I am planing to build yet another room to mix films and series productions for TV Broadcast & Streaming, not theatrical. Right now we own 3 Nuage setups, each with 2 Faders and 1 Master unit. 2 other rooms where we moslty do sound design and editing use old Avid Artist Mix and Artist Transport units.
Since Nuage is not available anymore I have to look for alternatives with similar functionality and flexibility. I really love the Nuage and it is a shame it got abandoned (Thread is not about that though ).
So, since I have not worked on any other controllers than the Nuage and rudimentaritly on an Avid Artist Mix I would love get your oppinion on what controller to invest in. What are Pros and Cons, Dos and Don’ts, Stuff to look out for.
Right now I have my eye on 2-3 Avid S1 and an Avid Dock, but I am looking for alternatives also!!
What a strange situation for Cubase/Nuendo. Surely theres a market for controller mixed with control room features (transport, monitor controls etc). I’m using a Yamaha DM2000. Had looked at Nuage as its natural replacement. To have to move to Avid to control Steinberg software doesnt seem right.
I didn’t click with the Nuage when it came out. For our big studio we went for a S6, as it needs to appeal to freelancers used to mixing on the S6 and PT.
Nuendo needs a bit of work to get up to the integration level of PT with the S6.
But the S6 is a VERY expensive proposition, even if it’s arguably cheaper than the cost of what a new S5 or DFC was 15 years ago.
I hear lots of people are happy mixing post with a bunch of S1 and a dock, but for me there is a big lack of rotary controllers (that’s also what put me off the Nuage). So I guess that the S4 could be an intermediate?
You could also go for… wait for it… a used System5! They go for very cheap now (you can get a 32 to 40 fader desk for around 10-15k€),and still work perfectly with Nuendo under Eucon 3.6.1. No banking (have to create layouts) but you get full control room functionality.
You’ll need someone with knowledge of the system to do the install, but once it’s done you’re good for a while.
Unfortunately even an S4 is kind of out of price range and I was never a big Fan of rotary knobs, so this is not a high necessity, although I am not going to be the only one mixing there.
Since I do want to serve both worlds, Nuendo and PT the S1+Dock still seems to be the economical best solution.
I am at Tonmeistertagung, DĂĽsseldorf right now and am a little disappointed for the lack of Hardware Controllers to check out.
The SSL UF8 is one of the best in my opinion as it supports track color, 8 character name lengths, and is now on version 2.0 with the promise of more to come soon. I can work farely well without looking at the screen. I do use a tablet running avid control as well so, its nice.
The thing to consider witth SSL is that if you want the deeper integration delivered by SSL360, you have to insert a plugin on every track of the project. This is not a problem except for the fact that tracks without plugin (VCA, MIDI, folder), won’t appear on the SSL. You’ll have to switch from a layer set as Mackie Control and another set as SSL360.
I don’t own SSL gear, but from the informations I gathered, that’s what I understand. If anyone with SSL control surface can correct me, please do !
Softube’s Console1 seems to have a native integration with Cubase and Nuendo and may be a good alternative to Avid products.
This is exactly right, ssl plugin added to add functionality. But being able to I spoke with SSL and they stated that they use the VST protocol to add the colors and additional functionality to the controller but VCA/Visibility is not included in the VST spec so they are trying to get a way of adding the other features. Good news is Steinberg did make the VST spec available to the public/vendors.. not sure of the terminology but SSL and other vendors should be able to get their hands on it.
Audio post at the level where you need a big-ish controller is a small market, and Nuendo users are a subset of that. So probably it’s a bit of a possibly costly gamble to get a controller to market.
My take on it is that they missed the mark with Nuage. Not because it isn’t a great controller, but because it was priced wrong. I’m the first to complain about complainers that want everything for less, but it’s really difficult to see how a lot of post engineers or post facilities can justify a 16-fader plus “center” setup for >20k USD when they can get 24 s1 faders + dock for around 6k. And the footprint is smaller. And you get Eucon so integration with PT is tight for the times you need that.
Fair enough, they competed just fine with the s6 at the time, but I think that was misreading the market.
I agree, it is a somewhat strange situation. Yamaha should be able to leverage its know-how and put out a controller, but I guess the counted beans don’t add up. “Thankfully” there’s Avid…
I don’t know. Seems like it is far behind the s1. Once you add Eucon functionality to the s1 it seems like it’s a no-brainer to me. Even just “Layouts” alone should make it significantly more useful.
Now, if Steinberg could just finally get us some additional Eucon-love that would be great (and overdue).
Yeah….and tell me again (if you know) why the ssl uf8 doesn’t support Eucon and likely never will….and ssl are therefore permanently hindered (in some regards).
I attribute it to “ssl doesn’t want to pay eucon fees”. Period.
I think I have yapped in the past that Yamaha DOES pay the eucon licensing fees as much as avid will allow…….
but I’m routinely told that I don’t know what I’m talking about regarding who can/cannot get licensing from Avid……
which may well be….
which then leaves me with “then I dunno why Ssl doesn’t fully implement eucon if it’s at no charge to them to develop..”
By the way, I sat in front of Nuage a bunch of times and it never gelled with me either.
Since Avid sells their own controllers there is close to zero incentive for them to allow competitors to use the protocol. I think it’s that simple really.
I would disagree on that one. The incentive for AVID would be to establish a market with high licensing fees and therefore generate extra cash flow from their protocol.
The reason this does not work is more likely because no manufacturer would take the risk to be dependent on AVID without a possible alternative if they raised fees.
We will see what the future brings. OSC and Steinberg’s remote control scripts may well bring new possibilities to manufacturers. I can see this being much more attractive for them (to build controllers like the nektar panorama but as an XXL version) Eventually this could lead to broad support for many DAWs and EuCon being pushed into a super small niche. This would put more pressure on AVID than Steinberg.
At the moment, though Steinberg can’t really offer anything that scales up from S1/S3 and their DAWs are stuck with an inferior automation system when compared to PT Ultimate. It still needs a major overhaul to allow true object based automation and scenes like PT.
So given the enourmous importance of complex automation in post, I would say Nuendo is in a rather rough place at the moment looking from both the software and hardware angles but things could change when the automation system gets a serious update and hardware manufacturers up their game.
As soon as those problems seem to get solved I see AVID opening the EuCon protocol at no or very low fees.
I guess the calculation would be how high that license would be, how many units it would apply to, and what the offset is on unrealized (avid) hardware sales.
If the license is “high” for the manufacturers of the hardware that gets transferred to the customers. I have no idea what the cost would be but if the manufacturer has to pay that up front for all units that would be a significant chunk of money, up front. If it’s the customer that pays to unlock it then people would be scared of it becoming subscription. On top of that people are already complaining about high costs even for the relatively cheap controllers.
So the question is what a competitor would actually be able to create at the $1,500 price point (where part of that is licensing) that would compete with an s1, and how much of a net profit it would be for Avid. My guess is that they’re counting on professionals buying Avid hardware because it’s better, better integrated because of Eucon, and because it also runs Pro Tools, and that the image of Avid being the professional end-to-end solution helps sell their products. Additional licensing revenue wouldn’t really move that calculation. I think.
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