425,17 @@
With Shift, the bottom row allows to bind three custom user
actions.
-
-
Miscellaneous
+
Miscellaneous
+
-
+
+
+ FaderPort8 Misc Buttons
+
-
+
+
Solo Clear: Reset all solo controls in the
session. If the FP8 was used to clear solo-state, pressing the button again
will restore the previous state (unless solo state was modified manually
@@ -407,7 +445,7 @@
will restore the previous mute state (unless mute-state was changed manually
since).
Bypass: The behavior depends on the edit-mode:
-
+
Track + Pan Mode: A/B bypass toggle any plugins on
all selected mixer-strips.
Edit Plugin Parameter: Toggle bypass of of the plugin
@@ -418,11 +456,11 @@
Shift + BypassBypass
All: A/B bypass toggle any plugins on all selected mixer-strips.
-
+
Macro: Toggle Editor and Mixer Windows/Tabs.
Shift + MacroOpen: The
behavior depends on the edit-mode:
-
+
Edit Plugin Parameter: Toggle Plugin GUI visibility
(if it has a GUI) of the plugin that is currently being edited.
all other modes: Show the Import Audio Dialog.
@@ -434,7 +472,7 @@
Pressing the Pan/Param encoder resets the control-parameter to the default
value.
The buttons color is used to indicate the link-state:
-
+
orange: Link is enabled, but the mouse-cursor is not
over an element which can be controlled.
yellow: Link is enabled, and the cursor is hovering
@@ -458,4 +496,20 @@
Link and Link-Lock mode will automatically disengage when entering
Sends or Edit Plugins mode.
-
+
+
Harrison Mixbus
+
+The above also applies to Ardour-derivatives Harrison-Mixbus and Mixbus 32C with a few subtle differences:
+
+
+
+ Mix Management Bus shows Mixbusses only, while FX spills Aux-busses.
+
+
+ The Mixbus built-in EQ and Compressor are present on every track and bus and always available. They are displayed as special plugins on right-side in Select Plugin Mode.
+ When editing those processors, the parameters follows track selection (for other plugins this is not possible since they may not be present).
+
+
+ Fader mode Sends shows mixbus-assigns first (before any optional aux-sends). The master-bus-assign is available on the "S"olo button of the right-most strip.
+
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+ 
+