understanding control surfaces

[Newbie dude]

ok, so, control surfaces are basically for people who like recording into a software on a computer, but like the feel of faders and knobs under their fingers, right?


But would you record into a control surface as well? Culd you, say, record into a firepod into a comp, but have a control surface hooked up as well to control the tracks?

and if theres 8 tracks on a control surface, how do you set which track on the surface is controlling which track in the software?

 

[cusebassman]

If you were recording into a firepod, into a PC/Whatever, the control surface would plug into the computer separately, and in whatever software you are using, you would set each channel to a particular fader. As for where you do the specific settings, that's just a matter of looking up where the settings pane is in the multitrack software for setting such info.

For example, here's the long, complicated (but highly detailed) user manual for setting up a control surface in Cubase:

http://cachepe.samedaymusic.com/media/E_HD8_HD16_daw-58ee8bb155646fe5a1998fdfbdd26eba.pdf

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

It depends on the specific control surface, some include A-D/D-A conversion and I imagine it's not possible to bypass and use a seperate interface (eg. Tascam FW1882).

Others are just a control surface and require a seperate interface for A-D/D-A (Behringer BCF2000).

On my Tascam FW1082, track 1 on the desk just corresponds to track 1 in software. If you have more than 8 tracks recorded there's a 'bank' buttton and this makes the control surface control tracks 9-16, press it again for 17-24 etc.