It seems that touch surface is the way things are going.  It is cheap and flexible.  And Cake seems well positioned w/ Windows 8.

Whoevever manages to integrate touch w/  hardware (I'm thinking vs 100 unit w/ a moving fader and a touchscreen, here Roland) will set a new methodology and sell a ton of units, esp. if can do generic.

@

  Do you mean that professional studios are going to start adopting touchscreen control surfaces?

  Mike, What are the "touch" videos you're talking about? You've got me interested. Thanks, Jonathan

It has been a while, but I used to periodically read the posts in the VS-700 forum, and it seemed to me that there were some issues that were really pissing some folks off, that had been ongoing for some period of time.

I had been interested in picking one up 2 years ago, when I got my disability money, but I had opted not to after picking up the feeling from those forum posts that people that had spent that large sum of money were feeling pretty abandoned on their sizable purchases, from the point of a lack of timely maintenance on it.

Bob Bone

Mike, What are the "touch" videos you're talking about? You've got me interested. Thanks, Jonathan

jonathan: There is a series of videos accessible from Cakewalk's home page (www.cakewalk.com).

I don't know for certain that all studios will be implementing 'touch' - particularly in the near term. My guess is that the larger studios with performance spaces and large consoles will be holding off. That said, who would have thought that DAW based recording would become so prevalent back in the late 1980s?

For me personally the move to DAW based systems has been a godsend, I can't believe the functionality we currently have. I suspect that the world of 'touch' will be the same...but I am speculating.

Regards,

I bought my full V-Studio 700 in January here in Norway.
A lot of money...  but Im happy with it.

I am seriously thinking of installing version 8 instead of X2.

Cakewalk has given the VS-700 a very low priority, but they somehow keep it alive (don't know about Roland, though) i.e. when the X1 series came out, it took until X1d to see issues of VS-700 addressed, and when X2 came out, they had again forgotten about the VS-700, leaving users in total silence if there'd be any further support at all. Hence, you read a lot of negative posts in the VS-700 forum.

X2a addressed a lot of issues we had reported for the VS-700 (however not all); it's again pretty functional but apparently not as tightly integrated into the workflow as it was the case with Sonar 8.x.  I'm personally quite happy with what I can do with it as it's still powerful and intuitive, but since I came in late (bought VS-700 a year ago), I paid a lot less than early adopters and also never used it with Sonar 8.x (hence, I can't compare to what it used to be like).

When I decided to go for it a year ago, I did a lot of research on options available at that time - and there weren't too many in that price range (meanwhile this might have changed). X1d was just out, listing numerous fixes, so I took the risk and jumped onto a unit that was sold off for about half price. I feel that I got a lot for what I paid:

• mic pres are good
• integration with Octa-Capture is super nice (after drive update in Nov 2012), combination of both with 3rd ADAT interface works very stable at low latency
• integration with X2a is much better than you get with MCU or other alternative; no customization or tedious set-up needed, but I wish I could assign a few more user buttons (or combinations of buttons)
• fantom synth I don't get to use a lot (sounds great, but is a bit of a 32 bit troublemaker), ARX is similar situation

There are several units that go for cheap these days. If you look around, you may still get a good deal out of it. Of course, you have to take the risk that Cakewalk might discontinue it as a control surface for Sonar ... but the way it looks like they seem to discontinue any controller for the sake of touch control (e.g. they haven't addressed MCU issues in a long time). Whether or not this is a good strategy the future will tell ...

garybrun


I bought my full V-Studio 700 in January here in Norway.
A lot of money...  but Im happy with it.

I am seriously thinking of installing version 8 instead of X2.

I had thought about that, too, and even tried to get an old version, but since I never owned 8.x I couldn't get it. I tried to purchase from Cake without success ...
 
However, that was last fall (in the midst of the radio silence, post X2, pre X2a). Meanwhile I worked a lot with X2a and it does the job for me. It's pretty stable and handy, but of course some edits are better done by mouse ... I reckon I stick to X2a and hope to see some more fixes in X2d. I'm sure there won't be any in the next 2 releases (just extrapolating history into the future)

Touchscreens won't replace analog boards - or I wouldn't, anyway.  If I have $100,000 board I don't need a touchscreen to do the things I can already do.  but navigating, some editing and esp. soft synths/effects should be done easier.

I only had the vs700 for month or so but it was very effective.  I don't know how well the updates have been - bad planning to start making it and then make a major shift in the DAW workings.  And then have the touchscreen start happening.  But imagine a vs 700 w/ a big touchscreen instead of all the knobs (keep the faders and have the touchscreen replicate the channels above it).  That would be cool - and useful.

@ 

Although a touch screen is cool and can do a lot of things traditional hardware can't, I would hate to see that become the only or the default solution.