PreSonus FaderPort DAW Controller with Studio One Pro Software

This unit is awesome! Makes controlling Studio One so much faster and easier. Very high build quality! Have had it for several months. I also love this brand- own their mic and audio interface as well!

This interfaced with my DAW (Waveform Pro) almost immediately. Just needed to download the driver and put it in Midi mode (hold the "Next" button as it boots, then hit the "Solo" button while in your DAW" and I'm able to swap channels, pan, scroll the timeline, adjust master, turn metronome (click) on and off, solo or mute whichever channel, and arm for recording. It's a fairly nice piece of equipment. I was initially shopping for an 8 or 16 fader device, but having a single fader that I can swap to whichever channel is very handy. I would recommend this as a cost effective alternative. I can also start, pause playback, start or stop recording. I can't speak for the software included, honestly for items like this I don't think they need to include it. Kinda a waste for most people looking at this, as they will be intermediate or advanced users.

A simple hardware store rubber grommet as shown will turn the otherwise miserable knob into a jog/shuttle-style wheel you can easily turn with one fingertip. The knob will grind a bit (by design, sadly...this is an audio product and should be silent) but loosen up over time, as will the motorized fader.I like the design, have used the Faderport 2 for a few years, stayed with it for my podcast rig, which brings us to the audio side. It's fine enough, nothing special, the headphone amp cranks but does get a bit of harmonic distortion when cranked. The mic pre is commodity, it has enough gain for the SM7B but no phase invert. I didn't try a guitar, no idea of the input impedance.Comparing, the SSL2 is more euphonious than this certainly, but doesn't have the nifty controller of course. This lacks the SSL2's stereo control button, I think the low-latency input monitoring lock both channels as mono, but I didn't test that. Both have 115dB dynamic range spec, the SSL2 does sound better, but I can live with this Presonus audio for simple use cases. The SSL2 headphone level doesn't get as loud, but the preamps do have the somewhat handy "4K" mode.Testing further, the audio section on the ioStation is pretty poor. There are error spurs (continuous high tones) in the ADCs, and the main outs are unbalanced. This is sloppy corner cutting consumer gear quality. The PCB traces were made for manufacturing convenience and not for performance. Read the instructions next time. Presonus does read the instructions on their Quantum units fwiw.The DACs are OK, and the headphone amp, while getting some 3rd harmonic when cranked, is quite usable. I would probably prefer a USB Mic like the Shure MV7 over these ADCs if possible. But just to listen back in headphones while editing/mixing, or even over speakers, this works fine. The SSL 2 is far far better on the bench though. But no Faderport included unless you buy a UF8.

This has been a great tool to add to my home recording studio. I usually cut demos at home to bring to my band and this makes everything super easy with all the controls at my fingertips.

I could not recommend one of these more. Once the software is installed and I opened Studio One for the first time, the board lit up like Times Square. It's so easy to use, I don't think I looked at the manual for a week or so. Even if you don't use SO, it's compatible with many other DAWs. PreSonus has incredible customer service and the quality is superb. I heard reviews about it being loud, but I've never even heard a fan turn on. It's seamless integration with SO got me into their world and I am loving everyday of it. For the money, an 8 motorized fader controller, that comes with a cutting edge DAW with 200GB of goodies is a steal. Spend your money on this first!

I was looking for a MIDI mixer with automated faders and a jog wheel for maximum control with my DAW. I had looked at the X-Touch, which has a larger jog wheel and looks nice, but I wasn't sure that Behringer was doing a good job of support and responding to customers. The X-Touch Compact doesn't have a jog wheel, which I want. I considered some other options but decided to take a chance on this.I'm using it with Logic Pro X. The setup didn't bring up the protocol selection automatically when I first turned it on - I had to power off and press and hold the first two Select buttons to initiate the mode to select MCU for Logic. Then in Logic it generated MIDI notes instead of controlling the DAW - I found out that the manual forgets to tell you to set input and output in the Control Surfaces setup to Faderport. After that it worked fine. Good thing there are so many helpful forums around :)So far so good - faders automate, navigation controls zoom and scroll, transport controls work as expected. I've seen a couple of complaints on the forums about the scribble strips being hard to read because they're not angled up but I'm OK with it, so far. (Some other user props it up on a rubber-coated dumbell.) This unit uses a power brick, but no biggie.It's sleek and it works as advertised, and here's hoping it will make mixing that much easier. Now all I need is talent!