I prefer physical switcher control surfaces but had been lamenting the small number of inputs usually offered. I recently picked-up an Xkeys-128 and decided that I could do without the T-bar. This decision, along from information from Vmix that stated that they didn't support direct, on-the-fly input selection (along with on-the-fly overlay channel selection), actually provided an opportunity to do without an overlay bus (row of buttons).

So now I was able to create a 32-input switcher (program and preview buses), along with some other very helpful functions - which you can see here and in the attached photo.

As you'll see in the upper right hand corner, there are 4 overlay channel buttons, but unfortunately, no toggle in/out capability, so I had to use two buttons for each overlay channel. As long as I select the desired input channel in Preview first, I can bring it in on any overlay channel.

You may have also noticed some unusual black keys, in the bottom and top rows (on the left). On the bottom row are positioning buttons; primarily for quickly changing the "area of interest" on 4K camera sources (in a 1080 preset); effectively providing 4 or 5 additional "virtual" cameras from a single 4K source.

In the upper left are buttons that I HOPE will soon be supported by Vmix (they stilll require shortcuts that don't yet exist) - for changing the "white stretch" and "black stretch" functions (like brightness & contrast) found in the Color Adjust section. You might think of these as part of a "Poor Man's Camera Control Unit" for quickly adapting to lighting changes throughout the day.

You can see my feature request posting here - and support it with a "+1" in your reply. Thanks!

From personal experience with the same surface, I prefer to have separate buttons for DSK on/off. This way there's no confusion and you have complete confidence that you actually turned the DSK on when you hit ON, and off when you hit OFF. or in/out to be proper.

With toggle, you have to visually confirm if you turned it on/off. For DSK specifically, toggle will increase the chance of accidents.

Just my opinion, of course.

You can also create shutcuts that change input parameters. For example, I also use an Elgato Stream Deck, which has nested folder buttons. I can access a specific folder dedicated to parameters for a specific input. So I can turn an overlay on/off, change the overlay to a different input, change alpha, even change volume.

In this fashion, I can assign say Input1 an overlay 1 as Cam1. Then be able to change overlay 1 to Cam2 with the StreamDeck. Basically making it a matrix controller. Then on the Xkeys surface, switch like normal.

The web function reference will give you the ability to do a whole lot more than even keyboard and mouse. I suggest taking a look at it.

Jon

streamdeck
https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/stream-deck

With the toggle shortcut you can also enable an activator to light up the same x-keys button to tell you when the overlay is in use.