Firstly, greetings to all from a new one here. I am totally new to midibox,....I had hoped that I wouldn't have to delve so far into electronics and the like, but, limitations of existing equipment lead me here! OK, my question ('reasons for' at bottom for those who wonder why)... I'm looking into the viability/possibility of building a control surface with 48 motorised faders and 48 Buttons. The only function of the faders would be to control the volumes of 48 tracks in LogicPro(7.2.1), and the buttons only function would be to Select Tracks. I have looked a little at various documents here at midibox.org, and to be honest, feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. Before plunging head first into the abyss, I wonder if anyone can maybe give me a few pointers as to where I should be heading. You may ask 'Why such a limited surface?'. Well, I have a Logic Control and XT, and have battled with them through more 'rebuild defaults' and 'quick, make a copy of control surface preferences before closing logic' situations than I care to remember. The final straw was when I realised a few operating limitations of 'user' zones. For starters you get 8, and if you add more in the controller assignment setup, it can really mess up the referencing of zones, and quickly force a rebuild of defaults..furthermore, if you assign parameters for a 'selected' track all is fine on the lcd, should you try to assign to an 'indexed' track (i.e. - so that you don't have to have the track containing the parameter selected in order to change that parameter value with an encoder or fader) then then lcd only shows either the parameter name, OR the parameter value - nothing on the top row of the screen! arggh I said - many times. (btw - if anyone in the world has had different results from trying this - please contact me!) This led to me getting some doepfer encoder boxes (Pocket Dial). In the meantime my music creation moved to Max/MSP, with Logic becoming a lovely synth/sampler/mixer/big fx rack. Max does all the midi - logic makes the noises and mixes them. With the help of Max i now have a setup ready to go (all but buying two more units!), 4 Pocket Dials giving me 64 parameters - I can choose within my Max app if I want them to follow the selected track in Logic or access a parameter without changing track. I also have another control surface in development to control my Max app, but for this Doepfer kits are more than enough to get encoders/buttons and LEDs, and relatively simple to assemble/patch within Max. The 48 faders are for controlling and displaying the position of the volume for 32 Audio Instruments, 8 Busses and a few auxilliary objects. I find this a visual and physical necessity for me - I do alot of live sound engineering and a volume fader for each instrument/channel is the only way to go according to my brain! I don't need them to do anything else, the necessity for motorised faders is because I often modulate volumes in real time from lfos etc. If you should wonder 'why all this?'...I'm not running a studio, I'm working on a project for live electronic performance, where there is no prerecorded playback - sample banks yes - but no 'loop' type samples; synth sounds, hits etc only, and no prerecorded midi, so if I want a midiloop - I have first to play and record it. Well - i hope this explains something....hmmmm I'm not looking for a free ride to my goal - but any kind pointers would be most graciously received. regards leigh