Map Automation Page functions to physical buttons or key commands?

[alexeymohr]

So I have Pro Tools 11 HD Native on Mac, and I'm doing some mixing at home where I only have the old-fashioned Digi 002 control surface.

When mixing at work on the Icon, I live and die by my physical controls for Automation page functions: write enables, auto suspend, preview and punch (!!), capture, write on stop, and the like. It seems Avid has very intentionally omitted any key commands for these controls, and mousing to that window is just slow.

Does anyone know of an affordable or free way to get physical control of these parameters without buying a full-blown big control surface?

I've got V-Control Pro on my iPad, but it doesn't appear to have what I'm looking for. What about actually remapping those F-keys on the old 002? Or, is there some sort of programmable USB keypad I could get? Any advice is most appreciated!

[feliponk]

The Digi002 is not supported for 11, so I would go with the Artist series, where you can have most of the "touching" features of the ICON.

[alexeymohr]

Yeah, the Artist series looks very nice, but my 002 is also my interface and monitor section. I'm eventually going to upgrade, probably to an HD Omni and Artist series surface, but for now I'm trying to spend as little as possible. Any lower-end options?

[feliponk]

A used Mackie HUI/Control

[alexeymohr]

Can you elaborate on a used Mackie HUI control? Is there some way to manually map HUI control surfaces and devices to specific buttons on windows in Pro Tools? If so, how?

[lucienpalmer]

Your best bet is the Artist series of controllers. They are able to access features of Pro Tools that don't have key commands assigned to them. If you are on a budget, the Artist Transport is what you want. You can find it on Ebay for about $300. I got mine of Craig's List for $100.

I'm using an Artist Transport to assign my main automation commands to it's numeric keypad. I haven't finished making labels for the keys yet, but here is a photo to give you an idea...

[albee1952]

Not sure how "attached" you are to the old 002, but it really is time to retire it, and for 2 reasons. As you have already seen, the control surface is dead in 11. Worse, when you do add a controller, the 002 may continue to "own" the first 8 tracks(I don't know this for sure, but this is true in all previous versions when adding a controller). I have a mint 003 control surface for sale, which DOES work with 11(although I think I read about the jog wheel not working, but I never used it here). If you are just mixing, you can replace the 002 with almost any 2IO box from any company(I would avoid all the FastTrack boxes though)