Interesting new interfaces from a German company called Asparion. Hear good things about it’s predecessor (the 400 series).
That seems pretty pricey considering that it is a similar price to the SSL UF8. The UF8 has scribble strips built in; these are an extra cost option on the Asparion.
Sorry if this is not cheap enough 
have a look at behringer haha
It’s the same price as an Avid S1 and only a bit more expensive than the SSL (which is tied into an ecosystem) and uses more resources. This device is almost platform agnostic, it does not support Eucon nor does it support Yamaha’s protocol for Nuage, but it does support OSC, which is imho is a huge thing (Osc being open source and very rugid).making it future proof and compatible to more than 1 DAW.
Also this is a small company and the build quality is excellent from what I hear. So calling it pricey is relative and very subjective imo.
The problem with the price is that it puts it right next to the s1. Right now the de facto standard professional tools for post production is going to be Pro Tools and Nuendo and both support Eucon. So for people in my position that uses Nuendo about 95% right now the only time I don’t I’m on Pro Tools. So without deep integration via Eucon with both DAWs this things is d.o.a. in my book.
Also, that it’s coming from a small company is probably not only a good thing. Yes, possibly great build quality, but it’s a problem if the company goes under and you’re stuck needing repairs.
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While I agree that possibly a small company can be a risk with regards to repairs, the parts from their gear are pretty common except for circuit boards, but those in my experience seldomly fail. Faders however do and these are off the shelve iirc.
On the topic of Eucon, I’m not too certain that Eucon will last with the recent acquisition of Avid it will become a liability to count on support for it. OSC is something that allows deep integration from a software perspective, if Steinberg would open up to it (and they already ‘support’ in a very crude way for HUDs) there is a future there. Deep integration is something that they could allow, and should imo. That would take away their need to build a affordable ‘fader controller’ that is so sought after (by the looks of this thread).
I think this is an interesting fish in the pond and it brings makes new options/ventures possible. It will never be for everyone, but neither is any other controller.
People in short will never be happy.
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You’ve remade my point in a better form. SSL UF8 is similar hardware to the Asparion at a lower price. The Asparion with scribble strips is a similar price to an Avid S1.
It is unclear which protocol is going to dominate in the future: the limitations of Mackie Control and HUI are well-known, Avid will not licence Eucon for non-Avid hardware (and Avid’s acquisition by STG might mean changes relating to Eucon), OSC has been around for years but there is no widespread support in DAWs or on hardware controllers, and I am not familiar enough with the MIDI 2.0 specifications to know whether MIDI 2.0 offers hope of a unified and properly abstracted cross-device and cross-DAW controller ecosystem in the future.
If DAWs start to include OSC controller support without requiring the production of huge configuration files then things start to get interesting. For now, I regard the OSC support in an expensive hardware controller from a so far minor player in the marketplace as “interesting - let me know when there is broad DAW support for OSC controllers and I might consider a purchase”. If I’m going to have to use an OSC to MIDI bridge and write a MIDI Remote script for Nuendo to get the controller working properly, then what exactly am I paying for?
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Have you actually looked at the product website? From what i’ve gathered is that there is already support for Nuendo. How deep, i cannot tell, but writing a script from OSC to Midi Bridge sounds a bit of conjecture.
I might be wrong but go ahead. If you want to support SSL and step into their ‘cheaper’ vendor lock-in go ahead as well.
If you take a look at the support site, you can see that the Cubase/Nuendo support is implemented using their proprietary software and a MIDI Remote script that they supply. Good luck following the instruction “All pictures provided were
taken with Cubase 12 but it is also applicable to most other Cubase and Nuendo
versions” - unless my memory has gone awry, Cubase/Nuendo 12 was the first version to have MIDI Remote support, so you would have to use Mackie Control on earlier versions.
Supplying a MIDI Remote script is better than dropping to Mackie Control or HUI, with their known limitations. However, I cannot access any of the power of this controller’s OSC support in Nuendo today unless I bridge OSC to MIDI and write a MIDI Remote script.
I think it’s a good thing that there is a controller that supports OSC and MQTT. However, the OSC support requires you to run the Asparion Connector software on your computer - if Asparion closes or discontinues this software, your controller could eventually become just as useless as the closed ecosystem controllers that you were criticising. OSC support would be more interesting if the controller had an Ethernet port and would work with no external hardware.
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Ok but If you look at the manual you’ll see actual screenshots of Midi Remote Scripts… so I don’t really understand your point.
ok fair point but only if you solely rely on OSC or MQTT but the other protocols will still work.
And this ‘drop of support’ obv also is an issue with SSL / Nuage/ Eucon… so imo it’s a mute argument.
They should however just open source the connector software… because nobody is going to build the controller and sell it for less (ok maybe behringer haha).
The manual says “All pictures provided were taken with Cubase 12 but it is also applicable to most other Cubase and Nuendo versions” which is patently false - MIDI Remote Scripts are not supported in Cubase/Nuendo 11 and earlier. You would have to use Mackie Control in earlier versions.
MIDI Remote Script is the best implementation that is possible today. However, if I do not like the banking or scribble strip implementation in Asparion’s script then I cannot fix that in the MIDI Remote Script GUI - I am either going to have to edit their script directly or write my own implementation, most likely by bridging OSC to MIDI to take advantage of the full flexibility of OSC.
The Asparion controller is somewhat more open than its competitors - but not by much. You are still reliant on proprietary software for full functionality; it is just that that software happens to support OSC alongside other controller protocols.
As I said, it would be more interesting if you had the option to use OSC via an Ethernet port on the controller, which would require no proprietary software on the computer. If your DAW supports OSC then you are ready to configure the controller. If the DAW has no OSC support then you at least have the option of using a non-proprietary OSC to MIDI bridge.
I have already contacted Asparion and they told me that the focus of the controller follows the track selection on the screen. This does not work with SSL’s new controllers, which limits their overall usability tremendously.
I think I’ll give the D700 a try, therefore, although I have no real need for more than one single motor fader. 
SSL wants to do repair that (follows the track selection on the screen) with the 360 degree software version 1.6. So the support.
I’m just amazed that Behringer, Presonus and Cakewalk (Roland VS700) all managed this with their controllers.
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