We have covered several attempts to get legacy control surfaces working with later versions of Pro Tools. Paul Neyrinck has been in touch to say he is undertaking some R&D looking at possible new features to V-Control Pro that would provide support for these legacy control surfaces with Pro Tools 11 and above as well as other DAWs.

Would you be interested in V-Control Pro offering legacy control surface support? The plan would be to start with the Digidesign Control 24 and Digidesign Pro Control to make them work with Pro Tools 11, Pro Tools 12 and Pro Tools 2018, Logic Pro X, Cubase, and Nuendo. 

Remember V-Control Pro is no longer just a device to talk to Neyrinck's iPad application. 3rd parties like Slate Digital with their MTi and MTi2 control surfaces use the V-Control Pro architecture to interface their control surfaces with Pro Tools and other DAWs. The V-Control Pro application runs on the DAW computer, in a similar way to Eucon, and can use a direct ethernet connection to supported control surfaces. WiFi tends only to be used for mobile surfaces such as V-Console and the legacy V-Control Pro 1 app. But the new V-Control infrastructure can use work with ethernet connected control surfaces.

Paul is keen to stress that there are no promises yet but they have started to crack the code to Pro Control and Control 24. It has not been easy working out the low-level ethernet communications, cryptography and CRC error detection, but they have made progress and have produced a video showing the progress so far...

Is this something that would be useful to you. Would you like to be notified about their progress, participate in a short survey for a chance to get V-Control Pro free for one year, and help direct their development efforts to give you the solutions you need most? If so Paul would love you to sign up and complete their survey...

Everyone who completes the survey will go into a hat for a chance to win V-Control Pro free for one year.

There does seem to be a lot of interest in this already with a thread on the DUC that is now 217 pages long. Also, there is a post on the Pro Tools Ideascale with 508 votes too.

Background

When Pro Tools 11 was announced to the public back in what seems like many moons ago, we were also told of a list of hardware that would either no longer be “supported” but may work”, or would just flat out no longer work - for anyone wanting to make the jump to this new version. (see the article we posted at the time with links to supported list here) 

Ever since the actual release of Pro Tools 11, a portion of the Pro Tools user community has been somewhat frustrated and upset with Avid’s decision to drop the functionality of the Pro Control and Control 24 control surfaces.

After seeing other hardware that was originally on the “won’t work” list (such as the 002 series) given a second chance, and come back into the world of the working, at one stage there was a glimmer of hope for these much-loved and ubiquitous control surfaces could make a comeback too, after all the C24 using the same protocol is still supported and working - how hard could it be?

A thread was started on the DUC by users to air their views that have now turned into one of the biggest threads I’ve ever seen on the forum. It was pushing some 84 pages in August 2013 but it is now 217 pages long. In the thread are some very strong arguments for the continuation of functionality within Pro Tools - from the apparent similarity in implementation to the C24 as already mentioned to the fact that this was the first time Avid discontinued a large format control surface, after all, these units were the first that Digidesign/Avid produced.

Yes these controllers have been around for a very long time, and while reading this you may think “yeah they are old and out of date, of course they should be killed off”, but when one considers that the functions they perform are still as valid and usable in everyday workflows by some of the biggest producers and engineers on the planet, you’ve got to ask why that is.

These consoles do what they are supposed to do, they are a controller for software and they allow the user to interact with Pro Tools in one of the most transparent and tactile ways possible. Furthermore, no matter which version of Pro Tools comes along their task is still just as valid as in any version before. These controllers would continue to work as designed in Pro Tools 11 and above if the software driver was available. 

Is There A Demand?

The DUC thread is huge and although perhaps elongated with arguments back and forth there are clearly many strong opinions of this somewhat ‘landmark’ decision by Avid, but Paul Neyrinck looking to harness his V-Control Pro platform to provide support for these legacy control surfaces looks very interesting. So if you are interested, do sign up and complete Paul's survey.