Control surface needed

MrKwik

MrKwik

**will man ho for gear**
I have been thinking about geting some kind of USB control surface that is compatible with CEP 2.0. I dont need anything real fancy and I need something uber cheap. The main thing I need is the ability to control the transport controls and arm tracks. I foot switch that could be programmed to start and stop recording would be awsome. Its a real pain in the ass to start recording and then run over to get behind my kit and get the headphones on and whatnot. I would like to be able to get ready to play and just hit the footswitch and go.

A few years back I saw a nifty little device that was basically just transport controls and had controls for arming tracks and thats all it did. I dont remember what it was called but it looked perfect for what I want and was only like $50. Anybody seen this thing or know if its still made?

So any recomendations are appreciated.
 
Well I've been doing some research today and I located the little control box I was thinking about. Its the Red Rover and I was thinking that the thing was cheap but it turns out that its damn near $200. So thats out since its functionality to dollar ratio is pretty low.

I think that my easiest solution for now is just to program the CD player controls on my wireless keyboard to control the transport functions in CEP2.1. I can then just set it on a stand next to my kit for easy access to start and stop recording.

As a more permanent solution though I was thinking that I might get one of those small MIDI keyboards and assign the keys to control the functions I need in CEP. Im totally stupid about MIDI so I'm a bit confused about what I should get. I found one that M-Aidio makes that is USB and Im wondering if that works the same as a keyboard that hooks into the MIDI port on my soundcard. The one I was looking at also has 8 knobs that it says are programmable to whatever MIDI channel you want. I wonder if its possible to program those to control the channel faders. Anybody ever try this?

This is the one I'm looking at http://www.maudio.co.uk/products/en_gb/Oxygen8-main.html
 
I have an oxygen 8. I never thought about using it to control my stuff in sonar. I'm might check that out though.

Go for it, the oxygen 8 is great.
 
I have used a Tascam US428 for about a year now. It replaced the Red Rover I once had, and is far superior, since you can control 8 tracks at once. It works fine with CEP 2.0, and with Adobe Audition 1.5, and it's $300US. Tascam makes smaller (and cheaper) variations but the 428 is a very good piece of gear. I use mine only as a control surface, by the way. Audio is routed through a digital mixer/Terratec EWS88D.
 
hi there,

ive been thinking of a control surface. check out the mackie control universal. it maybe a bit pricey, but it looks like it could work really well, u can use it for almost any multitrack software too, hense the name universal! although it uses midi to connect up2 the pc, but u can get those midi to USB converter type things?

tascam do a 1442 or something, look under control surfaces on there website n u will see what i mean.

hope this helps!

steve
 
HI
Have you looked at the Behringer gear.
I'm a Midi virgin at the mo, but they seem to get good reviews for their controller in the press.

Cheers
Bob
 
drummersteve said:
hi there,

ive been thinking of a control surface. check out the mackie control universal. it maybe a bit pricey, but it looks like it could work really well, u can use it for almost any multitrack software too, hense the name universal! although it uses midi to connect up2 the pc, but u can get those midi to USB converter type things?

tascam do a 1442 or something, look under control surfaces on there website n u will see what i mean.

hope this helps!

steve
Click to expand...
Correction Steve, here is a list of the software the the Mackie Control Universal supports.

ProTools, Steinberg, Cakewalk, Adobe Audition, Logic, MOTU, SAWStudio and Vegas. MrKwik it also supports CEPro

It is a great unit I have one and wont look back :)
 
Ive seen the universal but I'm afraid its just ever so slightly out of my budget at this point. Definately looks cool but for that kind of money I would probably get more mileage out of some decent mics or something at this point. I was looking for something pretty low buck but it doesnt look like there is too much out there in my price range. I might take a look at those behringer units that are only a couple hundred bucks.

I was playing in my studio last night and found a real low buck solution to contol transport functions from behind my kit. It just so happens that the wireless keyboard I have on my DAW is the same as the one on my PC in the house so I replaced it with a wired version and took it into the studio to set beside my kit. I can now start and stop and play back without having to climb out from behind my drums and go over to the computer. The only problem that I encountered so far is that I wanted to program the transport functions to the CD player keys along the top of my wireless keyboard but windows 98 doesnt seem to recognize them. No real big deal though, I just hit ctl+space to start recording and space to stop or play. Works great and cost exactly $0.

The only real problem I have with this setup is that when I screw up (which is alot) I have to go over to the PC to wipe out the tracks I just recorded so that I dont hear them playing back in my headphones while I'm doing the retake. If I knew a shortcut that would kill the waveforms on all armed tracks than it would be perfect. That or if I can set it to not play back armed tracks while recording. And maybe I can do that but I don't know how.
 
MrKwik said:
If I knew a shortcut that would kill the waveforms on all armed tracks than it would be perfect. That or if I can set it to not play back armed tracks while recording. And maybe I can do that but I don't know how.
Click to expand...

HI Have you tried ctl+z this will remove the last recorded tracks, and I think put you back at the start, if not ctl+home will do that ( in sonar on winXP anyway)

Good luck

Bob
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top