Control Surface for Nuendo

This new (not grande) unit is still alive. Last I know they have an almost fully working beta on their hands. This is from august I believe.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

Dtouch looks amazing, but unfortunately it’s only for Windows. I guess touch screens and macOS aren’t there yet.

Nuage is currently a bit out of my price range. A smaller budget friendly version would be amazing. I also want to be sure, I can integrate it’s features into my workflow. I’ve rarely gotten along with boards with faders, even though I’ve been mixing professionally for over a decade.

I’m leaning towards the Avid S1. S3 I feel is a bit overpriced and I don’t really need the interface features. I’m quite happy with Metagrid + iPad for shortcuts/macros for now.

Cubase iC Pro hasn’t been updated in 2 years. Steinberg seems to have no interest in controllers. :frowning:

NOT accurate! PT Control has a bunch of bugs regarding Cubase/Nuendo, the most abhorrent being that selecting the tracks page will make Nuendo and EUCON crash! They are aware of this problem at Avid, as there have been many, many complaints about this. Avid points the finger at Steinberg. Steinberg points the finger at Avid and nothing is being done about it!

VCA Spill Newbie Question - Avid Pro Audio Community (There are screen shots of the crash on this thread)

These problems, apparently go all the way up to S6! I’ve seen posts where S6 owners are saying that EUCON doesn’t work as well with Nuendo anymore, as well as Logic or DP. Avid has basically made EUCON PT specific! If you want ALL OF THE FEATURES TO WORK, YOU’LL HAVE TO WORK IN PRO TOOLS. So, be very careful about purchasing an S-1 or Artist Series. 95% of the basic features work with non PT DAWs. But lots of features that used to work don’t any more as well as the complete omission of newer features. Ver. 18.3 was the last stable version of EUCON with Nuendo. Ver. 19.5 is a total nightmare and full of problems with PT users as well.

If you can come up with another option, look there first!!!

Thanks for sharing this! I am a bit worried about such issues, so I’ll make sure I can try the controllers out with Nuendo before I grab one of these. I would expect some of the PT specific features to not work and that is okay, but not if it is crashing the entire system. Avid is generally slow with bug fixes, but if both Steinberg and Avid are playing the blame game, I wouldn’t expect them to resolve this anytime soon.

Unfortunately, the very expensive Nuage seems to be the only other option. Even just the fader bank seems to be around $12k. :cry:

Edit: Just tried out the PT|Control App via macOS Mojave. No crashes here by selecting ‘Tracks’ on a session with around 50 tracks. I’ll try the app out over the next few days and report back.

That would imply that this is a PC Bug then. I’m on Windows 10 as are all of the other complainants. One of the Avid Moderators sent me a video of them using an Avid branded MC Control on the tracks page with no crashing. But they never told me HOW they were able to do this! iPad + Mac = no crashes makes sense.

If that, in fact, is the case, you should still consider the S3. There are lots of them for sale USED at roughly half the price of new. The S3 has several buttons and features not found on the Artist Series . People Say they only need this or that until they find out how convenient/inconvenient this or that actually is in practice. You will want those Control and Alt buttons! On Artist Series, you only get the Shift button. I have found this to be pretty inconvenient, as my goal was to NOT touch a mouse/trackball once I start working with the controller. This, of course isn’t possible. But the closer you can get to that realization, the more justification for the purchase in the 1st place.

Something else to consider. Good luck!

Yep, seriously considering the S3. I don’t think I’ll be able to grab a used one due to my location. I’ll probably just pay for the overpriced unit. :cry:

Go with the S3 if you can. Over the years I had Mackie Mcus, Behringer, Artist series, even an SSL Nucleus. In fact, I had the Nucleus and the S3 for 2 weeks for comparison purposes, I went with the S3.
Although the Eucon implementation is something that is not 100% supported by Steinberg, it still is miles ahead of anything mcu or hui, you can control everything from the S3, even cue mixes, the track coloring is also matched on the S3 leds, wich I consider a must have. Paired with a Dock and iPad, you have everything in your hands, you can macro almost everything, key command almost everything, it really is a game changer unlike the hui or mcu protocols. I do Post work, it’s the perfect controller for tracking VOs, ADRs and Artist Performances ( sound check, monitoring, re recording work), and of course, a great tool for the mixing stage.
The downside? Go to the forums before you update anything Eucon/Steinberg related, at this point and from personal testing, it’s all good.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing this miguel. I’ve contacted my dealer already.

I mostly work with post and music mixing/mastering and it’s great to hear it works well. I’m glad the track coloring translates as I would really need that. Does the S3 follow track selection as well? Some of my sessions are fairly large and I was wondering if the S3 would follow the tracks I select on-screen?

Although, I sold my Artist Mix, I still have my Transport Control lying around somewhere. Again, I never got used to the workflow. How do you use your Dock and what purpose does it serve? I haven’t looked at the dock much and have never been used to a jog wheel.

Are there any features in the S3 that doesn’t translate to Nuendo but works with Protools?

From all the reviews I’ve watched, the only problem that sticks out is the knobs under the display rather than over.

Regarding S3 if you are on post production 6 outputs is too little. No room to go up from 5.1 (and not even 5.1 if you need cue outs etc) unless you plan not to use included interface. And in that case you kind of pay for something you don’t use or need…

No plans on using it as an interface. It will strictly be a control surface. For surround, I have the Dangerous ST/SR hooked up to the Apollo X/RME UFX.

It does follow track selection.
I mainly use the jog on the dock for fine tune placement of fx or related events that require frame by frame workflow, but with an iPad is a different beast with “soft keys” and the workflow expands as you have more visual real estate for the same tasks (ie: adjust gain, adjust plugin parameters, eq, etc…).
At this moment, there are differences regarding pro tools and Nuendo, mainly on the hardware follows software plugin window and vice versa, you can workaround the issue with a soft key though, nothing game breaking.
Also, some functions are Pro Tools named related, again, you have “soft Keys” to workaround that issue, you just have to tell Eucon how Nuendo does things.
Knobs under under display never bothered me, but be aware that the metering is on the left side of the faders and not on the right side, that was a pain to get used to.

Hope it helps,

Cheers!

Thanks for the update miguel! Looks like I’ll be picking up the S3.

Also, if you don’t mind some more questions,

  • Is it easy to control 3rd party plugins? At least basic EQ, comp parameters?
  • Is it possible to route groups easily? Most videos out there only show them working with PT.
  • Is it possible to lock the top row of knobs only to sends?

Appreciate all your help!

READ!!!

-No, its not easy to control 3rd party plugins, at least for me, when you buy an S3 or a dedicated controller for a daw, unless you’re working on Post, I see no point in it, so, I tend to control “3rd party” plugs with the mouse, but! The iPad with the S3/Dock had me making some hybrid workflows.

  • Yes, it is possible.
  • No, the top row basically works as a “main features routing” section for all your connections internally and externally within your daw. What you can do, is to give instructions to control the internal sends and external cues, via fader ( that’s what I do).

Someone advised you to look up the forums, I strongly suggest that, but be aware that the problem with most of the forums are the “singular issues”, the ones that are related to an individual issue instead of a global Bug.

I can understand your scepticism, after all, this is big money you’re investing, and the lack of choices for a middle tier controller… This really is the middle tier of controllers, above that tier? that is only 20K options, either go S6 or Nuage.
That being said, I really think you should invest in an Eucon Controller, the other protocols are wayyyy too dated.

Cheers!

I fully believe Avid will gradually run Eucon protocol into the ground for everything other than PT. Expect 2-3 years before your Avid hardware investment is no longer fully workable with a DAW other than PT.

Thanks again Miguel. I have gone through the Avid forums, but info pertaining to Nuendo/Cubase is scattered around. I also don’t want to get excited about some features relating to PT and then figure out it doesn’t work for Nuendo, hence asking here.

It sucks that there aren’t many options in this range, but if it speeds up my workflow, it should be alright.

Surprisingly, they’ve maintained consistent Eucon support for a really long time. Their support is generally painfully slow. Having said that, there is no way I’ll switch to PT. Earlier this year even when a project depended on me using PT, I resorted to AAF and switched to Nuendo. I subscribed to PT Ultimate for a month and maybe it’s just me, but I can’t seem to get into the PT workflow. I’m very comfortable with Logic, Ableton, Reaper and Cubendo. So, I’ll probably sell the unit if they pull such moves.

That was my main concern when getting the S3, but then I realized they’re making big money out of 3rd party software with a protocol not that hard to implement. They’re literally selling this hardware as a Cubase/Nuendo controller, amongst others, it’s on the first page of the S3 series avid website.
Avid realized the lack of mid tier controllers on the market, at this point is Steinberg that isn’t updating the Eucon adapter more efficiently, there is a large amount of topics on this forum stating that.
But hey, if that happens? I think I can easily sell the S3, it’s not that there’s a lack of Pro Tools users out there.

Well, Eucon was originally designed & created by Steinberg. (In collaboration with Euphonix)
When Avid bought Euphonix they “closed down” the Eucon protocol, so they are the only ones who can use Eucon in their hardware.
3th Party developers can use Eucon for their DAW’s & other software applications, but they are now depending on Avid for a lot of things.
So most of the time, it is simply because they can’t solve certain problems…

Fredo

Would be really nice to se a smaller brother of the Nuage then

My understanding after recent a ‘talk’ I had with someone is that pretty much the only people that are willing to spend money on a not cheap controller are people in post, and the vast majority of people in post that use a DAW are using PT. So you take all post users, subtract PT users, subtract those with too little money or space, and then you end up with a very small group of people willing to spend.

So it’s apparently very, very difficult to justify the R&D for a new product.

If I could have it my way Steinberg would just release a remote SDK into the wild and then people could crowdfund or diy or whatever. It’d likely end up eating into potential Yamaha Nuage profits, but those probably aren’t huge anyway…