Ah, interesting. Yeah, definitely better to use EuControl with a tablet than mouse… I think…
I guess one thing that could be good is that if you have a hardware problem with a moving fader you might not find a replacement near by since it’s more of an item found in music stores, whereas a tablet can be found in most consumer electronics stores I would think. Not that one excludes the other.
I would probably lean toward a tablet, or at least setting that up and making sure that works and then travel with both.
Seems like it’s being phased out. No longer on the Behringer site, and others list it out of stock/discontinued. Sweetwater still has it, but must be maybe remaining stock. The unit I bought from them was their demo model On the plus side, whatever is left will be discounted. Also can always look on eBay for decent used models. If it was just discontinued, software support will be ok for a while, and I think it uses the standard HUI / Macki protocols, not something proprietary like Eucon.
The other option - speaking of Avid surfaces, you could look into the Avid Dock. It has a single fader and decent controls. I hated the the Mix, but the dock (other than it’s somewhat bulky dimensions) was fine to work with. And it has the stand for the tablet with the Control software. The Dock may not fit into the the 1560 Pelican but should in a slightly bigger. It would give you the option of taking the dock space allowing, and if space it tight just grab the tablet. You will have to work out Eucon though. As mentioned in the thread, it works for many, but there are some pitfalls for some.
Again, all great insights and advice. I’m a bit surprised the both Steinberg and Behringer have discontinued their single fader hardware options. It seems to me that there’s a market for this but I guess I’m wrong. Looking at tablet options, I’ve downloaded the Avid control on my tablet to see how it behaves. So far so good. At first glance, I like the Avid Dock as a hardware option, it does seem a bit bulky, but may be my only option.
Any reason you’d pick the Dock to go with your tablet instead of the s1?
I’d really consider just what you need on the Dock in terms of buttons, and if you can live with those functions mapped to the tablet (if possible) and if you could use more faders then the s1 would probably make more sense.
The only thing about the S1 is the lack of jog wheel, which I thought might come in handy and also the lack of transport control, unless I’m missing something.
I don’t use jog/shuttle anymore. Years ago I used to but I just stopped bothering with it. I typically locate on the timeline using the trackball or other means, and I use the keyboard for transport.
For transport control on the s1 you can look at a picture of it - the buttons below each fader is assignable and you can set them to control transport if you want, or fader layouts, or a million other things. You access them all through the EuCon setup software. There’s a shift key on the controller so you get two layers for a total of 16 assignable functions.
Re: Avid Dock, in the Nuendo integration quite a few of the buttons did work in Nuendo. All the transport buttons at the bottom were fine. So where most of the automation buttons on the left. I believe jog and shuttle worked too, though there were some quirks (mostly on Nuendo’s behalf). That’s two years ago, so my memory is a bit hazy.
Another option might consider non-traditional controllers like Stream Deck + | Elgato. It’s integrated into software via Midi, some report in this forum that it works well with Nuendo, but haven’t tried myself. There are a number of other smaller controllers that have single faders, like this one: Review: Palette, A Modular MIDI Controller : Ask.Audio (also no first-hand experience, but seen it pop up quite a bit).
For transport I now use the mapping on the SSL controllers (The UC1 BusComp encoder can be used as a jog wheel while the buttons below are play/stop. On the UF8 the channel encoder does the same thing while the four cursor buttons at the bottom become fwd/rev/play/rec/stop.
But I also use the ShuttleProV2, which you can program for Nuendo. It has both shuttle and job, and then several buttons I mapped to different functions when doing dialog edit. I find that quite convenient when doing a long session of cutting out speaker errors, stutter, etc. in a pod cast or film.
All that said, I have a feeling that the landscape in control surfaces may see some changes in the coming months. So if you’re not in a rush, I’d wait until June and see how it looks then. It may be worth the wait. Old stuff tends to disappear just before something new shows up.
I’ve heard the same for at least three years. “Just wait until NAMM, I have a feeling something is coming (hint, hint).” Then nothing. Seems a fair amount of times people imply they have inside info it doesn’t pan out. Slightly annoying. So I won’t hold my breath.
Anyone here ever heard of the Mackie Control? It works with everything. It works with Wavelab and Vegas Pro. I know of no DAW it doesn’t work with. I have had mine from day one of its release. I had the Logic Control before it. The Mackie Control has to be the most documented control surface around. It’s funny it was not mentioned here.
Well, I’ve worked on one and it’s built like a tank, I’ll give it that. But the thing is that it’s big and bulky and all it does is run the Mackie protocol, which is exactly what the “clones” do for half the price.
To me it makes no sense to get that controller for the same amount of money you can get an Avid s1 and a tablet. With the latter you get faaaar deeper control in Nuendo, and maximum control in Pro Tools for those times when you unfortunately have to use that software.
So, very good controller? Yes.
Worth the money? No.
I find it hard to believe any control surface can beat a well-crafted DAW keyboard command file and muscle memory. All I really need is a single motorized fader for occasional automation writes. The original Faderport still works well as a motorized fader, but all it’s stiff, clunky buttons are useless to me (again, keyboard is so much faster). I’d much rather have Steinberg come out with their own compact, single-fader controller.
The Mackie is big and clunky and takes up half of the coffee table I keep it on. I would love to replace it with 2x smaller units if I could find a home for it. As i was coming from a giant Pro Tool surface it was a relief but now it is time to go as soon and I find small surface that works well with N12 on a Mac,…s
With experience your opinion might change, depending on the work you do.
Having multiple faders (talking s1 / tablet now) allows you to lock some faders to specific tracks, so during your main mix pass you can have for example your DME, M&E, music stem and effects stem groups all locked on their own faders and leave the other four (if you have 8 total) assignable by selecting tracks. You can also switch that up with a number of predefined layouts that you have in your template. One for sound design, one for production audio editing etc.
And on that note the benefit of having a tablet is a) that you get clear text with color coding for your commands that you’re triggering. So while you probably won’t use it for editing purposes since that would be too slow all the millions of other things you may want to trigger will be available to you clearly which is better than digging through menus or trying to remember if [whatever] was just “O” or “shift+O” or… b) that you can customize your soft key pages and basically set it up as you like. I have one for editing, one for mixing, and one for ‘output’ where I export deliverables and review samples. Very useful to collect Nuendo functions into pages based on the task(s) I’m performing… and c) by using Eucon I think you actually get access to more commands than you do with a keyboard, which means you’re extending capabilities. It also has it’s own macro system.
Well, they had one, and if it sold really, really well I’m sure they’d still have it in production. They also had the touch controllers. And Nuage.
The controller market is I think not easy to fit into. The customer base has a lot of different opinions about the features controllers need to have and also different opinions on pricing. So you think about all the controllers that are out there and where they fall in terms of price and it’s really not easy I think.
I agree with Mattias. There’re environments where you need a really quick access to parameters you must have very accessible. 24 faders of my DM2000 plus AVID 8 faders control bring to me the access I need.
Nuage is now the more accurate surface for Nuendo, but Yamaha is doing some movements about it. Maybe the new DM3 series a start to a new catalog of DAW surface controllers from Yamaha?
Right. I keep forgetting Nuendo (and thus, this forum) is primarily a post-pro DAW, whereas I am using it for a multichannel/Atmos music workflow.
Those looked good on paper, but terrible in practice. If touch controllers were a viable alternative to physical, motorized faders, I suspect we’d see more (studio) folks mixing from iPads. Frankly, I don’t feel a glass slider is any more tactile or efficient than simply using a mouse, at least when it comes to writing delicate automation.
On the plus side, whatever is left will be discounted. Also can always look on eBay for decent used models. If it was just discontinued, software support will be ok for a while, and I think it uses the standard HUI / Macki protocols, not something proprietary like Eucon.