azslow3
With big X-Touch please use original Mackie Control plug-in (or my mod of it).
 
AZ Controller has no good ready to use preset for it, at least not yet. Such preset is in plans, with colors on display and network connection. But everything takes time (especially for devices I have seen on pictures only). Existing "Mack..." preset mimics "Mackie Control" but it was never good testes. "Startup preset" works with any device, but it is too basic for X touch, even as a starting point.

Thank you AzSlow - Im willing to help in anyway that I can if you decide to move forward with this

thedukewestern

azslow3
With big X-Touch please use original Mackie Control plug-in (or my mod of it).
 
AZ Controller has no good ready to use preset for it, at least not yet. Such preset is in plans, with colors on display and network connection. But everything takes time (especially for devices I have seen on pictures only). Existing "Mack..." preset mimics "Mackie Control" but it was never good testes. "Startup preset" works with any device, but it is too basic for X touch, even as a starting point.

Thank you AzSlow - Im willing to help in anyway that I can if you decide to move forward with this

Good to know, thanks. I will need "beta-testers", but more important people with suggestions about changes in layout compare to the current Mackie Control. Do you by chance also have some Behringer Air mixer?
 
For X-Touch and Mackie plug-in. Find Sonar overlay for X-Touch, there is one in Behringer forum and several people here claimed they have variations. At least print it as a reference. Using middle and right section buttons is hard otherwise. Also I suggest to read the help file for the plug-in, which explains all possible operations (including M1-3 +, which do not have overlay labels).

Steev
 I personally set up "F1" to arm automation for a "selected" track, but you can assign Arm to any F key that suits you.
 

Thats actually what I have been trying to do for the past two days... but I swear to you - I cannot find "arm automation" in the menu?  Literally - the only 1 thing I am looking for...?  Opening up the help menu however says that you should hold down m1, and the record button of the track you want to automate.  

Well - the x touch is definitely a hit - and I went and grabbed the x touch extender to increase our channel count here.   Since there are really no videos at behringer.com for this scenario I figured I would post this here since I bet many users will pick up a setup much like mine:
 
When you just add both the control surfaces in the select hardware controller surface menu: mackie control (x touch main) and the Mackie Control XT  (x touch extender) they will initially control the first 8 channels, essentially mirroring each other.  They must be
"configured".  Your next step is to open the controller surface properties window, which is at the bottom left of the control surface module in the control bar, go to the bottom right, and click the "Configure Layout" icon.  This will allow you to sequence the units in succession via the Vpots over channel 1 of each unit.  1-8, 9-16 etc.  Now you can use your channels in any succession you want.
 
 
The f1 help in the mackie control window sheds all necesary light on how sonar views the mc protocol. 
 
 
I can say that the only clear benefit to using the much much more expensive mackie units, is that the butt up next to each other and have a cleaner appearance when used in this type of multiple unit scenario.  However, if you are like me and work in the live audio world often, you come across lots of midas and behringer products, and having these around I am certain will come in very handy some day.  I see no benefit to purchasing the more expensive mackie units.

Hmmm, MUCH more expensive Mackie's is what I'm thinking, LoL, I don't see any reason why Mackie couldn't seriously drop the price on their units to at least stay a competitive cash cow. They certainly have gotten all their R&D investment money back in spades after the decades of pretty much being the only real universal game in town.
 I still do really like and appreciate Mackie, and it certainly is and was more then fair of them to contribute and share their MCU protocol as a free open source MIDI platform, and ah yeah, a great deal of info intergraded in the control panel Help section.
 Pssst, a bit more of the blank empty spaces left by Behringer's lack of documentation can be learned and applied to the X Touch by downloading a .pdf of the Mackie Universal Controller's op manual.
 
I still have the old Mackie extender which I'll hook up and use as an audio Buss mixer from time to time to export SONAR projects to Pro Tools, it really streamlines the process and helps insure I don't accidently export MIDI tracks but don't really have the desk real-estate to keep it there.
 I've gotten so used to using the Fader Bank selector that to me it's more ergonomically efficient or tidy (in a less distracting way) I should say to easily find my way around the higher track groups.
 But that's of course just me, as I tend to make a bit more of mess out of trying to automate that many tracks at once in a mix..
 And it's worse when I have to straighten out someone else's automation train wreck. 

I really like having the two surfaces, etc... but a new problem has come up, one thats always been there, but now worse than ever.  Sonar loses touch - or scrambles midi input devices.   Only now that there are 2 control surfaces and a m audio keyrig 25 all as midi input devices, frankly, sonar is all over the place, and completely unpredictable as to what will work when.  Is it a setting I have overlooked?  Either sonar completely loses touch with all devices even though they are listed as input and output, or responds after being reset (because it lost touch) and reconfigures all of my midi tracks at random so I have to reset every track.  I have disabled usb selective suspend in windows, and am now trying the "balanced" power setting.. however the problem persists.   I used to be able to close sonar, turn off the midi keyboard, turn it back on and it would be recognized by sonar, now, its a complete mess after adding two more midi devices.  Advice?

There is a problem with MIDI devices persistency, especially as Control Surfaces In/Outs, introduced in some update this year. I do not hit it often, but not yet too often to declare it a disaster... But I reconnect devices all the time and also start Sonar with different MIDI devices connected.
 
If you always have all MIDI devices connected (and on), you can try to make corresponding Sonar INI files read-only.
 
In general:
* always use the same USB port for particular device
* clean obsolete/duplicate MIDI devices in the Device Manager. There was a problem with total number of MIDI devices in Windows, I do not remember in which version that was fixed (your signature mention Win7)
* with Device Manager open, check you do not observe periodic device tree redraw. If you see that, some device is continuously "reconnecting".
* watch for MIDI devices with identical "names", Sonar does not like that
* try to identify problematic device, without which Sonar keeps settings right.

Hey Duke, have you performed Firmware updates on the X Touch(S) to v1.115? Just because they’re purchased new doesn’t mean they have the latest firmware installed.
 The Firmware version will display for a second or so when you power the X Touch up during the calibration setup as all faders park at infinity.
 Mine originally shipped with v 1.3, so before even setting it up in SONAR I flashed it with MIDI OX.
Also I had read a while back in the Behringer user forum a pretty stern warning about setting up the X Touch(s) in MC/XT  and ONLY selecting the standard MC protocol for SONAR.
Assign  the X Touch as “Mackie 1” to control “Bank 1” chan. 1-8, assign the extender as “Mackie 2” to control “Bank 2”, 9-16 or Buss.  It was explained at the time of writing that Cakewalk hadn’t written or included support for MC/XT, and users shouldn’t assume that XT stands for “Extender”.
 I have no idea if that’s entirely accurate, but my Mackie extender runs fine in MC alongside of the X Touch.
 
Hmm, sounds very much like some of the mysterious interment problems I was having when I was using my very much beloved Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 with SONAR, or more to the point I believe, running Firewire on a Windows computer, in tandem with USB which is a whole lengthy and very complicated entirely different topic which is very much on par with trying to hit a very fast moving target.
 And being all computer/configurations are all so quite different, targeting and finding a real solution is on par with trying to shoot a missile out of the sky with another missile.
 
However, all things should be considered. As much as I hated to lose the dynamics and delicious Liquid Channels, with great fear, reluctance and many tears in my eyes I pulled the Firewire card and swapped out the Saffire 56 with the Scarlett 18i20 Gen 2 and all manors of intermittent problems ceased to exist.
 The difference in latency is negligible.. The good news is I sold the Saffire 56 and Firewire card for the same price as a new Scarlett 18i20 Gen 2, the bad news is I lost the onboard Liquid Channels and dynamics. Though I do honestly believe (or maybe just want to?) the newer digitally controlled preamp design sounds slightly better on the rest of the mic preamps which definitely have a much smoother and precise control over the gain structure.
My #1 annoyance was sometimes out of the clear blue, either Windows or SONAR couldn’t find any audio I/O and default my entire system to S/PDIF, and completely change order and reroute all MIDI devices and ports.
 
As of late, I haven’t experienced any MIDI configuration settings changes at any time except of course during Windows “Up-GRADES”.
 And as expected it happened during the latest Win 10 Pro. Fall Creators upgrade, the installer simply defaults all customized performance configurations to standard balancing and Windows preferred “apps” for music and video players and security settings for both File Explorer and Edge Browser will TKO Google as default search engine and default back to Cortana… Blah, blah, blah, but everything can be changed back again, and as far as I can tell, after taking the time to make sure Windows Registry is clean and all drivers are up to date BEFORE even trying to upgrade, it is all very much well worth it.
Yeah it might be a bit off topic…
 
Oh and BTW, I brought it up because Window 10 does perform better as well as clearly handles audio, video, and MIDI better, and contrary to popular beliefs, Windows 7 users can in fact STILL UPGRADE for free by going to Microsoft and downloading the upgrade through “Media Creation Tool” which will give you the choice of creating an .iso image file for burning Win 10 to a DVD or creating a bootable USB. and if it is it will digitally register your Win 7 to Win 10 within a Microsoft account which you will have to create if you don’t already have one.
 I’ve heard that by letting Microsoft upgrade Win 10 over the Internet only installs necessary components for the upgrade to speed up the process.
 I know for a fact that upgrading from a DVD is a fresh complete quick and SNAPPY boot up that new OS install can deliver, but leaving your files and 3^rd party software where you expect them to be.
 
 So even if you DON’T intend to upgrade to Win 10 at this point, you’ll now have and own a registered copy Win 10 based on your previously registered Win 7 product code, which can be installed on a brand new Harddrive or computer build.
 And sooner or later you will have to upgrade. And the sooner you do it the better off you’ll be..
 I do so highly recommend “Cloning” your existing boot drive before proceeding.. It’s the absolute best and fastest way to insure you’ll be up and running exactly the way you left it, simply by swapping out the Hard drives and upgrading the new drive.
If for some reason the upgrade doesn’t succeed and can’t figure out why, which as I’ve heard does happen at times, you can always put the original Windows 7 Hard drive back in and be up and running exactly as you are now.
 
 The installer WILL automatically check your computer to see if upgrading is possible, it will even look for and install very basic very common driver updates, and warn you about incompatible device drivers and tell you to see if you can find them yourself before continuing to upgrade.
 The installer will also roll back to your previous version of Windows if the upgrade fails at some point.
 You also have 30 days to manually roll back from Windows 10 to 7 yourself for whatever reasons you choose. Like having some older 3^rd party hardware that you love or find you can’t live without and you feel would be to expensive to replace. :-(
 It’s also worth noting that it gets exponentially MORE expensive the longer you wait. 
 Like when you realize you now need a whole new computer now that you can’t even find replacement parts for your old faithful and trusty Windows XP machine that just died of old age.