Last year, Logitech entered the content creator market with the acquisition of Loupedeck, which makes control surfaces for apps like Adobe Lightroom. Now the company has announced its first Logitech-branded control panel, the MX Creative Console, a $200 device that includes a keypad, dial pad, and plugins for popular Adobe apps like Premiere Pro.
Logitech is taking on rivals like the TourBox Elite controller and its own Loupedeck CT, but the company’s new offering is cheaper than the latter and sleeker than the former. The MX Creative Console sports a modern design and two sleek control dials, as well as dynamic display keys that change depending on the app or page you’re viewing.
Logitec
Logitech’s MX Creative Console is a great console for creators, with smooth controls and easy customization.
Pros: Excellent quality and design. Smooth operation. Easy to customize. Cons: Limited control over some apps. $200 on Amazon
I’ve tested a lot of control panels since the original Loupedeck in 2017. For me, it always comes down to one main thing: is it easier and faster than using a keyboard and mouse? After using MX Creative Console for over a week, I found it to be powerful in some cases, but too limited in others.
Hardware
The console comes in light gray or dark graphite and takes up very little space on your desk (the keypad is 3.8 x 3.1 inches, the dialpad is 3.6 x 3.7 inches). It also comes with a stand that tilts the keypad or dialpad towards you at about 45 degrees. I prefer to lay it flat on a table for speed, but the stand makes it easier to see the controls. The keypad has nine display keys that change content based on the page and app you’re using. There are two regular buttons on the underside for changing pages, and a USB-C port at the bottom.
Steve Dent (Engadget)
Meanwhile, the centerpiece of the dialpad is a large “contextual dial” whose functionality changes depending on the action you select. Additionally, there’s a scroll wheel in the top-right corner, two buttons in the top-left, and two buttons in each corner at the bottom. The bottom-right button launches the dialpad’s “action ring,” a circular on-screen display that gives you another way to tweak color, text, and more.
The keys are light to the touch and smooth, without any clicks. The dialpad wheel has just the right amount of friction for precision work, making it easy to move frame by frame in Premiere Pro or quickly navigate the timeline, but it doesn’t have the haptic feedback of the TourBox Elite. There’s a Bluetooth pairing switch on the bottom and a power switch on the back. It can connect to a computer via LT Bluetooth or Logitech’s Bolt dongle (not included), which is also used for the mouse and keyboard.
Logitech says the product is made with 72 percent recycled post-consumer plastic, low-carbon aluminum, microtexture instead of paint, and FSC-certified responsible packaging. But the dial pad uses disposable or rechargeable AAA batteries, a strange choice for an environmentally friendly product, though Logitech says the batteries should last for several months.
setting
Steve Dent (Engadget)
The MX Creative Console is plug-and-play for Adobe apps, so you can start turning dials right out of the box. It’s also customizable, so you can tweak settings and create custom profiles within the app. To set it up, I installed the Logi Options+ app on my PC (and Mac, I tested on both) and connected the keypad via USB-C. The dialpad was installed separately, connecting to the computer via Bluetooth.
Once your device is recognized, click “All Actions” and an Adobe plugin will be installed. It also has direct support for apps like VLC Media Player, Spotify Premium, Capture One, Ableton, and more. You can also control apps without a plugin, like your browser’s system volume, YouTube videos, emojis, screenshots, and more. I found this useful, even just for the system volume (Windows 11’s audio controls are terrible).
Changing the default settings is very easy. When you open the customization page, you will see your device (dialpad, keypad, action ring) on the left and all the settings items on the right. To change or add a new setting, just grab the one you want from the list and drag it to the virtual keypad on the left. Keys can be rearranged within the same page, but it is not easy to move settings from one page to another.
As a Premiere Pro user, the first thing I did was create a new keypad page and add buttons to switch between Source, Program, and Timeline to avoid mouse clicks for those actions. This was relatively easy to do, thanks to the search functionality and intuitive drag-and-drop interface. If you don’t want to get too bogged down in customization, Logitech’s Logi Options+ app has a plugin marketplace. I didn’t get to use it pre-release, but users should be able to buy or share plugins, profiles, and icon packs.
Surgery
Logitec
I primarily use Lightroom Classic and Premiere Pro, but also occasionally use Photoshop and After Effects, all of which are natively supported by the MX Creative Console on Mac and PC.
I started with Premiere Pro and tested it on both Windows and Mac. After some thought, I decided to place the keypad on the left side of the keyboard and the dialpad on the right side between the keyboard and mouse. This looked better and allowed me to tweak and adjust edits with my right hand and press buttons with my left hand, pretty much the same as I already do with my keyboard and mouse.
At first, I wasn’t sure the console would speed up my Edit Mode workflow since I already had most of Premiere’s keyboard shortcuts memorized, and I was also worried I’d be switching back and forth between the dial and mouse a lot, but after a bit of experimentation, I realized that scrubbing the timeline with the dial gives me finer and faster control than keyboard and mouse, especially when using the scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the timeline (though please, Logitech, make scrubbing faster when zooming out).
Building on that, I added a split feature that I hadn’t used in a while, as well as no-click mouse tools, which, despite my previous misgivings, now make some tasks almost as fast as keyboard and mouse. While I’d hesitate to use it for editing myself, I think this could be a good workflow for new Premiere Pro users, as the actions are visually displayed so beginners don’t need to remember shortcuts.
The MX console is especially useful for color correction in Premiere: with a clip selected, click the dialpad button in the bottom right to activate the action ring, then move your mouse over one of the actions (exposure, contrast, whites, saturation, etc.) and turn the dial to adjust the setting. To avoid using the mouse, you can also program your major color adjustments into the keypad; then hold down the button for that setting and turn the dial.
Steve Dent (Engadget)
We moved on to Lightroom Classic next. This app is best suited to a console, as you’re primarily performing actions on a single image (color correction, crop, etc.). Quick keys include Develop mode, white balance selector, auto white balance, auto vertical, and evaluation tools. Once you’ve imported an image into your library, you can jump into Develop mode, navigate between images using the dial, and tweak color using the action ring, just like in Premiere. Again, if you want to stick with an MX console, common functions (temperature, saturation, highlights, etc.) can be programmed into the keypad.
The MX console also has keys to copy and paste develop settings, view before and after, and crop and view images in Photoshop. Heavy Lightroom users can add shortcuts for even more efficiency. This makes it nearly as fast as the popular Loupedeck+ panel, although navigating between pages with the keypad can be a little slower.
Unfortunately, I found MX Creative Console to be least useful for Photoshop. The control panel is great for single-purpose tasks like color correction and audio adjustments, whereas Photoshop is designed for more complex operations. That meant taking my hands off the keypad and dialpad and placing them on the mouse and keyboard, instead of being less efficient. MX Creative Console might have been useful for Photoshop’s Camera RAW utility (which has Lightroom-like controls), but Logitech says that tool lacks an API and doesn’t support plugins.
summary
Steve Dent (Engadget)
The MX Creative Console’s main competitor is the $268 TourBox Elite, which features three dials and 10 buttons. Designed to work with a keyboard and mouse, it’s powerful for experienced editors but looks a bit cheap. In contrast, Logitech’s MX Creative Console is more polished, and the visual interface that the keypad provides is better suited for beginners. It’s also worth noting that Elgato’s similarly priced Stream Deck+, despite being designed primarily for live streaming, recently added an Adobe Photoshop plug-in, giving you easy access to Photoshop tools and adjustments via four dials and eight display keys.
Other options are more expensive, including the Loupedeck CT ($529), DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor ($395), DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel ($499) and the Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Editor Keyboard ($595), which are more powerful and more professional looking, but naturally cost more.
Logitech’s MX Creative Console is a quality device that’s pretty useful for apps like Premiere Pro and Lightroom Classic. Its usefulness will no doubt grow as Adobe supports more apps and the Logitech Marketplace expands. However, it doesn’t have enough buttons and dials to perform tasks in many Adobe apps without relying on a keyboard and mouse. If you use the apps that this device works well with, like Lightroom, it’ll make you more productive and look cooler. It ships next month for $200, and Logitech is bundling it with a free three-month subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.
