I would get one of these as it takes minimal setup and would still provide that tactile input that hardware would provide. You just hover over the control you want to use and use the nob to control it. Can’t tweak multiple parameters at a time, but might be a nice in between for you. Been meaning to get one for when I’m using the DAW, but creativity time is greatly limited for me this year so it’s not a high priority.
I guess you’ve answered your own question here. Personally I don’t share this perspective though. There absolutely is a massive difference between having a dedicated physical means of interacting with sound and effects parameters, but for me mapping a midi controller is usually better than putting a few pedals on the desk in front of me, and certainly not worse in terms of flow.
Whichever way you go, the key thing is that you have a way of interacting with the sound with intention that doesn’t involve too much thinking about which knob you need to turn to get what effect and getting things set up optimally to achieve this.
I guess maybe it’s down to the effects I use and like, but in terms of fiddly setup, the dip-switches on my Chase Bliss pedals or secondary menus on El Cap are definitely not better or easier than mapping in the box for me. And my SP 404 is an incredible effects box in terms of quality, but the fact that it’s dedicated hardware doesn’t mean that it automatically has better hands on control - it really doesn’t without mapping a midi controller to it.
In any case, I don’t think using a mouse or drawing automation is ever going to be playable in any meaningful sense. To use a DAW or plugins effectively imho it requires some kind of controller, personally I always have one of these in front of me when I have my DAW opened, using Ableton’s blue hand or even better the Driven by Moss script in Bitwig, as well as Push - I really only set up custom mappings when I’m going to perform effects. Even if I’m just setting parameters rather than recording a performance on effects I’ll rarely if ever use the mouse unless it’s just to click a toggle. Don’t ever recall resolution or precision being an issue, even when I had more primitive controllers back in the day.
There are plenty of other good and cheap options out there, a decent controller is a must-have if you’re ever using a DAW imho, even if you’re going to invest in a bunch of hardware effects also.
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I agree there’s something about hardware. Midi is a funny thing. We know it works, but it’s like there’s a ghost layer between you and the thing you’re controlling, it does the job. But with hardware it’s like there’s nothing between you and the signal. There is no translation, you’re controlling the thing directly. That might only be a small detail, but that physicality does get closer to something like a physical instrument. With mapping, it does become your role in Ableton to become an ‘instrument designer’ in some senses, and I can dig having a bit of a dichotomy between this mindset and just straight playing. It actually always surprises me every time I meet someone who uses Ableton, just how different and unique their approach seems to be. Things can fall apart on either side, but at least with the hardware there is something to learn, a product designer has put a lot of thought into the HCI and how things all come together, which is what we have to do when putting something together in Live I suppose.
It’s been interesting watching this transition over the years. 20 years ago it was all about controllers and Live, but over the years hardware has really come to prominence again.
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Fwiw I don’t notice my pedals/404 or any other hardware for that matter being any more responsive than my Mac and a controller, at this point I have about the same base latency working in the box as you’d get from a couple of older digital pedals in series. Even between the computer and 100% analogue gear - which is rare enough to find in hardware these days - I don’t really notice the difference.
Neither way of doing it feels any more or less direct to me. The physicality of playing knobs is basically the same as well, except there’s less to keep track of in terms of grabbing the right control on the right pedal and not messing up the performance by turning it too far.
As far as I can see if you get the wrong hardware you’re equally if not more likely to get laggy response from controls or weird calibration or poor layout or parameter range choices that you can’t do anything about. I guess that’s the other point - if you’re getting hardware and you want it to be performable, you need to look very carefully at things like latency, quality and layout of controls - not all hardware is created equally from that point of view.
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This was a timely video for Florian to drop today:
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I have wrestled with that, certainly the knob-mapping time saved can be replaced by… the logical overhead of figuring out how to patch in the hardware FX device. Or rerouting FX buses, or or so many reasons. The FX I appreciate also aren’t always more interactable than VSTs either, I’d have had to map encoders to the DP/4, I could have.
Basically I mostly use FX when it’s easy to place in between the tone generator and my interface, on the desktop 
What I have taking up interface IO slots seems to mostly be processing or Fuck Shit Up devices for the bus over pure FX.
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I went down this route recently, and grabbed the Empress Reverb - Strymon Timeline & Strymon Zelzah, and happy with that setup all hands on control/tweaking, I also have a Zoom MS70CDR+ which i may be selling now.
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And the time it gets to physically hook up the effects and see which is distorting to hell because it’s got a line level selector in a secondary menu that you forgot about, or which patch cable is cutting in and out, or where that fuckin hum is coming from …
One other personal take on this, for me hardware effects work best when I set them up, start playing and figure out where I’m going from there in response to what they’re giving me. When I have an idea and then try to get the hardware set up to achieve it, often the inspiration will be gone by the time I’ve got everything plugged in and routed before even getting to dialling things in, where in software I can go from idea to execution in seconds.
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At what cost? Prepare to empty your wallet, because a lot of the best pedals are $400 plus now.
If you use Ableton, you can buy a Move and control all your effects by hands and auto-mapped if you use the stock ones (which are all you really need). Plus the Move is a standalone groovebox, so it does a lot for the same price as a lot of the FX pedals.
So with the Move, you don’t really have to map anything. I jam out FX all the time. It is a big part of my workflow - record audio from hardwre, run it through a send and record the output of that send while jamming on the effect.
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Depends how much work you’re willing to put in to set everything up.
I have 2 Ipads running TouchOSC. 20 X-Y pads controlling Macs running Infiltrator and Turnado, and LFO’s for all parameters etc. 200 faders on the other Ipad for tweaking.
Advanced stuff like hardware arpeggiators arpeggiating VST punch-in FX activated by midi notes.
There’s a large amount of boring work to set it all up, inevitably you’ll realize you can do it better and will change it many times.
But there aint any amount of hardware FX in the world that can touch it when its all done.
It all comes down to, can you be bothered to build it all and troubleshoot it etc. 100% worth it though!
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It all depends on how you’ve set up your gear to be spontaneous with it. This matters as much for software as for hardware setups. So the answer to your question is negative. What helps to streamline the creation process is repeating the same workflow all the time.
However, I understand your struggle with the VSTs when jamming. Personally, I prefer my hardware fx boxes because they are hands-on.
I’d steer clear from multi-fx à la H9(0) though because they are not meant to be used for hands-on control but rather for presets and on-stage performance. If you just want the presets, you could spend your money on decent plug-ins instead.
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It isnt, i just made the point that you can get similar results in or out the box, its just that not every hw fx box has unlimted lfos, and not every midi controller has ranges to be set. A used mac mini as synchronized fx pedal and mapped controls is possibly the cheapest option, not much larger than a pedal. (ok plus sound card.)
And more evolved setups can often result in the wish for a matrix mixer, to effortless switch between insert and send, or use the fx on different instruments.
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I’m I the only one that doesn’t use a home computer in my rig 
Seems the general consensus here is PCs aren’t any more work for FX.
I must say though though I feel OPs feelings about setting up midi CCs - I often find it’s waisted time as I spend it setting up, then never use them much after the effort.
I spent last year for three months learn curving Reaper (away from my rig) setting up key shortcuts, only to use Sound Forge exclusively this year
(which I love for its simplicity).
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So much good food for thought in this thread.
Over the past few days I have tried to use my iPad as an FX box and have run into a lot of headaches with routing, gain staging, and the generally clunky and cumbersome mess of hubs, adapters, and cables that I have found iPad music making to be. To say nothing of working on a touch screen 
The touchOSC stuff seems really cool but also above my pay grade and I fear the amount of time and energy required to implement and maintain it would only take me further away from music making. Then there’s the touch screen issue again…
Maybe the most sensible next move would be a small controller like the Intech Grid that I can use as a ‘blue hand’ surface in Ableton to control the 16 available macros per rack. That along with some premade sets/effects racks might make for a decently tactile experience with minimal setup hassle. Being able to eventually do that without turning on the display would be the dream.
Either that or I guess I just need to just dabble with a hardware effect or two and see if that clicks.
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I felt the same… it’s actually incredibly easy though, it’s so well made. You can make layouts on the computer and they sync over to the Ipad.
I decided I would let music making take a back seat for a year whilst I built my dream setup. It certainly was frustrating for a while… but I was fed up with compromises and chopping and changing stuff.
Now it’s built it’s amazing, it does need maintenance because I’m always thinking about improving it… but using it is the best thing ever!
I can’t stand touch screens for music making! Or encoders! That’s why I have 6 LaunchControl XLs, and 2 LaunchControls (and 5 Launchpads 
) I love knobs and faders for hands-on control!
But I did learn that XY pads on touch screens are amazing, you can do things you can’t do any other way. Similar to a Kaoss pad, but much better!
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This is a pretty compelling pitch! I have very fond memories of using my Koass Pad 2 back in the day 
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I suppose it also depends on whether you’re writing or performing music.
Ever try to use a mouse or touchscreen while simultaneously playing a piano?
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It has good and bad aspects like anything else!
One thing is, the building/adding stuff can get quite addictive and sometimes I have to force myself not to add anything to my system for a month or so, because sometimes adding stuff causes other stuff to need tweaking etc.
It’s hard not to add stuff though, because when jamming you’ll suddenly realize what you need to make it even better.
I have a KP3 and a circuit bent KP1, I love them both!
My KP3 is a little unused in my current setup now though, simply because I’d rather have 7 little XY’s controlling Infiltrator!
True!
I have to divide my time 3 ways:
Building (requires heavy use of mouse and screen, notebooks etc)
Writing (requires use of mouse and screen too)
Jamming/Performing (don’t touch mouse or screen at all).
The main secret to making a good hybrid setup is, aim to make one that lasts, a core of stuff that doesn’t change, and add stuff round it as you go. And accept there’ll be times when you can’t make music at all!
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Shout out to the Korg NTS-3 
I think I be picking one up at some point.
circuitbenders.co.uk for the kp1? How do you use it?
How are the available algos for the kp3? Just a brief curiosity .D