Artist control question

Hello,

i plan to buy a new controller so i think to buy a used artis control v1 i think.
And i saw a video where they said that you cannot control vsti´s?
Is this true? i can´t belive it and vst instrument quick controlls?
Maybe i buy an old mackie if this is true and with cubase you can edit assignments
to v pots for vst´s and vsti´s pages.

Uwe

I’ve got an Artist Mix and Artist Transport setup and yes, it’s true that you can’t control VSTi’s unfortunately. I’m 99% sure the same is true of the Artist Control. I did have a Mackie Control Pro setup many years ago and I found the integration with Cubase to be quite poor. Just seemed like it was really designed to work with Logic and then they tried to make it work as best as they could with other DAWs. Obviously you have control of VSTi’s with the Mackie which is a plus but in almost every other areas I find the Avid stuff to be much better.

There was one real show stopper with the Mackie stuff. If you switch between fader banks and switch back, often you find that your fader levels are slightly altered. You might have a fader set at +1.5dB. Switch banks… the faders move… switch back and sometimes they don’t move back to exactly the right position so maybe your fader is now at 1.6dBs. Do this many many times during the course of a production and gradually your mix balance is ruined! Maybe this issue is cured now as it was several years ago when I had the Mackies but this issue made it completely unusable for me.

Thanks,

So maybe i buy some cheaper stuff like panorama p1 and save some money.
I just need it as addition for cubase running maschine and after bouncing all to audio I can use maschine as Mackie without the problem u described.
It’s allways so hard to buy new gear if you on a tight budged and of course want the most for your money. I am not an professional so maybe that’s enough?

Uwe

Actually I have a Panorama P6 and to be honest, I experimented with the plugin/VSTi control features the day I got it and I don’t think Ive used them a single time since then! I’ve just used it as a normal MIDI keyboard. The problem with it (and with most other controllers) is that let’s say you want to control the filter cutoff on a VSTi synth. By the time you’ve navigated through loads of pages on the tiny screen of the P6 you just feel that it would have been twice as quick to reach out and grab the mouse and look at your nice big computer screen!

I also have some Steinberg CMC’s. The CMC-QC could be another option for you. It’s not full of millions of options like the Panorama but it is a nice simple and quick solution for VSTi control.

You absolutely CAN control VST parameters with an Artist. You do this via Quick Controls - press and hold the EQ button to get into the right mode. Anything you can control via Quick Controls - which is pretty much everything - you can control with your Artist. Using 8 touch sensitive faders with clear displays to control parameters is excellent.

Incidentally, Cubase is unique here, you can’t do this using any other DAW. It was the primary reason I switched from Sonar.

Hi

Operating an AVID artist control + mix, I can of sure control VSTi via Quick Control. Really handy! If you invest some more time, you can program each VSTi to a button on the touch screen of the artist control to have an even more comfortable approach. (24 buttons per page - 99 pages!)
Of course there must be a correct starting point like the inspector of the track to enable the functions. But this is to be done anyway.

Having these gears now for years, there wasn’t any function within Cubase, which was not programmable and manageable by one of this two devices.

About the pricing - yeahhh, that’s then the question to have something to be proud of or just something that works :laughing:


Cheers

Yes, sorry my post wasn’t correct. Quick Controls is one solution but not quite the same as having full VSTi parameter control because you have to assign your QC’s to certain synth parameters and are limited to eight at a time so it’s not quite as simple/fast as having all the parameters available quickly (although you would have to scan through different pages on the Artist to access them).

Personally I think much beyond 8 is a waste of time, or to be more specific its not the right tool for the job. I don’t believe the right tool for that job yet exists actually - there’s no good equivalent to hardware imo when it comes to actual programming. However, an endless different thread lies down that tangent.

For automating control of VSTs, I’ve never needed more than 8 personally, and I think the Artist Mix is the best tool for the job out there. Nothing else with a) the small footprint; b) the touch long throw faders; c) a clear display for each fader that you can name and customise. Cubase 8 also makes it very easy to copy etc controls between tracks.

Yes, agreed. Still nobody has made the ideal Cubase controller apart from possibly Nuage if you have very deep pockets.

Thanks for all the answers I’ll think about it and then buy …???..? will see

You still can’t mirror THE channels in the mixer, so I would really like to see a new eucon configuration.

Sorry, don’t understand?

If you create a huge template, and hide some of the tracks, you will of course want these tracks to be hidden also on the MCControl.
But thats not possible. You can deselect track types like Midi, but unfortunately you can’t have JUST the tracks in the mixer to show up on the control.
So if you have a template with 45 track instruments and 200 midi tracks, you can get rid of the midi - all the midi! But you have to deal with the 45 tracks although you might only use 10 or 20.
Hope you see my point!

Ah yes, I’ve got you know. Should be possible in a Cubase update. I don’t really use the visibility agents much - I always find unintended side effects somewhere.