
thebigcheese
"Hi, I'm in Delaware."
I really hate mixing in the box. Generally speaking, I set one level for everything and then leave it for the whole song. If, on the other hand, I had faders to play with, I think I would be much more likely to put some actual effort into my mixing. So I'm looking at getting a control surface, but I'm having some trouble deciding what I actually need/want.
The Behringer BCF2000 seems nice and it's reasonably priced, but it's not touch sensitive, so I guess I couldn't grab a fader in the middle of listening to try out a different approach.
The Korg Nanokontrol is nice and cheap, but I watched a review and it seems that the button LEDs don't react to changes on the computer side. So if I pushed "mute" on the DAW with my mouse, the LED on a button wouldn't show that change, which seems to mean that I would have to push the button once to get it to where it should be, then again if I want to actually change the value. If I'm only using the controller it's not a big deal, but it's worth considering. The faders are also not motorized, but that might not really matter that much in the long run.
Are motorized faders really worth it? Do you find that it sucks to not have the knobs click into place in the middle of their range like a normal pan knob would? Are there other cheap options I should consider? I'd like to have as many faders as possible (buttons are less important, but I like transport controls if possible) for under $150. Used is fine. Ideally it should be configurable to ignore tracks in folders in Reaper--for instance, I generally put both overheads in a folder track so that I just set the balance and then use the folder's fader to adjust the volume, so I would want the controller to control the folder track but skip over the tracks in the folder.
Edit: I guess there's also the Oxygen49. Not quite in the same vein as the others (and not as many buttons for sure), but it would give me knobs and faders that appear to be assignable, plus then I'd have some velocity-sensitive keys in case I ever decide to do some virtual instrument work.
The Behringer BCF2000 seems nice and it's reasonably priced, but it's not touch sensitive, so I guess I couldn't grab a fader in the middle of listening to try out a different approach.
The Korg Nanokontrol is nice and cheap, but I watched a review and it seems that the button LEDs don't react to changes on the computer side. So if I pushed "mute" on the DAW with my mouse, the LED on a button wouldn't show that change, which seems to mean that I would have to push the button once to get it to where it should be, then again if I want to actually change the value. If I'm only using the controller it's not a big deal, but it's worth considering. The faders are also not motorized, but that might not really matter that much in the long run.
Are motorized faders really worth it? Do you find that it sucks to not have the knobs click into place in the middle of their range like a normal pan knob would? Are there other cheap options I should consider? I'd like to have as many faders as possible (buttons are less important, but I like transport controls if possible) for under $150. Used is fine. Ideally it should be configurable to ignore tracks in folders in Reaper--for instance, I generally put both overheads in a folder track so that I just set the balance and then use the folder's fader to adjust the volume, so I would want the controller to control the folder track but skip over the tracks in the folder.
Edit: I guess there's also the Oxygen49. Not quite in the same vein as the others (and not as many buttons for sure), but it would give me knobs and faders that appear to be assignable, plus then I'd have some velocity-sensitive keys in case I ever decide to do some virtual instrument work.
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