DAW controllers have been around for decades, but most of them are big, clunky, and in my experience you only end up using part of them.
Now when I found out that you can actually use the Elgato Stream Deck for programming keyboard short cuts and macros, I immediately got a light bulb moment!
Because when producing music in a DAW (I use Logic Pro myself) we use keyboard shortcuts all the time, 100’s and 100’s of them.
And not only can keyboard shortcuts be hard to remember, sometimes you need to press up to 3-4 buttons on your keyboard to activate the keyboard shortcut…which is annoying to say the least.
By using the Stream Deck buttons, you can program each button with your favorite keyboard shortcuts in your DAW. And better yet, you can program macros! Yes, you read correctly, you can actually program one single button to perform a sequence of keyboard shortcuts in your DAW.
Let me give you a few practical examples of what I have programmed into my Stream Deck:
- Zoom = Select-All + Zoom to Fit + Deselect All
- Legato = Force Legato to Selected + Nudge Region Length by 10 ms + Remove Overlaps for Repeated
- Solo = Solo Mode + Go to Selection Start
These are just a few of the things I use, in fact I have been considering upgrading to the Stream Deck XL version, just to get access to more buttons that I can program macros and keyboard shortcuts on. Or perhaps have 2 Stream Decks side by side, one for the sequencer and main view, and one for piano roll and editing. Yes, you can in fact have 2 Stream Decks connected at once.
In short: the Stream Deck has been one of my best purchases for improving my music composition and production workflow ever. And I am saying this without being sponsored in any way, it really is that amazing in my humble opinion! =)