Logitech MX Creative Console Review: Useful Controls If You Put In The Effort

A little over a year ago, Logitech acquired Loupedeck, known for its popular programmable devices designed to streamline workflows for professional creators and streamers, like the Elgato Stream Deck and Razer Stream Stream Controller. The MX Creative Console is Logitech’s first model, joining the company’s MX lineup aimed at power users like the Master series. It’s been completely redesigned to make it more accessible to creative professionals who might find all-in-one console designs and their complex customization software intimidating. One of the key changes is the split between the button console and the dial functions, which are now two separate parts.

It’s also significantly cheaper than most Loupedeck models, priced at $200. Despite the lower price, it offers many of the same features as the flagship Loupedeck CT at $559. It also includes three months of Adobe Creative Cloud for new and existing users. It will ship on October 14 — I tested it with early versions of the software — and the product will initially support a limited number of apps:

• Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Illustrator, Express, Audition, Premiere Pro and After Effects
• Capture One tethering software for photographers (Mac only)
• Ableton Audio/Video Editing Software
• Spotify, VLC, Apple Music
• FaceTime, Discord and Zoom
• OBS, Twitch, Streamlabs (Windows only), VMix (Windows only) and Phillips Hue

However, more information may emerge before the official launch.

That’s not to say you can’t create your own profiles for other apps, but without plugin support, you’re limited to hacky mappings of keyboard shortcuts and macros. The plugin is key because it gives the Logi Options Plus app access to the full API, giving you direct control over more settings without having to manually configure every action. There are OS settings for both Mac and Windows, which is nice. And in November, Logitech plans to add the ability to back up settings, which is key.

The CC is available in light gray or dark gray and consists of a Creative DialPad MX Bluetooth keyboard that will also work with $15 Screw Logi Bluetooth adapter and MX Creative Keypad with USB-C port.

The DialPad has four programmable buttons for each app, a large, free-spinning dial (meaning there’s no start or end point, and no tactile feedback to indicate the specific locations or units you’ve turned), and a free-spinning roller. It supports connecting to up to three devices and runs on AAA batteries that last up to 18 months.

The Keypad is a keyboard with nine visible mappable buttons and a pair of previous/next page buttons. It supports up to 15 pages of mappings per app. It comes with a cable router stand that holds it at an angle. I wish it were adjustable, because the fixed angle doesn’t work for me, nor does laying it flat. Someone could probably design and 3D print a custom version. But I can’t.

When Options Plus is loaded, you can bring up the Actions Ring, a programmable, app-specific control overlay ring, on your screen. You select a tool, then manipulate it using the DialPad or another device. In many cases, these features are the same as those available on your keyboard, but they’re useful in situations where you’re already moving your mouse around the screen. Unfortunately, the Ring always appears at the cursor, which can be frustrating if you instinctively swipe to the bottom of the screen to prevent accidental changes when pressing mouse buttons. For some people, having it pop up at the cursor makes sense, since you don’t have to move anywhere to start selecting. But I’d like to have an option for those of us who work differently.

To program everything, you basically drag and drop from a list of actions to a control or button; each set of them is a profile, and each app can have multiple profiles. It can automatically load a default profile based on the app or tool in the app you switched to. Similar to Loupedeck, you’ll be able to get user profiles in the Logi Marketplace.

But as far as I know, if you want to be able to use multiple profiles in the app, you have to manually add a Switch Profile button for each profile you want to switch to, and each profile you want to switch from. If there’s a slider in the interface, you’ll have to adjust it with a knob or scroll wheel if you want to use it with CC.

More annoyingly, the software doesn’t let you add buttons from other profiles or combine profiles for frequently used or custom features you want to have in each profile. For example, I need multiple types of screenshots available from each app. I’ve tested keyboards and many of the smaller ones don’t have a PrtSc key, so I have to remap at least one shortcut in the Game Bar, which is a nightmare. (Almost every combination says, “This shortcut won’t work. Choose another one and try again,” instead of telling me which ones ARE available.)

There are also some limitations that Logitech has little control over because they are not included in the API. And in my case, there are many things I want it to do that it can’t. For example, Adobe doesn’t have an API for Camera Raw in Photoshop.

In my case, it can’t provide direct access to numeric fields, at least that’s what I’ve seen in Lightroom and Photoshop. (I think you’ll need to create macros if you want to get around this with the dial.) But I want to go to specific exposure change values ​​like 0.3, 0.7, etc. It’s faster for me to just click in that field and type it in than anything CC can do, given the API.

And using a free-spinning dial for anything precise is frustrating unless you have excellent fine control in your non-dominant hand (which I don’t), no matter how low you set the speed. I need feedback that tells me “yes, you moved the unit in this direction” or “yes, that’s halfway there for volume or brightness.” For example, I had to remap the top buttons on the Dialpad in Lightroom from undo/redo to previous/next photo to stop me flying past the photo I wanted. Honestly, I’ll probably keep using the arrow keys. In an ideal world, it would work like the scroll wheel on some gaming mice, where you could switch between free-spinning and stepped modes on the fly. Not everyone feels the same way, but if you do, watch out for yourself.

I find Keypad more useful than DialPad, in part because you can add multi-step actions to a single button press, like filtering by flag, selecting all, and exporting in Lightroom. Many actions are simply easier to do with the keyboard if you’ve already memorized the shortcuts—trying to break muscle memory isn’t worth it. But for things you only do occasionally, it can be faster than trying to remember where it is in the interface.

One problem is that I’d like to be able to reorganize them to put things I do often on the front pages and group them differently. You can move buttons around, change icon fonts, colors, backgrounds, etc., but I couldn’t find an easy way to move them from page to page. Trying to find a rarely used tool on more than two or three pages of choices, if they’re not organized the way you want, really isn’t any faster. I also couldn’t find a way to edit them in bulk, like changing background colors or fonts, or color-coding them for an entire toolkit or app. There are only two global settings, for key brightness and turning auto profile switching on and off.

Logitech says it’ll likely eventually add Options Plus settings to G Hub, which would make it much more convenient for streamers and others who have Logitech gaming gear. So there’s no need to run two productivity apps; the company already does that with its MX Brio webcam. Hooray!

How much you appreciate the MX Creative Console depends on a number of factors, including what apps you use frequently, whether the keyboard shortcuts you need are hardwired into your brain or not, how dexterous you are with the hand you need to use the Dialpad, how much customization you’re willing to do if the default profiles don’t quite cover what you need, and more. I think there’s something for everyone here, but whether it’s worth spending $200 if you don’t really need it is another story.