POLL: How many monitors do you use with Cubase?

2 + HDTV

30" CinemaDisplay TFT in the middle at 2560/1600
24" Samsung TFT to the left at 1920/1080

46" Sony Flatscreen TV at 1920/1080 above for scoring to picture

Currently I have 1 Dell 27" and a Toshiba 47" HDTV. However, I don’t always need the TV, as it either only has the mixer, which I don’t really need to see most of the time, or the film, when I’m working to picture.


DG

DG, is that the Dell U2711 at 2560x1440?

They would have to be the best $/MPx value around. The Dell 30" at 2560x1600 cost almost twice as much for only 11% more pixels.

Yes, it is. Although I’m sure that 30" is nice, it is a little too big for the space that is available. on my desk.

DG

DG,

When they came out, I already had three 30" and my wife had one. It didn’t take much to persuade her to have two of the 27" and I get her 30" to match mine. At the time, it would have cost about the same to get a new 30" and this way she added 80% more pixels.

The 27" gets almost as hot on the face as the 30" though!

I’m in progress to select my first touch screen for controlling VSTi:s. But I’m concerned that they will not work in ‘multi touch’ style?? I’m using Cubase 6. Any information about that? Will I be able to select just one control at the time?

I need a model that allow placing in flat position. Can you please recommend some models?

Cheers.

Hello MusicStarter,

The Dell ST2220T is an IPS screen that can lay down to 20o to the horizontal using the stand, or even flat on its back.

An IPS screen is necessary as it will not wash out when viewed from such low angles.

It works well, but there are some caveats:

  • multi-touch gestures work well in programs designed to use them, though there are some standard ones in Win 7 for page up, down, cut, paste, delete, etc, though they may do strange things in some programs if not done properly

  • The buttons in the Cubase mixers seem be rather tough adverse, but the sliders work well

  • In MYOB, some dialogs don’t respond to touch at all, though standard message and dialog boxes work OK

  • Cubase still has some buttons and checkboxes that are just too small to use reliably with touch. Some do have enough room around them to be bigger.

  • Only smaller screens, like phones and tablets use capacitive touch. Large monitors use optical methods, typically from NextWindow. These work by interrupting infrared beams, so actually touching the screen is not necessary.
    This is a two-edged sword, as while any object can be used to ‘touch’, it is also sensitive to errant ‘undercarriage’ (fingers, etc) that are flying a bit too low (less than 3mm from the surface).


    I bought the Dell because there was nothing I could use to overlay touch on one of my 30"s at the time. It is 21.5", 1920x1080, and fortunately has pixels the same size as the 30"s. It was also relatively cheap at under AU$400.

However, NextWindow now has overlays that suit 30" monitors, but I think that the active surface may be several mm away from the LCD (like 10mm or more = monitor’s existing bezel height + overlay’s glass), so that using it at shallow angles will create so much parallax error that too many miss touches will occur. Using it straight on, as in most kiosks, would probably be OK, but fine adjustments would be unlikely. At least with the ST2220T, the touch ‘surface’ is close to the LCD. It would be good to have twice as many pixels to touch (2560x1600 = 4MPx vs 1920x1080 = 2MPx), because there are a lot of things to touch and Win 7 only allows the primary monitor to be touch enabled.

I have a 24" LED monitor but want to add a second 24" and was thinking of getting a 1920x1200 TN panel like the Samsung S24A459UW LED…should I get an IPS panel instead.So,it’s not so much the high resolution but the type of panel I should consider?
I’m also thinking of getting a third display,30" placed in the middle of these two 24s but higher on the wall…should that one be an IPS also or can I get away with a TN 1920x1200…IPS 30 will be too much on my low budget,i’m afraid

Hi

Was using one(1) 22" Monitor for a long periode, but increased recently to two(2) 22" Monitors, mainly to have the mixer always on top and visible.

In regard to the monitor speakers (was not really the question, wasn’t it?), I had some Tannoy passive speakers, but completed it recently with some Yamaha HS-50M speakers.


Cheers

LG has some low budget IPS panels that are only slightly more money than a TN, their 22 and 23" models in particiular are good value, they differ from high spec IPS panels in that the colourspace is only 6 bits (software interpolated to 8 bits) this is less than optimal for high end graphics but of no issue with something like cubase and they are definetly worth is, less strain on the eye, more people can view them, you can see the screen clearly from an angle and videos are a lot better as well.

Difficult to go back to normal panels after using those, this is a bit like analogue monitors, the main factor in the visual quality of analogue monitors was the DAC on the graphics card and not the monitor itself, but it was difficult to get people to spend money on a graphics card with a detter DAC, they always went with 3D acceleration specs and so on rather than the image quality. With those cheap IPS screen this should no longer be an issue, try it out for yourself, definetly worth it.

There is a difference between 1900 x 1200 in Cubase versus 1900 x 1080, Cubase will eat any screen space it can get its hands on apparently, but I would recommend you go to a store and try it out, you may want to trade off to the slightly lower resolution versus the better image quality.