By Brady Betzel

I am a sucker for good external hardware to control applications like Adobe Photoshop, Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve and more. I’ve been lucky enough to try out a bunch of different hardware options — hardware color-correction panels from Blackmagic Design, Loupedeck, Sensel and others. My favorites include Blackmagic’s Mini panel, the tried-and-true Wacom tablet and Tangent’s panels. I love them because they have solid construction, useful shortcuts and low latency with button pushes and dials.

In this review, I’ll be looking at the TourBox Neo, an external hardware controller for Adobe Creative Cloud apps, Resolve, Apple FCP X — basically any creative app plus Chrome or Firefox web browsers.

Hardware
Before I jump in, please note that I’m running the TourBox Neo on a relatively modern Windows 10-based PC. The TourBox Neo is a very well-constructed external hardware controller. If you’ve ever used a Blackmagic Mini panel or Tangent Element panel, the TourBox Neo will feel very similar. It is nice and heavy, so it won’t move around your desk when you use it. It also has a matte-rubbery coating over the main controller. The knobs, dials and buttons are mostly plastic. The scroll-type wheel has that same rubbery feel like the rest of Neo. My favorite part of the Neo’s buttons is that they all have a different tactile feel. Some are bumpy, some are smooth, some have grooves, some button presses are longer than others and so on. This really helps with muscle memory and blind toggling. One problem with other external controllers is that their buttons are all identical except for a visual representation (think Elgato Stream Deck). And while the Stream Deck is amazing, one issue is that if you are using it as a quick-access panel and are trying not to look, it can trip you up.

The TourBox Neo’s heft and tactile feel is great, but the buttons are a little too close together for me. One of the biggest features of the Neo is the ability to combine button pushes and have hundreds of shortcuts at your fingertips, but because the buttons are very close together, that made it difficult for me to combine button pushes. I wish the buttons were spread out another ½ inch or so. I think my fingers would be able to acclimate to the shortcuts much more easily. In truth, I found myself getting frustrated by the short button distances.

The TourBox Neo is powered over USB and comes with a USB-A to USB-C cable, which plugs into the Neo’s USB-C port. I had seen previous iterations of the TourBox Neo with an extra USB-A port so as not to block a USB port, but the TourBox Neo I received did not have this port.

Software Compatibility
The TourBox Neo essentially works as a mouse with a bunch of shortcut-assignable buttons, knobs and dials, and you can use any software installed alongside the TourBox Neo. That means the Adobe Creative Cloud apps or even Firefox. The trick with most apps is that you can only assign keyboard and mouse shortcuts to the buttons on the Neo. The only exceptions at the moment are Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

The built-in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Premiere Pro presets are clearly the best — and that’s obviously why they are automatically installed with the TourBox Console GUI. TourBox gives you a detailed list of each assignable shortcut for these applications. And while the defaults are great starting points, you can customize each shortcut to fit your workflow.

One thing to note: When I used the TourBox Neo inside of Lightroom, I noticed some weirdness — meaning it didn’t work correctly. I then immediately downloaded Lightroom Classic, and the TourBox Neo worked as I had expected. I really wish it worked well in the modern Lightroom because I typically steer clear of Lightroom Classic.

There is an option to find user-created software presets on the TourBox website, but when I downloaded some of them I realized they weren’t what I was looking for. In the end, I took an hour to really customize the TourBox Neo layout to my liking.

Real-World Results
I really wanted to use TourBox Neo in Resolve, so I downloaded a preset I found on the TourBox website. Once I launched the preset, I immediately realized that I would not be able to use the TourBox Neo to color correct. Obviously, Blackmagic would rather sell its users the Mini, Micro or even the new Speed Editor, but those are way above the TourBox Neo’s $169 price tag. However, if you are looking for a cheap option to the Blackmagic Micro or Mini panels, the TourBox Neo is not it. But what it does do well, with some customization, is work within the editing and cut pages of Resolve. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but since it works across different apps, it’s a solid plus.

I was really impressed with the Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro integration, specifically with color correction. I am a heavy keyboard shortcut user in Premiere, Resolve Avid Media Composer. I use a keyboard and a medium Wacom Intuos Pro. If I have to use another piece of hardware, it better be able to completely replace one of those components, or else I just added a paperweight to my desk real estate. ­

With some practice, I can see a way to lose the keyboard and only use the TourBox Neo and Wacom Intuos Pro when editing in Photoshop and Lightroom. I could even go further and see a way to use only the TourBox Neo if they added a secondary Neo for the left hand — a couple dials and buttons on that side would probably complete the puzzle. Think of an ergonomic Loupedeck. (Remember those old ergonomic Windows keyboards?! Sorry if you still use one.) In both Photoshop and Lightroom, once I isolate controls and movements to my left hand, while leaving my right hand only to use the stylus, I can see speed gains in my workflows.

The real game-changer for me was inside of Premiere. Since I am a working online editor and colorist, I am constantly tweaking brightness, contrast, saturation, etc. With the ability to set my “editing” presets and “color” presets on the TourBox Neo, I am now able to speed up the jump between those two separate workflows with ease. I have had a love/hate relationship with the color correction tools inside of Premiere. The color correction controls feel like they were ported over from Photoshop and Lightroom. But with an external hardware panel, Premiere’s color correction tools work very well. The ability to access most of the primary correction functions, like tint, temperature, exposure, “Kit Selection” (a.k.a. the up-down-left-right keys) really lets me fly through color correction. You can even add vignette adjustments to the dial with its deep integration into Adobe Premiere Pro.

Final Thoughts
In the end, I think the TourBox Neo is the cheapest and most versatile multi-application-compatible hardware on the market. The only hardware that is close is the Elgato Stream Deck priced at $150, but that does not come with the knobs and dials that I love to use.

Its pluses include deep integration with Adobe’s Premiere, Photoshop and Lightroom. Minuses for me were the lack of integration with Resolve, lack of macro programming ability, dense button configuration and lack of preset button setups for other applications.

The TourBox Console is easy to get up and running and use, however, I did notice that while the TourBox Console app and DPad Hub (screen overlay of the up-down-left-right keys) were working at the same time, my fans would kick on higher and consistently.

Would I recommend the TourBox Neo? It depends … If you have slender hands, I would be more willing to recommend the Neo, but if you have medium to large hands, the Neo can be a little difficult to use, especially when combining button presses. But the price is right at $169, the automatic cross-software compatibility is enticing and the hardware is sturdy. If you use Premiere, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, some sort of external hardware is beneficial, and the TourBox Neo should be on your shortlist.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and The Shop. He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.