X-Touch and SSL UC-1 - Work Great Together

[cellarboystudios]

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum and thought I'd share some fun news. BTW - I'm not an SSL or Behringer employee or fanboy. Just a gear slut.

I've had an X-Touch and Extender for a few years. Although it works great for transport, faders, mute, solo and record, it was always a little frustrating controlling plugin effects.

So I recently added an SSL UC-1 to control plugin effects and it works great, and also plays nice with the X-Touch. Which is ideal right now since the budget is a little tight to add an SSL UF-8 and UF-1.

Once the UC-1 is setup in SSL 360 (choose StudioOne as a DAW), as an MCU controller in StudioOne, and set to the proper SSL MIDI port you can use it to control supported SSL vst3 plugins directly. They're already pre-mapped.

Any third party plugins can be controlled (e.g., UAD SSL E Channel Strip out of the box) or mapped using the SSL 360 vst3 plugin.

So now I have 16 physical faders and finally a "frustration-free" physical plugin effects controller.

The goal is to learn to mix with my ears again and not my eyes - mouse-free!

So far, so cool.

Just thought I'd share.

Reply with any questions.

 

[Trucky]

Welcome to the Forum!

 

[sintil8]

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum and thought I'd share some fun news. BTW - I'm not an SSL or Behringer employee or fanboy. Just a gear slut.

I've had an X-Touch and Extender for a few years. Although it works great for transport, faders, mute, solo and record, it was always a little frustrating controlling plugin effects.

So I recently added an SSL UC-1 to control plugin effects and it works great, and also plays nice with the X-Touch. Which is ideal right now since the budget is a little tight to add an SSL UF-8 and UF-1.

Once the UC-1 is setup in SSL 360 (choose StudioOne as a DAW), as an MCU controller in StudioOne, and set to the proper SSL MIDI port you can use it to control supported SSL vst3 plugins directly. They're already pre-mapped.

Any third party plugins can be controlled (e.g., UAD SSL E Channel Strip out of the box) or mapped using the SSL 360 vst3 plugin.

So now I have 16 physical faders and finally a "frustration-free" physical plugin effects controller.

The goal is to learn to mix with my ears again and not my eyes - mouse-free!

So far, so cool.

Just thought I'd share.

Reply with any questions.

Interesting,

I have been watching the SSL UC1 it looks like a well constructed piece of hardware, and the integration sounds good.
The UF-8, is as you say a bit expensive and if the Behringer does the job, I would stick with it.

Going mouse free and let your ears do the work is very liberating, focusing more on the music and less on the eye candy on screen.
Nice to hear folk are finding setups that integrate. Thanks for the heads up.

Best regards

 

[daw stew]

Here's a tip for anyone who has a touch screen monitor and can't afford the SSL control surfaces (that's me!)
First of all download the free standalone SSL 360 software, SSL 360 Link vst3 plugin and SSL 360 compressor plugin. Once installed configure the SSL 360 software so that the Transport panel can control Studio One.
Now start a new studio one song, drag in the 360 Link and 360 Compressor plugins, run the plugin scan, this finds all your vst3 plugins which 360 supports. Once scanning completed you can now start mapping plugin parameters to the 360 software. Once done you should find that you can host a mapped plugin in 360 and you can control it's parameters from the 360 standalone software which is running on your touch screen monitor. No need for the UC, or UF hardware. You'll get direct hands on interaction. I've been working this way a while now and it is reminiscent of when I worked on consoles many years ago. I've mapped the Brainworx 9000 to the 360 software so that I can replicate a desk way of working.

 

[daw stew]

Hi guys, here's another tip for those of us who use a control surface with faders.
I'm a Presonus Faderport 16 user and have a workflow that is so familiar that I can turn the monitor off and just mix from the control surface.
How this works is that when you get a session you first of all organise the tracks in an order that you will use every session. For me drums are always top of the song, then bass, then guitars, then vocals, then, if the song has them, keys, then horns if the song has them then FX sends then busses. If I follow this order EVERY session then I know exactly where everything is sat.
Now the next part is key to mixing easily on an 8 or 16 fader control surface. Ensure that for the each instrument type the number of channels does not exceed the number of faders. That means for your UF 8, Console 1 or Faderport 8 control surface you would have no more than 8 channels for that instrument group. Example - Drums - 1. Kick in 2. Kick out 3. Snare top 4. Snare bottom 5. Tom 1 6. Tom 2 7. OH stereo 8. Room stereo. That would be your first bank of 1-8 faders.

Your second bank of 8 then could be your guitars
1. Bass DI 2. bass amp 3. Guitar 1 4. Guitar 2 5. Guitar 3 6. Guitar 4 7. Acoustic 1 8. Acoustic 2

You get the picture, that way you can bank through grouped instruments which makes it so easy to mix when you know a familiar layout.
For me my template has banks organised as follows
1. Drums
2. All guitars
3. Vocals (lead & backing)
4. Keys
5. Horns
6. FX sends

Familiarity breeds confidence through a simplified routine approach

 

[Spinum]

I use the UC-1 with both a Faderport 16 & 8 grouped together for a 24 fader control surface. The combo really helps me mix quickly and focus on hearing my moves instead of watching a mouse move. At the moment I typically use FabFilter's Pro-Q4 for surgical fixes with a channel strip. Bespoke compressors follow as needed. UC-1 plus Faderports works excellently also.