Avid Artist Control and X1 - any hands on reviews

Anyone have any hands on with the Avid Artist Contol (Eucon)
 
How does the unit work with pro channel?
Does it automatically have mapped control of 3rd party plugs?
Does it remember setups from project to project?
 
Overall use and stability?
 
Any help would be appreciated!
 
Cheers,
Dave

ProjectM,
 
Thanks for that info. I've heard other good reports from users of different DAWs.
 
I'm still holding out hope that someone on this forum has used it...
 
Cheers,
Dave

ProjectM,

If you can check one out and report back, that'd be great. I'm looking into getting an evaluation unit, but not having much luck.

Thanks,
Dave

just connected Avid Artist Contol And Avid Artist mix . Using latest firmware and software plus sonars new platform driver adapter. set up as instructed. win 7 64 pro 32 gigs ddr3 1600 ram i7b 12 threads adk tweaked sonar x1 expanded d 64bit. the units run fine on protools and cubase but some stange happenings in sonar 1)banking faders. faders move up in banks of 4 the slip back to previous bank. 20 Master fader select on  touch screen of artist control an be selected, but only for a second as you touch it.3) screen jitters towards  bottom. Did full test on both units as told to by avid support and all passed. Avid will not support the sonar app without money. Sonar seems to have no more info other then the 1 page of install instructions. Again the issue is Sonar as the unit works fine with the other apps mentioned. the cubase is the 6.5 64bit version i used. Where is the rest of the info on making this work with sonar, any one know?

    The artist control seems to be the problem child.
 When you select a master fader or a buss Icon on the the touch screen, it does not stay selected. The screen also jitters or shakes. 
 Banking results in the bank moving but then returning quickly to previous bank.
    The  screen of the computer does no follow track selection  in the mixer window.
      Other issues are, I think  there is a problem with fader banking. The faders  in Artist Control bank at 4 faders  at a time when used alone.
 The Artist Mix banks at 8 faders at a time.                                                                                                                        When they are connected together with different IP addresses  the two units bank at 4 faders at a time. 
    The jittery screen on the artist control scares me the most as it has been reported often in the gear slut  pages to happen before complete screen failure.
     I called Avid support as they give you 6 free months. They Emailed me the test procedure and the unit passed all tests.
 They won't provide  tech support on the new sonar adapter unless I pay $1.19 per min in 15 min blocks.
 I understood the was a joint effort between Cake and Avid developing the new sonar 64 bit  platform.
     All sonar has up on it's site are instructions on installing the software and down load links, nothing else.
     It really pisses me off that no one seems to want to support the use of these devices with X1.
 I am  really getting tired of non beta tested software being released resulting in the consumers   paying the various companies for the honor of doing the beta  testing.
 To be fair, this is not just Cakewalk.
This seems to be becoming the norm in the industry.  No doubt it is  a real money saver and maker  for all the many DAW and related software developers.
     This is only MHO but if true it is a  disturbing practice.  
Making music with frustrating unreliable technology are not good bedfellows
.God knows we pay out enough money for this  stuff not to be happening.

Thanks Annie. Appreciate the opinion. I was about 10 minutes away from making bulk purchase. I think I should wait until Sonar addresses the issue.

FYI - I;m in contact with some folks inside CW and they think its a configuration issue and suggest you contact our Tech Support team, which is of course (cough cough) free. 

Have you called or emailed Support yet?

SP

anniedog


    The artist control seems to be the problem child.
When you select a master fader or a buss Icon on the the touch screen, it does not stay selected. The screen also jitters or shakes. 
Banking results in the bank moving but then returning quickly to previous bank.
    The  screen of the computer does no follow track selection  in the mixer window.
    Other issues are, I think  there is a problem with fader banking. The faders  in Artist Control bank at 4 faders  at a time when used alone.
The Artist Mix banks at 8 faders at a time.                                                                                                                        When they are connected together with different IP addresses  the two units bank at 4 faders at a time. 
    The jittery screen on the artist control scares me the most as it has been reported often in the gear slut  pages to happen before complete screen failure.
     I called Avid support as they give you 6 free months. They Emailed me the test procedure and the unit passed all tests.
They won't provide  tech support on the new sonar adapter unless I pay $1.19 per min in 15 min blocks.
I understood the was a joint effort between Cake and Avid developing the new sonar 64 bit  platform.
     All sonar has up on it's site are instructions on installing the software and down load links, nothing else.
     It really pisses me off that no one seems to want to support the use of these devices with X1.
I am  really getting tired of non beta tested software being released resulting in the consumers   paying the various companies for the honor of doing the beta  testing.
To be fair, this is not just Cakewalk.
This seems to be becoming the norm in the industry.  No doubt it is  a real money saver and maker  for all the many DAW and related software developers.
     This is only MHO but if true it is a  disturbing practice.  
Making music with frustrating unreliable technology are not good bedfellows
.God knows we pay out enough money for this  stuff not to be happening.

Hi Barry,

 With all fairness to Cakewalk, the only thing I'm able to pull up from you having attempted to contact us via our official means is a Problem Report posted at the same exact time of this forum post (that is, unless you contacted us under a different name or email address).  Also, the Problem Report form does say multiple times that it doesn't put you in contact with Technical Support. Your posts suggest we're unwilling to help our customers with this, but I think it's bit unfair to say we're unwilling to help if not given a chance ;)

I did have a friend from Roland ask me about this late last Friday, saying he had a guy from Long & McQuade contact him. I'm assuming this all leads back to you (maybe) but ultimately the fastest way to get to us is to contact us directly. We have instructions on how to contact us via the official means in the sticky at the top of this forum as well as on our website's contact page. We're honestly nice people with a ton of passion for this stuff. Even if we don't have the answer immediately we're always willing to help and research these types of things.

Cakewalk offers free technical support for SONAR X1 users and we do this to the best of our ability, but you have to give us a chance. Anyhow, I can see you've been a valuable customer of ours I just want to let you know we're willing to help out. Let's forget "policy" for a moment and just focus on the fact that we're real people who are passionate about this stuff.


I decided to take a look into your issue myself.  I will say that our ability to support third-party hardware from a hands on perspective sometimes can be a bit limited in the sense that we don't actually have a lot of the EUCON hardware. The good news is that I WAS able to get my hands on an Euphonix MC Control.

I guess to clarify the partnership for the latest version of the EUCON control plug-in, my understanding is that we worked with Avid to update the installer for their EUCON control surface plug-in for use with 64-bit SONAR X1 while they updated the integration of the Control Surface Plug-in itself. So, we did not actually create the Control Surface Plug-in (CSP) itself, Avid did, but we communicated what was new with the redesigned workflow. That's my understanding at least. Regardless, any pressing issues we'd be more than happy to pass along to the appropriate people over at Avid.

To address the behavior you're concerned about:

Screen flicker:

Mine does this as well... however I'm definitely not getting very clean power at my desk in the office. I personally assumed this was a result of the AC power I'm getting here at my desk being shared between many components. Are you suggesting this flicker is unique to how the MC Control runs in SONAR in comparison to other hosts? Mine seems to flicker regardless of if SONAR is open or not so my assumption was that it has nothing at all to do with the SONAR integration. My suggestion would be to try getting it connected to clean power via a power conditioner to see if you notice any difference in the screen itself.

Auto-banking:

In the EuControl settings found on your Windows taskbar, check out the General Tab. There is an option for "Auto-bank to selected track". If this is selected, when you try banking on the surface it will jump back to the selected track in SONAR. If you remove this setting it behaves much nicer. SONAR has different ways of "selecting" a track (such as by selecting them by clicking on the numbers or just focusing a track by clicking in it's gray space). Not all recording applications manage this the same way so I would imagine that this setting in the EuControl page is to help deal with these differences in selection methods.

Try checking that setting out and it should help with the banking issue you're referring to.

Selecting Buses from the Touchscreen:

I'm seeing a bit of frustration from this as well. I can bank to the buses in my project, but if I select a bus from the touchscreen it doesn't permanently stay selected. Bus selection in SONAR is actually new to SONAR X1c (see here: http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/kb/reader.aspx/2007013250). It doesn't look like the Eucontrol plug-in is aware to bus selection in SONAR. If you select a bus in SONAR it doesn't report it to the touchscreen on the MC Control. If I were to guess, this change in X1c probably unfortunately didn't make it into the version of the Eucontrol CSP. I'll update your Problem Report that you submitted to push this through to our developers so they can follow up accordingly with Avid.

I hope this helps out a bit. If you ever need to give us a ring we'll definitely help out with what we can on this. If it is something we can't directly address, as I mentioned we're more then happy to pass it along.

Best regards,

[Deleted]

anniedog


I would like to thank sonar for their excellent support when I called today. When I asked for Seth or Ryan The person in support said they were unavailable. When I tried to explain that I was asked to call support and explained the forum postings About the Av id Artist Series I was given a song and dance that left me with 2 left feet which are now turned in the direction of another DAW choice. I will make sure to also inform ny dealer at Long and Macquade who attempted to help with my issue by calling a Roland contact he met in BC while being courted by cakewalk. The cake has lemon icing all over it!!!  Good Bye not another penny  will I waste  on your products!

Hi Barry,
 
Seth does not work in the office and is not a support representative. There would be no possible way for us to transfer your call to him with the phone system we use. I myself also did not work in the office today either. This is the honest truth and not a run-around.
 
I did however review the call since the representative you spoke with followed up with me. The issues you reported I directly addressed above so I'm not sure specifically what you thought we would be able to do over the phone that was really any different from my explanations pertaining to your questions. I'm sorry I wasn't personally available to discuss it further with you. I also directly notified the Roland dealer who was contacted by Long and MacQuade since he too had been in direct contact with me asking if I had any experience with this.
 
Additionally, I created a bug report with our developers in our internal bug tracking system regarding the bus selection issue and attached your CWBRN directly to the report. This means that if the issue were to ever get resolved in the future, you’d receive an automatic notification of this.
 
Even beyond this point, I directly opened up a dialogue with some Product Managers inside of Cakewalk to make them aware of the bus selection discrepancy I touched upon at the end of my post above. I also added your notes from today regarding the fact that Buses appear with numbers on the touchscreen instead of letters. Bus lettering is also new to X1c so this is all tied in.
 
Nobody is giving you the run around, I'm truly sorry you feel that way. If anything, I'm escalating your concerns and have taken an active role directly in it. This is the only way I know how to help. I can’t make any promises as to what happens next at this time, but the alternative would be to do and say nothing and I find that unacceptable personally.
 
Surely you can understand that there is a process to these things and that they can take time. I'll keep investigating on my end but I have pushed your concerns through and communicated internally the best way I can.
 
Were you able to check out the first two points I hit on above? You never gave us any feedback as to if that helped out at all. I still see screen flicker on my end regardless of using SONAR or not. The auto-banking thing is easily worked around. It would be good for everyone else to get some feedback on that I'm sure.
 
Best regards,