I am tired of having to open a window every time I want to adjust my RME totalmix, so I started looking for a small monitor to more or less dedicate to Totalmix.
 
I have a real nice 32" non-touchscreen monitor already. But I am now thinking of adding two small USB monitors to help things out. I imagine one for Totalmix and who knows what will end up on the third monitor. I suspect I will find plenty of Sonar gismos to put on a separate monitor, but I don't know.
 
USB monitors seem so much easier to install over traditional HDMI. My computer does not have a bunch of HDMI outputs. It has an ASUS z97 sabertooth, and it has plenty of USB3 ports.
 
So I started looking around and I narrowed it down to three possible monitors.
 
A company called AOC seems to have taken USB monitors seriously.  They are on their second generation and for $100 you get a 16" USB 3 monitor with 1366 x 768 or pay $200 and get 1920 x 1080. The refresh rate is 8 milliseconds. They seem to sell a ton of these, there are lots of reviews on the net.
 
The only problem is that they might be a little big for me, I don't care for the built in stand, and it is not touch screen. But the price is certainly right.
 
Some company called Doublesight sells a 10" monitor with resistive touch screen for about $200. It has 16 millisecond response, and  1024 x 600, USB2.  It seems a little bit dated and the market only has a couple of reviews. The stand and size are in line with what I think I want.
 
Then there is the Mimo Magic Touch 10", which cost $300, is USB2, has capacitive touch, 16ms, and 1024x600. It only has a couple of reviews and the reviews indicate that the touch screen part is flaky. Buying two of these seems kind of expensive, but if they really work well I could spring for the price.
 
Probably my best bet is to use the AOC and forget about touch screen for a couple more years.
 
Any stories from Sonar users?
 
Thanks
 
 
 
 
 

The slow response rate of the USB connection (are they really USB powered?) is probably not a game changer for the purpose you intend, but a 10" monitor is going to be pretty small. Your motherboard will support three monitors using the onboard video, and rather than looking for oddball repurposed netbook monitors that might fill the bill there are plenty of decent sized monitors that will run off your DVI and VGA at prices that should be competitive with the tiny guys you are looking at. VGA is getting a bit long in the tooth, but there are still monitors available with that as an option. HDMI only adds audio to DVI and you probably do not want to listen to your monitor speakers anyway. I sincerely doubt you will find it easier to configure or use a USB monitor than one using a standard graphics connection.
 
I have never used multiple monitors with Sonar, but I wonder if plugins running under Sonar would not require the same screen resolution as Sonar itself?

slartabartfast
The slow response rate of the USB connection (are they really USB powered?) is probably not a game changer for the purpose you intend, but a 10" monitor is going to be pretty small. Your motherboard will support three monitors using the onboard video, and rather than looking for oddball repurposed netbook monitors that might fill the bill there are plenty of decent sized monitors that will run off your DVI and VGA at prices that should be competitive with the tiny guys you are looking at. VGA is getting a bit long in the tooth, but there are still monitors available with that as an option. HDMI only adds audio to DVI and you probably do not want to listen to your monitor speakers anyway. I sincerely doubt you will find it easier to configure or use a USB monitor than one using a standard graphics connection.
 
I have never used multiple monitors with Sonar, but I wonder if plugins running under Sonar would not require the same screen resolution as Sonar itself?

Thanks for the advise.
 
The ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 USB 3.1 motherboard comes with two video outs. One is HDMI, the other is Displayport.
 
Evidently Displayport can have multiple monitors from one output, but you need an adapter and also the port has to be MST capable, whatever that is. I looked at the ASUS documentation and they don't mention if the Displayport is MST capable.
 
Also, I can't find any monitors less than 24" that are Displayport capable.  That would be way too big for me. Given my deskspace even the 16" AOCs are going to be out of proportion, if I am not mistaken.
 
There are a bunch of Displayport adapters available but I don't care to experiment. Displayport to DVI, USB to Displayport, etc. They seem kind of Rube Goldberg-esq.
 
Looks like I will give the AOCs a shot. I know young CPAs that go out to clients with a laptop and an AOC, they tell me its all hunky dory. Even with two extra monitors on a laptop I am told it works out OK. I just wish they were a little smaller and had touch screen.
 
 

Here is the follow up.
 
I bought two 10" resistive touch monitors from Carnetix.
 
Remember that there are a bunch of 10" brands to choose from and a couple 16" brands.
 
I went with the 10" because the 16s would look too big for my space.
 
The USB monitor functions more or less well. Almost all USB monitors use Displaylink drivers, and it seems OK.
 
The monitors came with well made but short USB to mini type B connectors. Cheap longer cables did not work correctly. I needed more length and did a search on Amazon to find some nice 6' cloth covered cables that work out well.
 
I am using a USB 3.0 hub from Pluggable, and it has worked out OK. Pluggable seems like a good operation with good tech support.
 
It turns out that the touch screen is not really usable. Windows 10 only will let the primary monitor be touchscreen. So if I use the 10" monitors' touch capability, it moves the cursor on my main 32" monitor like a mouspad.
 
Using the little monitor to keep Totalmix always available works, but with strings attached.
 
Every time you re-boot you need to put Totalmix back in the secondary monitor.
 
The Totalmix window kind of fits the screen but is REALLY small. If you are familiar with Totalmix, I can get the top two rows to show, but not the (unneeded) third row. If I had to do it again I would take a real hard look at the cheaper and bigger 16" products.
 
If I use my mouse to adjust the mix of lets say my guitar in Totalmix, I usually forget to move the mouse back to Sonar, so then my controls in Sonar don't work anymore until I go back and click on Sonar.
 
But overall it gets the job done of showing me Totalmix on a side screen while I work on Sonar or some other program.
 
It works for me, since I don't change settings much. If I had an active studio with more visitors, I would most likely install Makcie motorized faders with the Mackie Control, or something equivalent. But I would still use a second monitor to display Totalmix.

Here is another follow up, where I describe moving the Totalmix display to Android tablets.
 
I gave up on Totalmix in a windows 10 view, except for detail grocking.
 
I replaced the Totalmix monitoring with OSC Commander on two cheap 10" Android tablets. One tablet shows the inputs and the other shows the Playbacks.
 
The OSC Commander on Android works very well with Totalmix. It has been reliable, but takes a little bit of time to set up the wifi addresses (a one time process). It is really nice to be able to adjust the volumes of things so easily, and to see the display of the volume levels at all times. The touchscreen is surprisingly accurate and fast.
 
There are a still a few picky problems.
 
First, the Android system is not advanced on power saving, and the tablets draw more than the cable provides, so they slowly un-charge themselves. You need to turn them off occasionally to come back to full charge. Part of this is that I am using an aftermarket "up angle" USB mini cable for the charging, and it is not well made.
 
Second, I miss the VU meters.
 
Third, the colors don't match too well with the Sonar color scheme.
 
But overall I recommend this approach.
 
So now I have a 32" main screen for the track view, a 14" monitor for the Console view, and two 10" tablets for Totalmix. This works out pretty well given compromises in desk space, cost, etc.
 
If someone cares to see it, I will try to take a picture of this latest setup.