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Is Anyone Using A Slate Raven MTI2 With Heavy MIDI Projects?

LFO

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I am constantly looking at the Slate Raven MTI2 and thinking to myself that it would be a great tool for improving my workflow. I am a heavy MIDI user and it looks like (in theory) that the touchscreen would be an easier, possibly more accurate method for drawing automation, CC data, etc. on top of all the other features it has. My hesitation has been that the MTI2 is more mix oriented than anything else. This would be useful, but I'm not sure if it is $999 of usefulness.

Kevin
 
I am constantly looking at the Slate Raven MTI2 and thinking to myself that it would be a great tool for improving my workflow. I am a heavy MIDI user and it looks like (in theory) that the touchscreen would be an easier, possibly more accurate method for drawing automation, CC data, etc. on top of all the other features it has. My hesitation has been that the MTI2 is more mix oriented than anything else. This would be useful, but I'm not sure if it is $999 of usefulness.

Kevin
It does look interesting. Nice quote in your signature BTW
 
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If mixing with virtual MIDI CC faders was that much better, you'd see the guys who are super busy with only an iPad, but they almost always have physical faders within reach. I looked into it and it does seem heavily slanted toward audio mixing. This is just my research though - maybe someone with actual experience could chime in.
 
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Tried one of these in Guitar Center a while back and I'm between two minds. On the one hand they look cool and I can see them being useful, but on the other hand, mixing on them is a pain when I tried it. The faders are very responsive, but I just felt like it would be easier and quicker to use a mouse? If you're really into it though, you could probably get a Dell touchscreen for cheaper I guess?
 
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It's interesting because it is a try before you buy situation, like jonathanparham said. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find a physical unit to try. I have tried laptop touchscreens, but I don't think they have the right kind of surface / precise tracking ability to work well. I do think that it could speed up MIDI editing and, when I render tracks, audio clip editing and mixing. Maybe. But $999 worth? I don't know.
 
At the end of last year I went totally ITB in the studio, including buying DTouch and a 27" touchscreen monitor. I bypassed Slate as they were never in stock and got sick of waiting for them.

I do quite a lot of MIDI work myself and thought it would be great drawing in automation curves etc. as well as mixing.

Well, nearly a year later and I still haven't adjusted to it. I do still use it for mixing - I don't have any choice as I sold my desk! But for MIDI work and editing i just find it impractical and so time consuming. Maybe my fingers are just too fat!?

As for the mixing side of it, I simply miss having physical contact with the sounds coming out of the speakers. Whether that's because I'm 'old school' (I grew up with tape!) I'm unsure but I'm now looking at alternative physical control solutions and editing sticks with the trackball.

So, yeah touchscreen operation sounds like a nice idea and it all looks great on the videos but I strongly suggest to see if it fits with not only your workflow but also your mindset. I figured it'd take me a month or two to get into the swing of using it on a daily basis but here I am 12 months later back to a trackball for everything but the final mix as it's just faster.

I'm just so glad I didn't drop the money on the Slate and my gaming PC will soon have a nice 27" touchscreen addition and the studio goes to a 40" single screen! In fact, that has been a huge positive about the whole experience if I'm honest - I've figured out I much prefer working on a larger single screen than two smaller ones.

If you are definitely considering going a touchscreen route I'd certainly give DTouch a look - it has a 30 day trial. You just need to follow their advice about which touch screens are fully compatible' but their forum is a friendly place to ask questions. The only caveat to that is now Cubase 9.5 is out and Steinberg have changed their GUI programming slightly there's a few quirks in operation that weren't there before. They guys at DTouch are on the ball though and IIRC there's been around 7 or 8 updates in the last year alone adding such things as a floating mixer as well as improvements to the macro side of things.

In summary: touchscreen operation for a DAW is a great idea and some people take to it like a duck to water, unfortunately for me I just haven't 'got it' and prefer a physical connection to the music while mixing and editing with a trackball is just quicker. Sounds bizarre I know but that's certainly been my experience. Best of luck with it if you go for it though!
 
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At the end of last year I went totally ITB in the studio, including buying DTouch and a 27" touchscreen monitor. I bypassed Slate as they were never in stock and got sick of waiting for them.

I do quite a lot of MIDI work myself and thought it would be great drawing in automation curves etc. as well as mixing.

Well, nearly a year later and I still haven't adjusted to it. I do still use it for mixing - I don't have any choice as I sold my desk! But for MIDI work and editing i just find it impractical and so time consuming. Maybe my fingers are just too fat!?

As for the mixing side of it, I simply miss having physical contact with the sounds coming out of the speakers. Whether that's because I'm 'old school' (I grew up with tape!) I'm unsure but I'm now looking at alternative physical control solutions and editing sticks with the trackball.

So, yeah touchscreen operation sounds like a nice idea and it all looks great on the videos but I strongly suggest to see if it fits with not only your workflow but also your mindset. I figured it'd take me a month or two to get into the swing of using it on a daily basis but here I am 12 months later back to a trackball for everything but the final mix as it's just faster.

I'm just so glad I didn't drop the money on the Slate and my gaming PC will soon have a nice 27" touchscreen addition and the studio goes to a 40" single screen! In fact, that has been a huge positive about the whole experience if I'm honest - I've figured out I much prefer working on a larger single screen than two smaller ones.

If you are definitely considering going a touchscreen route I'd certainly give DTouch a look - it has a 30 day trial. You just need to follow their advice about which touch screens are fully compatible' but their forum is a friendly place to ask questions. The only caveat to that is now Cubase 9.5 is out and Steinberg have changed their GUI programming slightly there's a few quirks in operation that weren't there before. They guys at DTouch are on the ball though and IIRC there's been around 7 or 8 updates in the last year alone adding such things as a floating mixer as well as improvements to the macro side of things.

In summary: touchscreen operation for a DAW is a great idea and some people take to it like a duck to water, unfortunately for me I just haven't 'got it' and prefer a physical connection to the music while mixing and editing with a trackball is just quicker. Sounds bizarre I know but that's certainly been my experience. Best of luck with it if you go for it though!

Hello ChazC,
You bring up some good points, thanks for sharing your thoughts. The more I hear, the more I think I need to try before I buy. This means self control. I hate self control. :shocked:
 
I had one and sent it back because it 1st- works as a main monitor only (and I wanted to have it as a side mix-monitor and keep my ultra wide LG as a main) and 2nd- I had to delete all my custom key commands and screen sets in Logic and replace them by a Slate set (which is optimized for mixing but I mainly need it for midi and notation). Too much work flow change into a wrong direction for me.
Concept is a separate overlay over an existing DAW which is not programmed for touch screen. It doesn't really work like a native touch screen DAW.
 
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I tried Raven few times. I wanted to love it, but could not. Something felt wrong, some kind of disconnect with the process. After Raven my mouse (Logitech m500) felt like super powerful, precise tool. Also tried few control surfaces. Full size motorized faders - felt great in comparison. Wait, there is no comparison....
 
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Maybe a Wacom like Paul is using in this video?


I use an old iPad running Duet Display so my computer sees it as my 3rd monitor. For midi work I move the editor to that screen and I draw using my finger, works quite well actually. I can imagine those with a 12.9 inch iPad this options would be even better.
 
I use an old iPad running Duet Display so my computer sees it as my 3rd monitor. For midi work I move the editor to that screen and I draw using my finger, works quite well actually. I can imagine those with a 12.9 inch iPad this options would be even better.
I was looking at Duet and will give it a try. It will be interesting to see how responsive the iPad is.
 
I am constantly looking at the Slate Raven MTI2 and thinking to myself that it would be a great tool for improving my workflow. I am a heavy MIDI user and it looks like (in theory) that the touchscreen would be an easier, possibly more accurate method for drawing automation, CC data, etc. on top of all the other features it has. My hesitation has been that the MTI2 is more mix oriented than anything else. This would be useful, but I'm not sure if it is $999 of usefulness.

Kevin
I have had a Raven for over a year and really love it. I have it and the Softube Console 1 and use them both everyday. Mostly, I feel that a touchscreen saves me a hundreds, sometimes thousands of mouse clicks a week. It just makes sense to me to reach out and touch the wave file I am editing, to scroll thru the project by touching the screen, to touch sends, plugins, channels, to move faders and switch easily between windows and arrangements.

With that said, I don't know if it is worth it if your primary interested is in speeding up your midi editing workflow. I find with a pinpoint stylus I can get in pretty detailed moves but things like moving the edge of a midi note are probably the most difficult tasks to accomplish with touch. I often reach for the mouse to get that precision when grabbing an edge of a waveform or midi, etc.

I personally love the workflow of a touchscreen and the Raven has been great for me personally. I try and challenge myself to only touch the screen but it is basically impossible. It is a three way cooperation between Raven, Mouse and Keyboard (and Softube for mixing). But the combo has sped up my overall workflow.
 
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I have had a Raven for over a year and really love it. I have it and the Softube Console 1 and use them both everyday. Mostly, I feel that a touchscreen saves me a hundreds, sometimes thousands of mouse clicks a week. It just makes sense to me to reach out and touch the wave file I am editing, to scroll thru the project by touching the screen, to touch sends, plugins, channels, to move faders and switch easily between windows and arrangements.

With that said, I don't know if it is worth it if your primary interested is in speeding up your midi editing workflow. I find with a pinpoint stylus I can get in pretty detailed moves but things like moving the edge of a midi note are probably the most difficult tasks to accomplish with touch. I often reach for the mouse to get that precision when grabbing an edge of a waveform or midi, etc.

I personally love the workflow of a touchscreen and the Raven has been great for me personally. I try and challenge myself to only touch the screen but it is basically impossible. It is a three way cooperation between Raven, Mouse and Keyboard (and Softube for mixing). But the combo has sped up my overall workflow.

Thanks for your perspective, tboston007. I've been looking more at the audio editing side and I can see how it would be useful. I just have to determine if I would use it enough to justify the $$.
 
I have a friend that bought one, used for about a week and then went back to the old way... And now it's just a screen.

On the other hand, I bought myself a cheap Huion tablet about a year ago and never looked back! Despite having to pick it up every time I'm going to draw a curve, the workflow is so much faster and accurate, not to mention much better for my wrist as opposed to a mouse.
 
I enquired whether the Raven could be used with 14BitMidi CPU Plugins and the Devs sent me a video showing it working like a charm so I’ve decided th MTi2 is the touch screen for me. Combined with Batch commander and I reckon it will be quite the tool!
 
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I just got an MTi2 and it's a steaming pile of crap. There's a small bit of debris lodged between the screen and glass and in 24 hours I've been unable to get the thing set up. I'm beginning to think there's something wrong with the unit (in addition to the screen issue). I formatted my system to see if that would maybe help things but no luck. I'm putting Cubase back on and I'm going to see how the DTouch demo version works ( I have touch capability with the screen, but the computer doesn't see the Raven). If it works, I'm sending this POS back and getting a regular 27" touchscreen.
 
I enquired whether the Raven could be used with 14BitMidi CPU Plugins and the Devs sent me a video showing it working like a charm so I’ve decided th MTi2 is the touch screen for me. Combined with Batch commander and I reckon it will be quite the tool!
Hello Luke,
I've seen you post about the CPU Plugins on a few threads and I'm interested in hearing what you like so much about them. They do look interesting, but I think I am missing what sets them apart from other products like D Touch or Raven MTi2. What do you feel sets them apart?
Kevin
 
I just got an MTi2 and it's a steaming pile of crap. There's a small bit of debris lodged between the screen and glass and in 24 hours I've been unable to get the thing set up. I'm beginning to think there's something wrong with the unit (in addition to the screen issue). I formatted my system to see if that would maybe help things but no luck. I'm putting Cubase back on and I'm going to see how the DTouch demo version works ( I have touch capability with the screen, but the computer doesn't see the Raven). If it works, I'm sending this POS back and getting a regular 27" touchscreen.
Sorry to hear that. I've heard of connectivity issues before, but that was for V1 I think. (It was a year or so ago.) It would be great to hear if you are able / willing to resolve the communication issue. The screen issue is another ball of wax and from what I have read is more an exception than a rule. Usually people go on about how well built the MTi2 is. It is unfortunate you have had this experience and hopefully you will get it sorted out with one solution or another!
 
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