Final Cut Pro X – Control Surface

For some time I have been working with Logic Pro and other sound applications and pen tablets for graphic design and animation. One thing that struck my after a few years of work with more tactile integration with the applications at hand was, that my workflow improved dramatically.

Very quickly I learned that shortcuts on the keyboard and mouse movements are fine, but are too cumbersome, or too slow when working with large screen real estates.

Having a control surface, like you find in the sound world, put control literally at my finger tips. Precision improved dramatically over mouse controls, granted I could use arrow keys or other shortcuts to nudge and trim various aspects.

In the same time, I started to map each application to a similar set of shortcuts. Each flavor has its own way beyond simple copy paste. I found my self all the time evoking a shortcut that was not available in the current app.

At one point in the history of updates Logic Pro came out with a fabulous companion app of for iOS, allowing one to control parameters by touch, mapping deeply buried functions to buttons on a touch screen.

Also I acquired a control panel for Logic, faders, knobs and transport control made work exponentially faster, or at least more intuitive.

In the last year I started to pay more attention to my role models in the sound world. Hans Zimmer, Junky XL, all had a touch screen control surface between keyboard and screen. Providing mapped access via buttons to key functions, other way buried in the UI or with convoluted shortcuts that I could never remember – or would confuse.

This control panels are custom jobs – for the ones with endless financial resources. In addition they are made to run in concert with Cubase – which I don’t use.

Logic Pro and its MIDI world was the spark that inspired the solution, its companion app locked in a predefined layout and functions, so I had to find a tool that allowed me to customize Hans Zimmer style, only at lower cost.

My old first generation iPad came to rescue, funny enough still being compatible with the application that would make it all possible – TouchOSC.

TouchOSC is based on the Open Sound Control protocol, a open source networking protocol for custom hardware and software. TouchOSC is a GUI wizard / editor to build touchable user interfaces that  run under iOS. Each GUI element, buttons, faders, knobs and more can be assigned midi or OSC control values, that then are transmitted over network to a host.

Each control gets basically a address and value, that can be interpreted my instruments, applications or other host’s.

For LogicPro its straight forwards, since this application has a comprehensive midi and OSC implementation for all screen elements and shortcuts.

Final Cut Pro X is a bit more elusive, as it does not like to ‘talk’ to the world, but luckily most important functions are already accessible via shortcuts (including convoluted ones).

Translating between MIDI and Keystrokes is midiStroke, a quick and dirty little application that receives midi and translates them to keystrokes. Not the most advanced tool in the drawer, but then in the world of keystrokes nothing has changed since the invention of the computer keyboard anyways.

What it does 

For my purpose I mapped the functions I use most, in a similar layout and combination as I use in other applications, so that switching from one to the other becomes seamless. The above layout is evolving nearly every week. Adding a button is a matter of minutes, open the TouchOSCEditor, add the button, give it a unique midi value and add the same to midiStroke.

Mounted on a ‘magic’ arm on my desk, the contraption moves and adjusts where and when I need it. Next to my keyboard I can reach it by merely lifting a finger to the iPad and hit the command of my desire.

So what is the advantage ?

On of the main benefits is that I can see the functions laid-out in front of me, rather buried in menus, or deep within muscle memory related to the relevant shortcut. Another aspect is, that many shortcuts require two hands on the keyboard. TouchOSC requires even for the most complex combination, or even sequence, one finger to push the button !

As this layout share common traits with my LogicPro layout, muscle memory comes to fruition, since same / similar functions are in the same location.

A small weirdness is, that Logic receives the same transport controls in the background and even over network on remote machines as FinalCut Pro – putting the two somewhat in-synch when required.

Going Mobile

The magic of iOS makes this a very flexible solution for the road. A iPad fits into most bags along with the MacBook. Propped up beside the computer the marriage of hardware and software continues at minimal overhead and cost.