Hello All, I hope I’m in the right place this time. I wondered if anyone has an opinion about Spad.neXt or any alternative for use with my X Touch mini. I spent a lot of time with the Spad 14 day free trial and then bought the standard version. I have watched many videos including the Les O’Rielly ones. I have programmed the 1st encoder for the heading bug successfully and the first button to engage and disengage the AP but I can’t get teh button LED to light when the AP is triggered ON. I have followed the advice and checked it several times. I am on the new release though, not the alpha version that Les used in the videos.
So my question before I spend hours and hours more is this;
Has anyone got an opinion on whether to use Spad or AAO or anything else?
Thank you in advance for your opinions.
I have 2 of these working flawlessly with spad.next for quite some time now. The ONLY issue (which no app can solve as far as I know) is that the Xtouch’s do not have unique device IDs on a hardware level, so you need to keep them connected to the same USB ports all the time. If you start switching them around, it’s a bit random which one will be recognized as #1 by Spad and which will be #2. Which obviously can mess up your configs, although the workaround is then as simple as switching USB ports.
I’ve never used AAO to be honest.
There’s a discussion about Xtouch’s in Behringer X-Touch mini works flawless with lots of useful tips. For example in Spad it’s relatively simply to create scenario to either toggle or even flash any LEDs at all (from buttons to those small LEDs around rotaries). I remember leaving a link here on how to control encoder LEDs with Spad: Behringer X-Touch mini works flawless - #197 by Zeppos
For example in CJ4 I’ve set up a button to toggle pitot heat. This is how’s it’s configured to light up the button when pitot heat is enabled:
The above is accomplished using Script Panel but you can do the same by programming the button itself like this:
Similar mappings are done for functions such as yaw dumper, flight director or even flashing encoders which e.g. set VS rate when VS mode has been selected elsewhere. This makes it easier to highlight which knob to turn if I don’t have labels on the Xtouch. It all works like a charm with Spad.
Thank you so much, Zeppos, and the graphic explanation. I’ll try this tomorrow.
I use one with Spad, works perfectly.
I normally set up the dials to follow the order in the plane cockpit, and thus it adds to realism and I don’t have to remember which one is mapeed to what.
Very useful to handle the GPS knobs in the 530 or 430, specially having the push action for the dial itself.
Thank you Luis, good suggestion regarding the order of knobs and buttons. The problem is that I’m a bit of a tech hypocondriac so now I’ve seen the button LRDs working on youtube, I want them !
Yes, Xtouch’s are ideal to control 530/430 or even G1000. Obviously the layout of the actual aircraft device may not be identical to Xtouch’s, but once you’ve begun setting these things up you often tend to keep the same Xtouch layout across all aircraft if you don’t care too much about cockpit fidelity.
Personally I don’t, because once I’ve mapped everything to Xtouch’s, Elgato’s, Logitech’s etc, then I’m rarely even looking at the cockpit switches so I don’t care where exactly e.g. the actual ALT knob is. All I need to know is that in all my aircraft I’ve set up ALT at the rightmost Xtouch knob, then going from right to left it will be HDG, then VS and so on.
Then for those too bored to print and attach their own switch descriptions on Xtouch panel, there are customized layouts such as the ones sold in Overlays for Behringer X-Touch Mini - Taktility, albeit a bit pricey.
Then once one migrates to more complicated aircraft with tons of knobs and those of Xtouch aren’t sufficient anymore, it’s probably best to upgrade to something like AKAI Professional midimix – Thomann UK as I think the principle is the same. It’s in my plans but haven’t done it yet.
Thank you both, good idea about a button layout in timeline of use from left to right or vice versa!