So after all is EUCON worth it? If you have the money, it might be worth it. All this menu layers can get quite confusing and get your attention away from your work. So, after all, it still seems a little complex, right? Pressing all those buttons to select a plug-in? It is a two second job with the mouse. On the other side of things EUCON based control surfaces take pride in their power of controlling Pro Tools seamlessly. Let’s take a look at the type of control we can expect from a EUCON based controller such as the Artist Mix from Avid: The “Hardware” user interface look in TouchDAW. If you have an Android tablet lying around or and Android phone you can get the app and try it yourself – the only scenario in which I found it useful is when tracking or if you are handing the tablet to the artist who is recording so they can mix the headphone cue they are receiving themselves. I got used to it and I worked as fast as I could with it but it just couldn’t compete with the mouse and keyboard. The functionality and looks of TouchDAW is super impressive considering the price tag – however after trying it in multiple projects I stopped using it as I realized it just took so much more time to use that instead of the mouse and keyboard. Ok, that doesn’t look that bad right? You can get used to it right? Well, sincerely I tried using an app called TouchDAW on an Android tablet which works exactly the same as the Icon Qcon Pro only costs almost nothing. Let’s watch this video of the people from Icon explaining what kind of plug-in control you get (skip to 4:30 if you do not want to see how a HUI device is configured to work with Pro Tools): Native plug-ins work but a lot of third party products don’t. Note that not all plug-ins are mapped automatically. Most if not all DAW software implement the HUI protocol. Many hardware controllers/ consoles with a control surface layer such as the Yamaha DM2000, Novation Launchkey, SSL AWS900, etc use this protocol. HUI is a protocol that uses MIDI and is now a industry standard used very widely. HUI or Human User Interface allows for non-Avid/ Digidesign hardware such as the Mackie HUI to take control of basic features of Pro Tools such as faders, panning, mutes, solo, automation and some restricted plug-in control. This protocol was created by Mackie and Digidesign in 1997 for Mackie HUI, the first control surface for Pro Tools. This is called a control protocol and there are three main control protocols. In order to control features and parameters inside Pro Tools, a language must exist that both the DAW and the controlling device use. In this article I will try to explain how Pro Tools communicates with such devices and I will also be talking about the relevance of including such a device in your setup. They come in all shapes and sizes and there are plenty manufacturers out there making DAW controllers that either have lots of pads or a console-like look, with faders and rotary encoders. Out of this need of more tactile and natural interfacing with the DAW came the DAW controller. However, most of us still feel the need of a better way to interact with our digital studio, Pro Tools – the mouse and keyboard just seem so far from creative most of times when mixing they are great for editing but even for this job it would still be nice to have a more tactile way of doing things. However, most project studios nowadays do not employ a console in their setup for two obvious reasons: cost and size. I wonder what producer out there doesn’t imagine himself/ herself in front a large format mixing console when they think about what they do.
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