faderport vs. nano controller 2 for Cubase 5 le

[Justin Porter]

Hey friends! I'm looking at purchasing a small and inexpensive DAW controller for mixing. I'm using Cubase 5 le. I've narrowed it down to the Presonus Faderport and the Korg Nano Controller 2. If anyone is using either one of these; let me know your thoughts. I like that the faderport has a motorized fader. I think that the motorized fader would be a plus when using it for automation. The down side of the faderport is only having one fader and only being able to control 1 track at a time. With that being said, I started looking towards the Nano controller 2 since it offers 8 faders to control 8 tracks at once. No motorized faders but, will still be able to watch via Daw. Any input would be greatly helpful! Curious on how easy or hard these devices would be to connect and map in the software. Thanks in advance!

 

[Guitargodgt]

I'm guessing both will be easy to setup.

The only thing I can think of is a possible limitation of LE not allowing you to use them, I would check with the manufacturer and see if they are definitely supported on LE.

I know both of those are going to work on other versions of cubase though.

As far as which to chose? If it was me I would do faderport because even though it's one fader, it is a considerably better fader than the ones on the korg.

 

[Tadpui]

I've been using the Faderport for several months now. I really like it, although the fader itself isn't the highest quality. It's still a little difficult to do subtle fader changes. But it's still way easier than it is with a mouse. I'm using Reaper, but support for it was totally plug-and-play. There is an alternate .dll that I could use for it (FaderPortXT) for some advanced feature support in Reaper, but just having it as a transport/fader/pan/automation control is pretty awesome. It definitely simplifies the process of reading/writing/latching automation.

The one drawback is that it can't control any VST knobs, sliders, or dials. Maybe with some fancy control mapping I could, but it would be nice to be able to automate VST controls with the fader.

The single channel control doesn't really bother me, except sometimes there is confusion between the Faderport and Reaper as to which channel has focus. So I sometimes end up manipulating a different channel than I think I am. A quick undo fixes any damage done, but it's annoying.