XR18 & X-Touch Compact - A Solution

[Karnage]

Hi All,

I have had a Behringer XR18 for about 5 years, and an X-Touch Compact for a matter of weeks. I've been trying to get the X-Touch to play nicely over MIDI, and given it is shown in the X-Touch Compact manual as an image, it's not really unreasonable to expect it to work. However, first up it doesn't look promising at all. Is there anything sensible like a setting in the editor for the X-Touch to work with X-Air mixers? Absolutely not. It defaults to missing channel 1 out as the X-Air starts using CC (Continuous Controller) 0 while the default for the X-Touch (and many DAWs) is CC 1. There was also the issue of data routing around in a loop due to the Global channel of the X-Touch so I set that to Off.

Once you have those sorted, you quickly realise that when switching layers, the X-Touch can be out of touch with the values in the XR18 if another device has changed something.

This wasn't easy to find the right info for this, especially given the bad steer from a Music Tribe employee. Although this isn't ideally what I'd want live (I'd want the top row of rotary controls to control the XR18 input gain, that's not in the MIDI spec for the X-Air mixers, so Pan it has to be) it's what I can seem to get working in a reasonably practical layout. The attached image shows which controls I have working where, with Layers A and B differing by A having channels 1-8 and B channels 9-16, but other controls the same. As it says in the image, the Aux In, FX Return and Bus Master controls have a rotary control for the value, and uses the click of that control to mute. Note I am using Bus 1, 2, 3 and 5 as Bus 4 has a different purpose for us.

The key here is the button marked 'UPDATE' which you click when you switch layer to get the XR18 to send out all current midi parameter values so the X-Touch can be up-to-date with the XR18. CC 127, Min and Max Value is 127 on MIDI Channel 1, with Behaviour set to Toggle was the info it took me a while to realise was this key. It now becomes workable. I can only presume that better integration was something on somebody's 'to do list' that never got done.

Attached we have the image of the controls, along with the two layers to load into the X-Touch Compact using the X-Touch editing app.

{EDITED} Many thanks to @KMaxwell for helping remind me of key points I've now updated in this post.

I hope these prove useful to someone and save others repeating the work! If others have found better solutions still, then I'm all ears!

Best regards,
Karn.

[KMaxwell]

I have both an X-Touch Compact (XTC) and a BCF2000 and I was recently helping someone with the XTC that they were trying to get to work with an XR18. I was trying to remember how to have the mixer send a refresh to the XTC. Thank you for posting that Midi command that will do that.

I discovered when I first got the XTC and used in on a Midas M32 that with the global channel set to 2 that when I brought up a fader and it reached a certain point that the channel would mute. I had to change the Global CH set to a number greater than the Midi channels that the mixer uses so it would work properly. Or was it that I could set the Global CH to off? I was just playing with that on the computer and it looks like you can’t only change that setting (in X-TOUCH Editor) without the XTC connected to a mixer. I don’t have an XR18 to test this on to see if it is also a problem on the XR18 mixer.

Again thank you for the refresh Midi command.

[Karnage]

I set the global channel to off as you mentioned, that stopped the repeating of data to another channel like the mute as you also mentioned.

Best regards,
Karn.

[KMaxwell]

You wrote "CC 127, Value 127 on MIDI Channel 1" for the settings of the UPDATE button. What are the settings for the MIN VALUE and the BEHAVIOR?

[Karnage]

You wrote "CC 127, Value 127 on MIDI Channel 1" for the settings of the UPDATE button. What are the settings for the MIN VALUE and the BEHAVIOR?

Sorry, yes, the min and max value are both set to 127 and the behaviour is set to Toggle. Rushed that post! I'll update it shortly.

Best, Karn.

[KMaxwell]

You wrote "CC 127, Value 127 on MIDI Channel 1" for the settings of the UPDATE button. What are the settings for the MIN VALUE and the BEHAVIOR?

Sorry, yes, the min and max value are both set to 127 and the behaviour is set to Toggle. Rushed that post! I'll update it shortly.

Best, Karn.

Thank you.

[PaulShutt]

Thanks Karnage

I had all but given up with the Xtouch Mini to control my XR18 and XR16, due to the lack of 'sync' with other control devices when entering another layer etc. When the mixer is powered on there was a sync done but that only did the current layer, I knew the mixer had the facility to send out the current midi status, I just could not find how to do it except a power cycle. The 'Update' button was the 'Holly Grail' I had been looking for, no idea how you found it as it is not documented, but thanks for that, I might just start to use the Xtouch Mini as a control surface again. Cheers!!
I found the update button also works well as a momentary button with 0 and 127 as the values.

[kingraexoan]

@Karnage Thank you for this. I noticed that the Layer B works the same as A. Is there a way for layer b to control input 9 to 16?

[Karnage]

@Karnage Thank you for this. I noticed that the Layer B works the same as A. Is there a way for layer b to control input 9 to 16?

I no longer use the Compact (now have the full X-Touch), but I did have it set up to do Layer A = 1-8 and Layer B = 9-16. Not sure what happened there.....

Best, Karn.

[kmitchell]

@Karnage Thank you for this. I noticed that the Layer B works the same as A. Is there a way for layer b to control input 9 to 16?

I'd suggest you use the X-Touch Editor to save off the current settings (as a backup) and then restore the B layer using the default settings files providing with the editor.