Questions & Answers

Plugin and mixer parameter soft takeover

+107 votes
2,330 views
asked Jan 5, 2018 in Instruments and Plug-Ins by Scoox (16,880 points)
edited Jan 5, 2018 by Scoox

For those unfamiliar with soft takeover, it allows absolute controllers (i.e. non-motorized faders and any regular knob that's not an endless rotary encoder) to work smoothly with your DAW without unwanted nasty jumps which would happen after parameters in the software are modified by the mouse or automation and therefore no longer match the hardware.

At the moment, Studio One only supports direct mapping, in other words, whenever there is disagreement between the software and the hardware, the hardware always "wins". For example, if we assign a hardware knob to control a parameter called "Filter Frequency" and then we change the parameter value with the mouse, effectively causing disagreement between software and hardware, if we then move the hardware knob the software parameter will "jump" instantly to match the value sent by the knob. This jump can result in all sorts of undesirable results such as messing up a mix or an instrument patch. The purpose of soft takeover is mainly to eliminate these jumps. With soft takeover enabled, users must move the hardware knob or fader until it its value "matches" the software, at which point the software parameter starts following the hardware. This, of course, is an oversimplified explanation and I put the word "matches" in quotes because there are many ways to implement sof takeover, some of which can be technically quite involved.

I like the way soft takeover works in Ableton Live. It even shows an indicator on the UI which shows you which way you need to turn the knob to get it to line up with the software, pretty neat. Here's a good video by TheDSPproject:

If you watched the above video, you will notice Ableton offers several interesting solutions to this problem. All flavours of soft takeover will necessarily make some compromises, letting users choose their poison, as it were. I don't use Ableton but I must admit I'm a bit jealous of the way it handles absolute controllers compared with Studio One.

I do use, however, NI Traktor for DJing, and it also features soft takeover, and I really like the way it works. I would encourage Presonus devs to take a look at Traktor. It allows users to assign multiple hardware controllers to the same parameter, and soft takeover still works. Furthermore, soft takeover is a per-assignment option, not a global option, which is very flexible. If Studio One ever gets soft takeover and it is per-assignment, it would probably be a good idea to let users specify in the global preferences whether soft takeover is on or off by default for new assignments.

In summary, I believe soft takeover would be an addition welcome by anyone who owns a MIDI controller, which is probably 99% of Studio One users. Thanks!

7 Answers

+16 votes
answered Jan 17, 2018 by AlexTinsley (925,070 points)
 
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Thank you for the feature request. 

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+11 votes
answered Dec 29, 2018 by danperry3 (790 points)
Plus one! Very much needed, even more (nearly 2019; this feature has been requested many times for 7 years now) when many or most midi controllers feature quick switch from instrument/insert control to mixer control.
+7 votes
answered Nov 8, 2020 by GreatExpectations (390 points)
How do we still not have soft take over, which is basically useful to anyone who has fader or potis? Reaper and Ableton support it. I haven't checked any other DAWs but this feature seems super basic to me.
+5 votes
answered Feb 17, 2021 by michaelpardus1 (2,700 points)
Any news? It's really usefull feature allowing many midi controllers to work in live enviroment. It will open a lot of controllers for Studio One.
+4 votes
answered Aug 29, 2022 by baseliner (1,610 points)

It is a pitty, that more than four! years have passed and still no soft takeover is implemented in Studio One.

My new M-Audio Oxygen Pro has implemented "soft takeover": Manual page 13: "Important: Both the Fader and Knobs are enabled with “soft takeover.” This means that if you switch banks, a Fader or knob will not work until it is positioned at the current value of the newly selected software control."

This is working perfectly in Live and Bitwig too, but not in Studio One 5. I still get jumping faders...angry

0 votes
answered Mar 9 by da46 (300 points)
Any update on the development of this feature? It's been 6 years.
0 votes
answered Mar 24 by pauldavison1 (340 points)

Using midi control surfaces with Studio One is currently very clunky due to the unwanted jumping around that you get without some kind of soft takeover. Even 5 years ago this seemed like a basic requirement.

I assume it isn’t a terribly difficult feature to implement, so maybe they think it will push users to buy the faderport?

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