# Control Surface with Locking Channels



## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 23, 2017)

I learned about an interesting feature of the Avid S6 on Alan Meyerson's MWTM videos. This video demonstrates it it:



Anyone know of a cheaper control surface that offers that? I've been doing more mixing and am considering to get a bigger control surface to replace my faderport.

I looked through the Artist Mix manual and it doesn't seem to be able to do that but maybe it's a hidden feature that someone knows about.

Edit: Found it for the Artist Mix. Seems to be called layouts. Anyone know of any other options? I'd prefer to stay away from Avid for personal reasons. The Eucon surfaces seem to offer the most features for mixing.


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## s_bettinzana (Apr 23, 2017)

Hello,
do you want this feature for Pro Tools, Cubendo or other DAW control surfaces?

Silvano


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## synthpunk (Apr 23, 2017)

I would think the S3 should have it. Not cheap, but certainly much less than the S6.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 23, 2017)

s_bettinzana said:


> Hello,
> do you want this feature for Pro Tools, Cubendo or other DAW control surfaces?
> 
> Silvano



Just Nuendo. PT would be nice since the Faderport doesn't work properly with it but I rarely use PT. 



synthpunk said:


> I would think the S3 should have it. Not cheap, but certainly much less than the S6.



I'm looking for something around the price of the Artist Mix and 8 faders would be enough for me. I'll start seriously considering the Artist Mix but I don't want to sink more money into Avid.


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## synthpunk (Apr 23, 2017)

Check out the Behringer X Touch series.



Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Just Nuendo. PT would be nice since the Faderport doesn't work properly with it but I rarely use PT.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm looking for something around the price of the Artist Mix and 8 faders would be enough for me. I'll start seriously considering the Artist Mix but I don't want to sink more money into Avid.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 23, 2017)

synthpunk said:


> Check out the Behringer X Touch series.



As far as I can tell they only use Mackie so it doesn't follow channel selection and you can't lock tracks. That's pretty useless for me as I'm working on projects with hundreds of tracks that I need to be able to quickly access.


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## Mishabou (Apr 23, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Just Nuendo. PT would be nice since the Faderport doesn't work properly with it but I rarely use PT.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm looking for something around the price of the Artist Mix and 8 faders would be enough for me. I'll start seriously considering the Artist Mix but I don't want to sink more money into Avid.



Unfortunately if you want the best control surface for PT and/or Nuendo, Avid's Eucon controller or Nuage are the only ticket in town.


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## Garlu (Apr 23, 2017)

Avid's Eucon Free "PT Control" app allows you to lock only one channel in the entire mixer. I hope they implement more Eucon possibilities in the near future (like being able to create your own layouts locking multiple channels). 

Although, there is one thing you could apply with this app: you can select to display one kind of track only. If you set only to display "master faders" for example (or VCA's), and your template has that controlling every track you need, then you would be all set (no matter in which order/where in your PT session those are). I know it's not the feel of a "touchable" fader but maybe a possibility to consider...


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## clisma (Apr 23, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Just Nuendo. PT would be nice since the Faderport doesn't work properly with it but I rarely use PT.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm looking for something around the price of the Artist Mix and 8 faders would be enough for me. I'll start seriously considering the Artist Mix but I don't want to sink more money into Avid.



When looking at the Artist Mix series, consider that the drivers can be a bit hit and miss and I read somewhere a couple of months back, that support will end for the series in the near future (maybe 2021?). Plus, Avid is not a great company to deal with if you need any kind of support. Letting you know as an owner who loves his Artist Mix.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 23, 2017)

clisma said:


> When looking at the Artist Mix series, consider that the drivers can be a bit hit and miss and I read somewhere a couple of months back, that support will end for the series in the near future (maybe 2021?). Plus, Avid is not a great company to deal with if you need any kind of support. Letting you know as an owner who loves his Artist Mix.



I have heard a lot of horror stories with it randomly not working and having to constantly reconnect it or it not being supported by OS updates. I was planning to not get the older Euphonix ones to avoid ending support but had no idea these wouldn't be supported soon since these Avid rebranded ones came out only a few years ago. One more reason for me to not want more Avid.

I tried the app and most of the time it didn't work. Perhaps an indicator of what would happen if I got one of these.



Garlu said:


> Avid's Eucon Free "PT Control" app allows you to lock only one channel in the entire mixer. I hope they implement more Eucon possibilities in the near future (like being able to create your own layouts locking multiple channels).



I'm not a fan of touchscreens for any sort of mixing, just for buttons or faders you only roughly set (like click level).

The S3 is too much for me to consider with my current work. Especially since the Faderport works so well for me. I'd just like to have more faders for when I'm constantly jumping between a few tracks so that I don't have to keep constantly clicking between the tracks to get them on the Faderport.


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## Hugh Harrer (May 4, 2017)

synthpunk said:


> Check out the Behringer X Touch series.





Gerhard Westphalen said:


> As far as I can tell they only use Mackie so it doesn't follow channel selection and you can't lock tracks. That's pretty useless for me as I'm working on projects with hundreds of tracks that I need to be able to quickly access.



This is true but it DOES follow visibility settings in Nuendo unlike the EUCON based stuff.

I use 24 channels of MCU and being able to set up 8 different visibility configurations quickly - all containing frequently accessed tracks (like piano, vox, or dialog) - and accessing these from 8 dedicated buttons on the surface . . . MUCH preferable to a few locked tracks. Especially with hundreds of tracks and only 8-32 faders.

Hugh


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## Anders Wall (May 4, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I'm not a fan of touchscreens for any sort of mixing, just for buttons or faders you only roughly set (like click level).


The "locking" feature is within the Eucon software, any Eucon enabled hardware has it.
http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/artist-action
http://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net...If_TiQeTL5H_1L_O6N3AbkdHiavSZ1=&itok=hx4VRVZX
It's not AS easy as on the S6, you have to go though the software (as far as I'm aware).
Best,
Anders


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## Gerhard Westphalen (May 4, 2017)

Hugh Harrer said:


> This is true but it DOES follow visibility settings in Nuendo unlike the EUCON based stuff.
> 
> I use 24 channels of MCU and being able to set up 8 different visibility configurations quickly - all containing frequently accessed tracks (like piano, vox, or dialog) - and accessing these from 8 dedicated buttons on the surface . . . MUCH preferable to a few locked tracks. Especially with hundreds of tracks and only 8-32 faders.
> 
> Hugh



Interesting. I hadn't thought about that. So you basically hide everything except those tracks? 

In my case I'm not sure if that would really work as I'm getting sessions from other people so I don't have a standard track routing set up and would have to be constantly creating different visibility configurations. I need to be able to quickly move around instead of having to keep stopping to create various presets.


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## Hugh Harrer (May 4, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Interesting. I hadn't thought about that. So you basically hide everything except those tracks?
> 
> In my case I'm not sure if that would really work as I'm getting sessions from other people so I don't have a standard track routing set up and would have to be constantly creating different visibility configurations. I need to be able to quickly move around instead of having to keep stopping to create various presets.



If you're familiar with Nuendo you know that creating a new Visibility Configuration is as easy as swipe selecting a bunch of tracks in the Visibility Pane (control select any individual non-contiguous tracks you need), Shift Click on these will make only those tracks visible and hide any others, then "create new configuration" and it's saved.

Takes a lot longer to type it/read it than to do it.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (May 4, 2017)

Hugh Harrer said:


> If you're familiar with Nuendo you know that creating a new Visibility Configuration is as easy as swipe selecting a bunch of tracks in the Visibility Pane (control select any individual non-contiguous tracks you need), Shift Click on these will make only those tracks visible and hide any others, then "create new configuration" and it's saved.
> 
> Takes a lot longer to type it/read it than to do it.



But I don't want to have everything else disappear while I'm working. Say I have a solo trumpet that I'm constantly adjusting as I work on the rest of the mix. While I'm working on other stuff, I want to be able to just reach for a fader and have it there instead of having to hide all of the other tracks or have to scroll to the track in the project and click on it (to have it on my Faderport). I don't want to "focus" on these tracks. I just want them to be within reach.


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## clisma (May 14, 2017)

clisma said:


> When looking at the Artist Mix series, consider that the drivers can be a bit hit and miss and I read somewhere a couple of months back, that support will end for the series in the near future (maybe 2021?). Plus, Avid is not a great company to deal with if you need any kind of support. Letting you know as an owner who loves his Artist Mix.


I just wanted to make sure for anyone reading this thread and my above post in the future, that the Artist Mix v2 is NOT YET being abandoned by Avid. The Artist Control v2 and the previous gen MC Mix are. Here's a list of the products Avid has termed as End of Life: http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/FAQ/End-of-support-dates


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## bbyrne (May 14, 2017)

If you're Cubase or Nuendo user, these systems are the best ! Will totally change the way your workflow goes and make working even more fun ! 

http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/global/en/products/daw_systems/nuage/


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## Anders Wall (May 14, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> But I don't want to have everything else disappear while I'm working. Say I have a solo trumpet that I'm constantly adjusting as I work on the rest of the mix. While I'm working on other stuff, I want to be able to just reach for a fader and have it there instead of having to hide all of the other tracks or have to scroll to the track in the project and click on it (to have it on my Faderport). I don't want to "focus" on these tracks. I just want them to be within reach.


Again, it's a standard feature of the Eucon software.
You can assign any track to any fader.
Best,
/Anders


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## DynamicK (May 15, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Especially since the Faderport works so well for me. I'd just like to have more faders for when I'm constantly jumping between a few tracks so that I don't have to keep constantly clicking between the tracks to get them on the Faderport.


Are you using the Faderport 8 DAW Controller?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (May 15, 2017)

DynamicK said:


> Are you using the Faderport 8 DAW Controller?


The single. The 8 would be useless for me because of what I mentioned already. Too bad they didn't implement their own advanced protocol in Cubase for it.


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