Question for Owners of Unsupported Controllers

Steinberg Lounge
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This question is specifically for those of us who have invested HEAVILY into what has now become “mega-buck paper weights” but also generally to more affordable DAW controllers.

To those who invested tens of thousands into Euphonix System 5MC, WK id, Smart AV Tango, Avid D Control/D Command, DTouch, Slate Raven, Nuage and the smaller Artist Series, Digi 02/03 et al…

How are you or did you mitigate the loss of such an integral part of your studio? One of the strongest arguments FOR analog hardware is the REALITY of it. You spend $10-95k for a desk and no matter what changes happen in the industry, you’ve still got a working desk that you only get better, faster and more efficient on over time.

But for all of the convenience of the best controllers, they are NOT REAL, anymore than the DAW is and, as such, are subject to the whims of the companies who make them. You put $15-50k into a “Serious Controller” expecting to amortized it over 5 years and really be in the profit zone for an additional 5+ only to have it stop working because they no longer make drivers for it, or they’ve changed platforms, or the company was driven out of business due to low sales.

So now what do you do? Do you purchase all the support accessories and parts you can find and try to stop time? Now you’re “confined” to Nuendo 12 or Pro Tools 18 or whatever the last working iteration of a DAW or platform it was on. Or do you cut your losses and cautiously purchase a less expensive/less integrated controller and make do? Maybe you say “Screw this!” and go back to Analog/Hybrid, so that you won’t be subjected to that kind of hit again.

I’m curious to know what strategies are out there for dealing with this kind of loss and if there’s any way to protect oneself from being trapped in this vicious cycle once and for all.

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Sorry to hear that!

I don’t have a specific strategy. In the past, I got rid of all sorts of hardware and kept barely anything. I wish I hadn’t sold it all for pennies and stored it away, though. Today, I really like my stripped down setup with a minimum set of controllers. But that’s not for everyone and I am always tempted to gear up TBH.

I can’t suggest anything. Don’t sell it if you don’t have to - that’s all the advice I have.

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I have associates who take the approach that all equipment for a job is paid for by that one job. That is, the infrastructure is paid for by clients. Of course this means sometimes certain pieces must be rented because the job isn’t lucrative enough. But occasionally a large job will allow a buy-in for something that stays around afterwards.

Basically they don’t invest in gear hoping it will pay off over a long time

I probably don’t have to say that they don’t work in audio post!!!

Like all of you I’ve been burned by gear which requires software support outside of the actual item, becoming unsupported. Now I avoid that scenario unless the gear is a low cost ‘toy’ ( some of which can be useful btw! ).

Connectivity protocols will hopefully eventually get standardized to a form of high speed Ethernet which will ‘always’ be available ( like MIDI!) but there’s no way around the proprietary driver problem.

No question it’s hard.