FaderPort 8 and FaderPort 16 General Discussion
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Just bought a Faderport 16 to replace my Mackie Control and 2 XTs which I've been using for 16 years. Love most things about it, but really really hate one big thing. Namely the scribble strips. Who's idea was it to have them backlit? It's like going back to the gear of the 90s. Truly awful design decision Presonus. Gives them virtually no contrast. Very difficult to read unless leaning over the controller. Why don't they just have white text on black background like in the marketing images? Anyway, that's a rant for another day.

My question, is the Faderport able to work as a controller for Presonus rack mixers? This would make me buy one, no question. If not, why not? Haven't read anything about this. I see the Behringer X-Touch can control their rack mixers.

Presonus Sphere
Studio One 5 Pro

Windows 10 Pro 64, Intel Quad Core i7 6700k, 16GB Ram
Apollo Firewire, Focusrite OctoPre
UAD octo dsp (Apollo quad and PCIe quad)
Faderport 16 and 8.
Softube Console 1
Behringer BCR2000 (for plugin control)
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by TheTwangmeister on Sat May 30, 2020 8:40 pm
Anybody?

Presonus Sphere
Studio One 5 Pro

Windows 10 Pro 64, Intel Quad Core i7 6700k, 16GB Ram
Apollo Firewire, Focusrite OctoPre
UAD octo dsp (Apollo quad and PCIe quad)
Faderport 16 and 8.
Softube Console 1
Behringer BCR2000 (for plugin control)
User avatar
by 60s Pop Man on Sat May 30, 2020 10:09 pm
The description on the Presonus website highlights DAW control.
There's no mention of using the FP to control other devices.

M1 Mini (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) / macOS 13.6 / S1 6.5 Pro / Melodyne 5 Editor / Notion 6.8.4 / Faderport 8, Eris 5
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by TheTwangmeister on Mon Jun 01, 2020 4:38 am
That's a shame. Maybe they should think about this. This would give me a real reason to buy A Presonus rack mixer as it would double up as an input box in the live room in the studio and come out on the road as a stage box too. This would make it a great value proposition. I love the implementation Behringer have done with theirs.

Presonus Sphere
Studio One 5 Pro

Windows 10 Pro 64, Intel Quad Core i7 6700k, 16GB Ram
Apollo Firewire, Focusrite OctoPre
UAD octo dsp (Apollo quad and PCIe quad)
Faderport 16 and 8.
Softube Console 1
Behringer BCR2000 (for plugin control)
User avatar
by 60s Pop Man on Mon Jun 01, 2020 8:31 am
The firmware upgrade that provided MIDI mode and the ability to adjust input gain in S1 really sold me on the FP8.

I don't have a rack mixer but I've read many threads out there by users of the Behringer X-Touch expressing appreciation for the interaction between the X-T and their mixer. For a brief time, I had the full-size X-T and was impressed by the built quality and overall functionality with other DAW. The issue was that I wanted better integration with S1 with the obvious choice being the FaderPort.

Presonus seems to be all about their impressive eco-system, so FP-rack mixer connectivity would be aligned with that.

M1 Mini (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) / macOS 13.6 / S1 6.5 Pro / Melodyne 5 Editor / Notion 6.8.4 / Faderport 8, Eris 5
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by darrenporter1 on Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:55 pm
Their integration with their rackmount mixers is through the StudioLive series of mixers. You get WAY more functionality with that then you would with a FaderPort 8/16.


Studio One Professional 5.whatever, Harrison MixBus 32c v.6
i5-8400, 16GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 2TB HD, Win10 Pro
UA Apollo QUAD, QUAD Satellite, PCIe DUO
FaderPort 8, Softube Console 1, JBL 306P Mk.II Monitors
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by donntarris1 on Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:30 pm
Twangmeister, what did you end up going with for control, or did you abandon this issue?
I put this to Jonny Doyle just now (2 years later, but the question is still relevant from my point of view), whether or not the discontinued CS18AI would control the functions of the newer rack mount series III mixers. I'll post to this thread once I hear back. Obviously the AVB wouldn't work, as the Series II mixers and CS18AI were prior to the AVB protocol being finalized. But I'm pretty sure I used my CS18AI with one of my RM16AI rack mixers that someone had swapped the AVB card out and replaced it with the straight ethernet/firewire card from one of the StudioLive mixers. The control function seems to use ethernet or wifi, which I did by running a computer at the same time with the RM plugged into it via firewire and able to mount and control it using Presonus' Universal Control software, and connecting the CS18AI over wifi to the same network. The AVB protocols are different, but I would think the control over wifi wouldn't be different, as the series III use the same version of Universal Control on Mac or PC.
The reason I bring this up is, the CS18AI controllers are going for considerably less than the FP16, at least from what I've seen, and they, imho, are a far more full featured controller. There is also the ability to control faders via midi (in MCU mode) on Logic X and other DAWs now. It allows you to flip control to the RM mixer to DAW and back, a very handy feature.

Presonus RML32AI, Presonus RM16AI, Presonus CS18AI
Logic Pro, MixBus 8, Studio One v4 Artist
WaveLab 11.x
HP Elitedesk 800 G2 w/32Gb RAM
Triple boot Mac OS Catalina, Mac OS Big Sur, Windows 10.x
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by TheTwangmeister on Mon Oct 17, 2022 6:57 pm
Howdy Donntarris. I actually ended up buying an X-Touch with the view of replacing my analogue mixer for gigs and combining it with an XR18 mixer. Shame I had to do that when I already own a Faderport 16 and a Faderport 8. I had to buy the Faderports because as you've noticed Studio One's Mackie Control implementation is woeful. Anyway, turns out you can't actually buy the XR18 at the moment because of supply issues. I agree the build quality of the Behringer X-Touch is excellent. And of course like every other control surface in existence it has far superior scribble strips to the Faderports.

Presonus Sphere
Studio One 5 Pro

Windows 10 Pro 64, Intel Quad Core i7 6700k, 16GB Ram
Apollo Firewire, Focusrite OctoPre
UAD octo dsp (Apollo quad and PCIe quad)
Faderport 16 and 8.
Softube Console 1
Behringer BCR2000 (for plugin control)
User avatar
by martinav on Fri May 05, 2023 9:55 am
Any update on this? I would like a compact controller to run an auxiliary, or a 32R for broadcast. I suppose a 32R would be required if I wanted a separate fat-channel on the aux, and its own FX stack.

The main house mixer will be a 64s

Owner of 32/24/16 Series III Mixers, 32.4.2 Ai, RM32Ai, Studio 192, FaderPort, 2xULT18,2x328Ai

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