This article explains, in some detail, exactly how to configure your Novation X-Station to work as a control surface in Pro Tools (as you may have gathered from the title). When you are finished, you will be able to use the various sliders and buttons on your X-Station to control the faders, mute buttons, transport controls, etc., in Pro Tools.
This article was written for an X-Station and a Mac, but it probably applies to just about any MIDI controller where you can program MIDI Continuous Control (CC) messages.
If you already know how to get all of this working and you are just looking for a sysex file to save some time, you may download a SysEx dump of my settings, which will set up your controller like you see in the picture below. I think the dump will load into slot 2 of your X-Station, so make sure you don't have something important there. However, if you do not already know how to set this up, I strongly encourage you to go through the tutorial and learn about it. The best way to learn is by doing!
I have an X-Station 25 and it is a great little MIDI controller. When used with applications like Propellerhead's Reason or Ableton's Live, it's so easy to set up and get going that it really makes you wonder what the heck the deal is with Pro Tools. Why is it so difficult? It may have something to do with Digidesign being a hardware company, and wanting to sell you their hardware, which I totally understand, but still, it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
Luckily, it really isn't a big deal.
Below is a quick picture so you know what I'm talking about. I mean, why wouldn't you want to use all those faders, buttons, and knobs to do useful things? That's part of the reason you bought the controller, right?
First off, make sure you are using the latest drivers from Novation. I believe these really helped me as I notice less latency since I installed them.
While you are at it, make sure you are current on your X-Station firmware. Visit the link above to get the latest OS. You can also try Novation's template editor software, but I wasn't able to get that working (it just kept crashing when I tried to transfer the template for editing).
Also make sure you download, install, and use a sysex librarian. For Mac users, use SysEx Librarian. Windows users, use MIDI-OX. You are probably going to invest a significant amount of time programing the X-Station, so you will want to back everything up before you get started and when you are finished.
Next, download the Legacy MIDI Controllers from Digidesign. The X-Station doesn't speak the Pro Tools/Mackie HUI language, so you will set it up to emulate a JL Cooper CS-10. This hasn't been supported since Pro Tools 6.1 (see above about Digi being a hardware company), but it still works even in version 7.4 (the latest as of this writing). Just extract and copy the CS-10.bundle file into /Applications/Digidesign/Pro Tools/Controllers. (Windows users: Consult your documentation; I don't have a PC.) You also need the MIDI Control Surfaces Guide documentation that comes with the legacy controller package.
Once you have done all the above setup, it's time to hook up the controller and tell Pro Tools about it, and then you will tell the controller about Pro Tools. While you could just trust my data later in the article and go in and do all the controller programming in advance, I suggest that you program just one button and fader so you can make sure things are working before you spend too much time with the programming.
Hook up your controller and launch Pro Tools. Make sure the X-Station is set to controller mode, not synth mode (use the PLAY button to toggle between the two modes), and make sure the global memory protect is turned off (press the GLOBAL button, navigate to the page with this setting, and use the DATA knob to turn it off -- press WRITE to save the change). Select a template for editing (I used some "generic MIDI" template and saved it in slot 2) and press the TEMPLATE EDIT button to begin editing.
In the template edit mode, move the first fader to "select" it for editing (this is the Attack fader for the amplifier envelope on the synth). See your controller's documentation if you need help changing text, navigating, selecting data values, etc. Set the following values for the fader control:
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Control Type | CC |
| Control Name | Fader 1 |
| MIDI Ports | U12 |
| MIDI Channel | 16 |
| High Value | 127 |
| Low Value | 0 |
| Pot/Slider Ctrl | Jump |
| Display Type | 0-127 |
| Control Num | 64 |
Now, keep in mind that you are going to have to do this for every control you want to program. It's a bit of work. Maybe you want to try to get Novation's template editor software working? You may have better luck than I did. Before I cut you loose, let's program a button and then make sure things work in Pro Tools, then you can program all the rest using whatever method works best for you.
Press the button directly above the fader you just programmed to select it for editing. You will program this as a mute/solo/record button. Set the following values:
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Control Type | CC |
| Control Name | Mute 1 |
| MIDI Ports | U12 |
| MIDI Channel | 16 |
| High Value | 127 |
| Low Value | 0 |
| Button Type | Momentary |
| Display Type | 0-127 |
| Control Num | 0 |
Please note that it is important that you set almost everything exactly as I have described. The only things you have some latitude on are the name of the control, and possibly the MIDI Ports. The MIDI Ports parameter tells the controller on which MIDI output port it should send the signal. "U12" means send it on the USB port, MIDI port 1, and MIDI port 2. This just covers all your bases and should be fine unless you have an advanced setup, in which case you probably already know this.
So now you have programmed one fader and one button. Press WRITE to save your changes. Next you will configure Pro Tools to recognize the controller, and then I'll give you all the data you need to program the transport buttons and the rest.
This should be pretty straightforward, especially if you have used other controllers such as the Frontier Tranzport, which I highly recommend!
From the Pro Tools menu bar, select Setup then Peripherals.... Select the MIDI Controllers page. Set the Type to CS-10, Receive From --> Predefined --> X-Station, and Send To --> Predefined --> X-Station. Leave the # Ch's set to 8. Click OK.
If you don't have the CS-10 option, then it means you skipped the step at the beginning where you copy the CS-10.bundle file into the appropriate directory. Go back and do this, quit and relaunch Pro Tools, and try again. If you don't have X-Station listed as a predefined controller, then you probably aren't using a USB connection or there is something wrong with it. (Did you install the drivers?) If you are using a standard MIDI port, select whichever device you will be using. Setting up Pro Tools to recognize non-USB MIDI controllers is beyond the scope of this tutorial. Try MIDI.org if you need more info about MIDI.
Create a new Pro Tools session. Add at least one track. Move the fader you programmed on your controller up and down. Note that you have to move the fader through the point of travel where it is displayed on the screen in order for Pro Tools to "latch" onto the control. This is so you don't get really jumpy fader controls and bump something up to full volume when you didn't really mean to. If you set the slider control to something other than "Jump" when you set up the MIDI controller, you will get some potentially strange behavior here. Make sure the MIDI controller's faders are set to Jump.
Press the button you programmed. Hopefully something happens. Probably mute, maybe solo. Don't worry about it right now. You still have a bunch of programming to do, and you will set up a "Mode" button on the controller to select one of six possible modes for your channel mute buttons.
If everything is looking good, then go ahead and program the rest of the controls as I describe below. If things aren't working, stop, go back, check your work. Make sure you at least get the channel strip fader working before you continue, and before you send me angry emails.
Page 78 of the MIDI Control Surfaces Guide documentation tells you which CC values to use for the various functions. You may use this in conjunction with the section of the documentation which details the CS-10 operation. Let me give you an example: Page 78 says that CC 11h (that's hexadecimal for the number 17) controls the "F8 switch." Great! Now, what is an "F8 switch"? Page 68 says that F8 cycles through the various edit tools. Cool! (And no, I didn't set up that control function as I do not need that functionality. If you have a different opinion about this, you are free to set up whatever buttons and knobs you want.)
Here is a little bit closer view of what I set up:
What you see is Faders and Mutes 1 through 8, Shift, Option, Control, Command, Up and Down arrows, Left and Right arrows, and the Mode button. Not pictured are the transport controls, which also work.
You may assign these controls to any button you like, but please note that the dark grey buttons are not good choices. The dark grey buttons will select different modes for some other buttons, and this may really mess you up. For example, the dark grey button above the Up and Down arrows in my picture will set those light grey buttons to a different function, depending upon the state of the LEDs above the dark grey button. My suggestion is to leave all of the LEDs at either their topmost or leftmost states, and don't program anything on the dark grey buttons until you really know what's going on. This really messed with my head when I first started and wasn't paying attention!
Because the Pro Tools documentation gives everything in hex, below is the quick and dirty of the basics that I set up. I'm really only interested in this for fader, mute, and transport control. You are on your own for other controls like EQ, scrub/shuttle, panning, etc. Hopefully this guide was enough to get you started.
I'm just giving you the Name and the CC value. Set up the rest of the values for faders and buttons as I described in the examples above.
| Name | CC value |
|---|---|
| Mute 1 | 0 |
| Mute 2 | 1 |
| Mute 3 | 2 |
| Mute 4 | 3 |
| Mute 5 | 4 |
| Mute 6 | 5 |
| Mute 7 | 6 |
| Mute 8 | 7 |
| Mode | 8 |
| Shift | 9 |
| Option | 14 |
| Control | 15 |
| Command | 16 |
| Rewind | 19 |
| Fast Forward | 20 |
| Stop | 21 |
| Play | 22 |
| Record | 23 |
| Cursor Up | 26 |
| Cursor Down | 27 |
| Cursor Left | 28 |
| Cursor Right | 29 |
| Fader 1 | 64 |
| Fader 2 | 65 |
| Fader 3 | 66 |
| Fader 4 | 67 |
| Fader 5 | 68 |
| Fader 6 | 69 |
| Fader 7 | 70 |
| Fader 8 | 71 |
Remember, buttons must be set to Momentary mode and faders to Jump mode. What this means, perhaps for someone with a different controller, is that buttons will transmit the high value when they are pressed and the low value when they are released. For faders it will transmit MIDI data as soon as you start moving the fader control. Both of these things are what Pro Tools expects.
The Mode button is your friend. Learn the different modes, hopefully don't do too much fancy stuff, and you should have no problems. Page 67 of the documentation tells you about the six modes. Each time you press the button it will cycle through them: Solo, Mute, Memory Locations, Track Selection, Track Record Arming, and Target Channel Strip. I mostly use the Mute mode because I just want to ride faders and mute tracks while I am mixing. Press Mode until your mute buttons work. Good to go!
The Left and Right Arrow (Cursor) buttons are your other friends. Unless you've Option-clicked or entered some other weird mode, the arrow keys should change your banks of 8 channel strips either left or right. This allows you to control more than 8 channel strips (although not more than 8 at a time). For example, if you create a 16-track session, when you start up the controller you should see the first 8 channel strips highlighted in blue. When you press the right arrow key, it should highlight the next 8 channel strips, which you will then be controlling, and so on.
Another feature I like is Memory Locations mode. If you are in Mute mode, press the Mode button once, and then your 8 mute buttons will move you to the corresponding memory location (E.g., Pressing Mute 3 will move the timeline to memory location 3). Press the Mode button 5 more times and you will be back in Mute mode.
It can get weird, and I don't yet understand what all the controls do. Things get especially weird when you start using the Option button and don't follow it up with an appropriate command. I have been placed into strange editing modes that I have never seen, like clicking with the selector tool extending the selection on all tracks, and not being able to get out of this mode without reinitializing the control surface.
It's goofy. If you get stuck like this, just go back to Setup --> Peripherals, set the controller to None, OK, and then set it back to the X-Station using the same process. If that doesn't work, quit Pro Tools and restart, and then be more careful next time.
If you have any info to share with me regarding some better documentation for how to work with the controller, please send it my way. You can reach me at Dave AT vanderwall DOT org. I would prefer that you did not email me asking for additional help, but you can always try.
Enjoy your new control surface!
I found the following information helpful and would like to acknowledge the authors:
PT NewbieNo, thank you. Copy it, use it, shout it from the mountaintops if that's your thing. You don't even have to credit me. Do whatever the heck you want with this info. I give it to you for free, no strings attached.
Now go forth and make music!
Dave VanderWall
Minneapolis