We first met Stuart McCredie at a Pro Tools 11 event with Mediaspec in Glasgow. Stuart’s currently working with Texas & Johnny McElhone but previous credits include - The Fratellis, Codeine Velvet Club, Kelly Clarkson, The Blue Nile, Simple Minds, Deacon Blue, McIntosh Ross, Belle & Sebastian, God Help The Girl and Echo & The Bunnymen.

He travels around a lot working with artists away from his own studio and over the last 10 months we have been following his search for a reasonably portable control surface solution.

Back in January 2014 he tried using Neyrinck’s V Control Pro on an iPad and told us…

I’ve been using V Control Pro on the iPad for a while & it’s been a useful substitute. Just a little small & fiddly for my fat fingers. Thought the Slate 27 inch MTi might be the best compromise for size & portability. I am going to try & sort out a demo or hire one for a week or so. 

He’s looking at the Avid S6 too as he had a Pro Control for 10 years and then a D Control for 5 years so wasn’t overly concerned about the potential investment in an S6 for the studio as he has had good service from the Pro Control and D Control. He also owned an AWS900 for a couple years. But the Slate Raven MTi was also looking interesting, however he is not convinced it is the complete solution… 

Why nobody is building a small, usb control surface with eq & dynamics control (fx plug-ins seem better suited to editing on screen anyway) is beyond me, something that feels good & looks good. Along the lines of the eq/dynamics section on the D Control or D Command would be fine. Surely possible via Eucon now? The cynic in me assumes Avid won’t do it so we have to buy consoles and right now I believe that Eucon is not available to third parties so it’s their bat & ball.

Anyway, off back to my iPad & V Control now, I had to disable the double tap to 0db function yesterday as nearly managed to deafen the entire band when I accidentally doubled tapped the click fader whilst trying to find the vocal channel. I was not popular… 

Then in March 2014, Stuart listened to our interview with Brian Daly from DNA Music Lab where we talked about the Hot Key Matrix and what was needed in a control surface…

I was listening to your interview with the Hot Keys guy. I’ve been following that product so it was great to hear his thoughts, & yours, on control surfaces etc. My friends & I are always bemoaning the lack of a decent control surface too. I’ve also been keen on the Softube Console 1 for a while. This will still be a bit piecemeal but I think I’m going to go with a Hot Keys, Console 1 & an Artist Mix. There’s a bit of duplication between the products but it means I could take bits of what I need on location & leave what I don’t need setup at home.

The only frustrating thing is that it takes all these products to create something that Avid (or a third party if Eucon is opened up, as you point out) should be building. Pro Tools has been about for long enough now so there really is no excuse as to why we have to tolerate the lack of a decent human interface. I will not be risking buying S6 till Avid’s financial situation is clear. Been caught out before buying high price gear only to watch the manufacturers pull out of the business or go bust leaving me high & dry. 

In the light of the current issues with the upgrade/support plans and our two polls showing a 50% drop in confidence in Avid’s handling of Pro Tools Stuart told us this back in April 2014. Back to the Softube Console 1, Stuart tried one out and this is what he told us…

I had it for a couple of weeks & to my dismay I didn’t like it. I think Softube are a fantastic company. I’m sure their 4k model is accurate. What I do know is that it didn’t translate well when used in place of the Waves SSL bundle & we extensively tested the Waves SSL plug-ins against my own 4048 G+ with 242 eqs & it passed muster.

If more companies adopt the Console 1 hardware then I may feel differently but it’s actually a hassle for one plug-in that I don’t think I like the sound of. (The recent launch of the 9000K channel is interesting though so I’ll revisit Console 1 as it was between a 9K & 4K when equipping the studio in 2005) 

In August 2014 Stuart finally was able to try out a Slate Raven MTi…

My thoughts are that the V2 software is brilliant. It brings Eucon levels of integration to 3rd party controllers. I used it for 8 hours yesterday, no eye strain, no sore arms. It works perfectly with my MBP Retina & didn’t crash once.

I’m still in the early stages & trying to eradicate muscle memory for certain commands and tasks. It really does remove the mouse & keyboard completely from the majority of mixing & editing processes yet doesn’t preclude you from using a mouse & keyboard as logistically it’s still easy to place them.

No downside to report apart from my fat, thick skinned guitarist’s fingers can reek havoc on the edit window if I’m not careful.

The Slate is a great price, solves the problem of where to put your screen & the software is actually very good. That has been negated slightly by the ability to buy Batch Commander & run it without an MTI now. Plus you are still looking at controls rather than listening which I really want away from.

There’s also the worry that Slate are ultimately a small company and you wonder if they’ve bitten off more than they can chew (see AAX porting debacle for example). The irony of that statement is that we know Avid aren’t in the best position either. 

Then the Avid S3 stand alone control surface came on the horizon…

My first impressions of the S3 are that it’s very good. Any flaws (apart from minor OS related button functions) are probably down to the fact that I’m so used to using keyboard and mouse for so many functions that I need to accept that some things are just quicker using a mouse! It is rock solid, but I am not using the AVB side of it yet as the session I’m on is not 48k. I am finding eq-ing with knobs is a real joy and the real faders & buttons are winning the battle so far today… 

But the first impressions didn’t last…

The Avid S3 is ok but it’s flawed (for me) & too expensive. The lack of transport controls (the touchstrip transport option doesn’t cut it for me) and a jog wheel is annoying. Let me expand. I guess that in the attempt to hit as many other DAW users as possible Avid have tried to create a one size fits all solution (not to mention its use as a live controller within the S3L-X system). It’s flawed for me because I really want dedicated eq & dynamics controls. The S3 doesn’t provide them so you’re then in the annoying position of eq parameters (for example) never being in the same place when using different eq plug-ins. By the time you figure out where they are you honestly are quicker just doing it on screen. The faders are nice but at over £3k + vat for 16 faders & no transport etc it’s poor value for me. If in the future the full S3L-X package can be accessed (directly) by Pro Tools then maybe it’s a different story. It might be right for a lot of other people right now though & at least it exists. Avid have to be applauded for that.

The Slate MTi is the “least wrong” option at the moment & Slate appear to have dropped the price of the MTi to $2k & the MTX to $10k. If the price translates directly to £s then it’s exceptional value. 

What we really need is the CC121 from Steinberg for Pro Tools. I wish Avid would have the balls to build it. It’s actually all most real world users actually need. I can’t see how it would detract from S3/6 sales either. I will buy an  Icon Qcon Lite or Artist Control for the time being, so it’s that & back to the keyboard, mouse & touchpad for me. 

It is very interesting that especially when Stuart goes out on the road, portability still is key and so a small verstatile controller is key, hence the Icon Qcon Lite. When I took a look at the Steinberg pages there is a great range of small controllers so you can put together a combination of units to provide you with what you need, but in the Pro Tools world we don’t have these hardware options. Avid’s choices are so limiting, following the discussion on podcast 141 the idea of working with the HUI protocol is very appealing as it broadens our options, but what we really need is Avid to bite the bullet and open up Eucon to 3rd party developers and then we can get the deep integration that Eucon offers with the versatility of 3rd party products. 

Thanks to Stuart McCredie for sharing his journey so far and its not over yet.  Stuart has agreed to keep us up to date on his continuing journey to find a good control surface that works for him so look out for the next installment in the coming months.