Hey guys, in this video we’re covering how to use a control surface in Presonus Studio
One 4.
Control surfaces are MIDI devices that connect to our computer and allow us to control settings
in the software like volume and panning, and record those setting changes throughout the
song.
Before continuing with this video, don’t forget to check out the previous videos in
this series, especially our last one on automation if you haven’t done so.
Also don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and press the bell icon to make sure you catch
all our new videos.
If you haven’t setup your MIDI controller already, we need to do that first.
We did that in a previous video since our MIDI controller was used as a keyboard as
well.
To recap, go to Studio One in the top menu and select Options from the bottom of that
menu.
Switch to External Devices and select Add at the bottom left.
Choose your MIDI controller from the menu on the left, or add a New Control Surface
manually.
You’ll usually find there’s already a preset for your device that’s available.
For this tutorial, the one I’m using is the Akai MPK249, which is a 49 key keyboard
with 8 faders and 8 knobs, as well as 16 drum pads.
It’s a great overall MIDI controller for home recording, so check out our other video
on this channel for the review or our links in the video description.
From here, some MIDI controllers will have presets built in that will allow you to control
a particular digital audio workstation, like Studio One.
In my case, the Akai MPK249 has a preset scroll wheel and button that you can use to choose
the Studio One preset.
This just rearranges what MIDI event numbers the particular continuous controllers, such
as the knobs and faders are sent to.
Of course, all of these settings can be manually controlled.
From the MIDI controller itself, you can adjust all the MIDI events for the controllers.
It’s a lot easier to control how Studio One responds instead.
When we move a fader or continuous controller on our MIDI device, we’ll see it update
the value at the top left panel in Studio One.
This is the MIDI event associated with that knob or fader, and it makes it active when
you move it.
By default, you may see that the volume or panning moves when you do this.
Let’s go over how to manually assign everything now.
First make the controller active by moving it.
Then go to the control you want to assign it to and right click on it.
You can see we get the option assign K8 A on Akai MPK249.
This is the controller value that will be assigned to that setting in the software.
From here on you can manually assign any setting in Studio One in this way.
It may take a little time, but all the controls are accessible through MIDI this way.
For some controls, you may find it is difficult to get it to assign.
For plugins, the controls can be access through the mixer view.
Find the plugin, click the triangle button on the right and press expand.
This will show little bars for all the controls, and we can assign things by right clicking
on these.
The nice thing about control surfaces is we can combine what we’re doing here and what
we learned in the last automation video.
Last time, we looked at writing and reading on automation lanes.
Instead of controlling automation by clicking and dragging with the mouse, we can use our
MIDI control surface for a much more hands on approach.
Thanks for checking out this video on MIDI control surfaces in Presonus Studio One.
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