Hey everyone, I'm looking at the possibility of upgrading my control surface - at the moment just using faders and dials on my keyboard, but this one's on the way out (going on 11 years) and I'm considering something new. Just wondering if anyone has had experience with various products out there particularly using with VE Pro and Cubase.
I'm pretty behind right now as to how control surfaces work at the moment - how efficient and clever are they. For example if I am in cubase, say I'm using a Mackie Universal Control Pro, obviously you would want that to automatically sync to the faders in Cubase, but if I switch applications to VEP, obviously you would want it to sync with those faders. How does that work with the special VEP panners? If I open an Vienna Suite EQ inside VEP, does the control surface sync automatically to the EQ parameters? What if I open a third party EQ like SSL or Waves - will it sync to that? Do you have to program everything in yourself tediously?? One of the most important uses for me is mapping of the Vienna Instruments Pro parameters - dynamics, filter, humanise, tune, delay, attack, release, etc etc. I want these to be there whenever I select a VI midi track in cubase - I don't know if that's possible - for example, to the have the surface as faders / mixer for the DAW mixer, but then press a function button or something, and they switch to controlling these midi functions for VIP. These are my many questions!
I am also looking at the Cubase MC control series, because I do want a drum pad. Has anyone gotten use of these yet? They seem pricy for what they are, on the other hand, there's might be merit to not using mechanical faders, and using touch pads instead, because there are less parts to wear out. (How durable is the Mackie?)
Third option would be something much cheaper for the short term, since I can live without motorised faders, and mostly what I need above all is VIP and EQ control - so something like an Akai controller keyboard, unweighted or semi weighted (I already have a fully weighted master keyboard, this would be an addition mainly for the faders, knobs and drum pads, and maybe for use as a key change controller)... but I read reviews that say the pads are not very accurate, and that is something I would like to be pretty decent. (If I get a Mackie I would get a separate pad device).
Does anyone know if the new Mackie controller uses USB to interface, with a higher resolution, or MIDI (with just 127 steps per parameter).
The Euphonix I tried out and it didn't impress me - it seemed poorly built for the cost - ie, bad value for money. But any other recommendations also appreciated. I'm guessing there are others out there who also are wondering about answers to these questions.