The MIDI Controllers tab in the Peripherals menu has a surprisingly limited set of options for controlling Pro Tools.
We explore the many options for controlling Pro Tools using hardware.
The options for hardware control of audio plug‑ins in Pro Tools are different from those available in other DAWs, particularly when it comes to using MIDI. Considering the ubiquity of MIDI controllers and the well established convention of assigning on‑screen controls in a DAW, it often comes as a surprise to new users of Pro Tools that you can’t just right‑click an audio plug‑in’s controls and select ‘MIDI Learn’.
Plug‑in Parameters Vs DAW Controls
It’s important to draw a distinction between plug‑in parameters and DAW controls. There have been proprietary solutions available for many years to control things like faders, pans and sends. The Pro Control surface, released in 1999, introduced dedicated, deep control of Pro Tools from hardware via an Ethernet cable and the DigiNet control protocol. That technology reached its final and most capable iteration in the ICON series of worksurfaces. The D Control and the smaller D Command were excellent too, and popular in the market they were designed for.
After Avid announced their acquisition of Euphonix in 2010, the EuCon protocol became the primary connection format for deep control of Pro Tools, and it remains so to this day. The current generation of EuCon controllers are powerful and scalable, ranging from the free Avid Control app, through the extremely popular S1 and Avid Dock, to the big‑ticket S6.
Pro Tools does still offer mix control over MIDI. The venerable HUI protocol, which is based on standard MIDI messages, is an option, though it is showing its age, launched as it was in 1997. That said, Neyrinck’s V‑Control system still makes good use of it.
If you look in the MIDI Controllers tab of the Peripherals window in Pro Tools, you’ll see the almost‑as‑old Command 8 listed, though the Reference Guide warns that the driver is only installed with Pro Tools 10. Likewise, M‑Audio Keyboard is an option; this dates back to the days when Avid owned M‑Audio, and I remember feeling very pleased setting up my M‑Audio Axiom controller to control the Pro Tools transport. The age of the products referenced in this list would suggest that MIDI control of Pro Tools has been abandoned in favour of the much more capable EuCon if it weren’t for the inclusion of Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol, another MIDI‑based option, which was added in 2021. Komplete Kontrol gives hands‑on access to Pro Tools features like fader levels, transport and more, but the focus is firmly (and understandably) on control of software instruments within Pro Tools.
Plug‑ins Vs Instruments
This introduces an important distinction between virtual instrument plug‑ins and audio plug‑ins. It has always been possible to access virtual instrument parameters using a standard MIDI controller in Pro Tools. So for example, you can open Xpand! 2, right‑click on the filter cutoff, enter MIDI Learn mode and, by turning an encoder on your MIDI controller, assign that MIDI CC to that on‑screen control. There are a handful of audio plug‑ins which can access this MIDI Learn functionality too, principally Avid’s guitar stomp effects, which originally shipped with the Eleven Rack hardware. These process audio but unusually (for Pro Tools) can be controlled using MIDI. It is reasonably straightforward to assign them to any MIDI controller. A MIDI track has to be created to receive incoming MIDI, and that MIDI has to be routed to the plug‑in via the MIDI Out of that MIDI track. This isn’t possible for conventional audio plug‑ins in Pro Tools.
Only a select few plug‑ins have a MIDI Learn feature. These include Avid’s guitar‑based effects (which originally shipped with the MIDI‑friendly Eleven Rack hardware), and FabFilter’s plug‑ins.
It is also possible to control FabFilter plug‑ins with MIDI, using the same method as with the guitar effects. It should be borne in mind that standard MIDI messages are too coarse to accurately control things like EQ frequency, having a resolution of only 128 increments. FabFilter are the only third‑party plug‑ins I’ve personally encountered that can be controlled in this way, though there may be others.
If you want full control of Pro Tools, then, the depth and power of EuCon is hard to beat. Having tried most of the alternatives, my S1 is the only solution I’ve enjoyed using enough for it to compete with the familiarity of a mouse and keyboard. If you want customisable control over Pro Tools, including the ability to create macros and semi‑automate aspects of the software, then SoundFlow is very much worth investigating. Pro Tools Ultimate and Studio users who have a current subscription qualify for a free SoundFlow Cloud Avid Edition until March 2025.
But It’s still the case that there isn’t a freely accessible, convenient way for Pro Tools users to set up quick, ad hoc mapping of Pro Tools plug‑in parameters to MIDI controllers. This kind of often temporary mapping is extremely convenient, and while there isn’t a free solution, there are some third‑party offerings that can really help.
On The Fly
Owners of Audient’s iD series of audio interfaces have access to a very useful feature called ScrollControl. This allows the encoder on the interface to control whichever control is currently under the mouse cursor on screen, including plug‑in parameters, and can be used to write parameter automation in real time. It can’t control track faders in Pro Tools, but you can work around this by using Trim plug‑ins and automating those instead of the fader. I assume ScrollControl simply sends mouse scroll‑wheel data, and as Pro Tools faders can’t be controlled with a scroll wheel, they can’t be controlled using ScrollControl either. (SSL’s UF‑series controllers offer a similar capability.)
I first came across this kind of ‘touch and twist’ control on DiGiCo digital mixers, and the zero learning curve it brought to an unfamiliar console is just as useful in Pro Tools. There is a similar control available in EuCon since version 2022.4. Available on the S4 or S6, the EuCon Assignable Knob feature achieves exactly the same functionality, and can be controlled either from a dedicated encoder on the surface or mirrored to the large jog wheel. Its presence on Avid’s flagship EuCon surface proves the point that even with the deepest of configurability there is still a place for on‑the‑fly mapping. This Assignable Knob feature is also available on the Avid Dock, where the Monitor knob can be reassigned in EuCon Settings to function as an assignable knob, and again be mirrored to the jog wheel.
So what other methods are there for controlling plug‑in parameters over MIDI? Two third‑party controls come to mind, both of which offer quick‑to‑set‑up MIDI control of plug‑in parameters in Pro Tools.
Mulligan & CS Control
Mulligan is an application from reFuse that offers a flexible approach to plug‑in control. It makes use of the M‑Audio Keyboard option in the Peripherals page as a route into Pro Tools, and is both quick and easy to use. It offers default plug‑in maps, which are displayed in banks of eight on the HUD (a bar at the bottom of the screen which shows current assignments), and also offers transport control. Custom mapping is also available, so there’s no compulsion to learn a preset assignment map.
CS Control, a Package for SoundFlow written by Chris Shaw, allows for comprehensive MIDI control mapping.
CS Control is a Package for SoundFlow written by Grammy Award‑winning producer and engineer Chris Shaw. SoundFlow is a platform on which anyone can create, share or sell Packages. One of the nice things about SoundFlow is its community feel, and well‑known engineers such as Chris and Andrew Scheps are very active SoundFlow users. CS Control achieves similar results to Mulligan but using different means. Consistent with its SoundFlow roots it is very customisable and doesn’t offer presets, but mapping is extremely quick and, rather than using a HUD panel, it offers a plug‑in UI display window with mappings displayed on it. CS Control can also control AudioSuite plug‑ins.
Something to be aware of is that, for reliable performance with either of these solutions, your MIDI controller has to output relative MIDI values. Most MIDI controllers with endless encoders (rather than knobs with end stops) output relative data, but not all. Absolute data will result in jumps and glitches in performance when used with these products.
Physical control of plug‑ins can be very beneficial to the mix process.
Whether you’re recalling carefully set up controller mappings or quickly setting up a mapping as and when you need it, physical control of plug‑ins can be very beneficial to the mix process. Whether you’re finding the sweet spot between resonance and cutoff during a filter sweep, or adjusting input and output on an 1176 simultaneously, the benefits of such immediacy can be transformative, and if you’re not yet ready to buy into EuCon hardware, software options can provide a very useful alternative, even for Pro Tools users.