Midi Controller Faders and Knobs - Recalling Settings

[miketurn]

Hello Everyone,

This may be a stupid question but I from time to time have been looking at different midi controllers and was wondering, on the units that have faders and knobs (that are not infinite spinning), how would they recall settings of a project.

For example say a midi controller has 8 faders and you link each one to a channel in your DAWs mixer.
You set them up and then save the project, then you move those faders around for a new project, when you go to recall your original project, the faders are no longer in the same location.

I believe more expensive hardware mixers have motors in the faders, but many of the cheaper midi controllers I have seen, I would not imagine them to have them, so how would you recall their locations?
Do you have to just manually reset them based on what is on your screen (mixer locations shown in your DAW)?
Same question goes for knobs.

Thank You

[EdSevered]

Someone explained to me once that typically moving the knob or fader on a physical controller will not effect the value of the target software control until the value of the controller matches the same the value of the assigned control in the target software control. I wouldn't take this response as the gospel truth. YMMV

[murnau]

It's simple: If they don't have any recall you better became aware which value is on the screen before touching the dedicated knob/slider.

[jdoo]

There are different implementations, on different keyboards. In some cases, you can set a parameter that effects how they are controlled. The JD-XA for instance, allows you to hold a key down while turning the knobs, sliding controls - and it will show you the values in the LCD - but not make the changes unless you release the key. The OB-6 has a small LCD that lights up, when you move a control past the saved setting. There is also a WYSIWYG mode on the OB... which makes you hear exactly what the current settings are.

[miketurn]

Hey guys thank you for the responses.
So it seems like it varies from product to product.
The main thing I have noticed them on are things like midi keyboards such as Akai stuff.
They have their models where they have a 25, 49, etc. key midi keyboards that have 8 knobs and 8 sliders and I always wondered how they handled things. Even though it is only 8 of each, it seems like it would be a pain to use them, because every time you open up a different song to work on you have to recalibrate each time. Not a big deal, but might get annoying after a while.

Thanks Again

[MRT]

You hit on something I hadn't thought about before I replaced my old controller. You are right that switching between projects can really mess with your head. Tracking is not such a big deal and the fader and track controls can be handy, but when I'm mixing down a project and you get all your levels set and find that the previous channel has jumped to the controller can be annoying.
It seems that the controller faders are constantly scanned for changes and sometimes just playing the keyboard can cause a channel fader to jump.
Ultimately I've created a controller preset the basically mutes the controller faders for mixing.

Never had any issues when I just did midi controller assignments with my old controller, MMC creates a hole new set of good and bad issues.

[miketurn]

@MRT
Thank You for your response, okay so it is good to know that to a certain degree my assumptions are correct. I will have to make sure I look into how these settings are handled per device before purchasing anything in the future. Hopefully this thread will help others in the future as well.

[incubus]

So it seems like it varies from product to product.

This.

Which is why it's nice to have undo (or backups)