Last month Paul Neyrinck got in touch to tell us that he is undertaking some R&D looking at possible new features to V-Control Pro that would provide support for legacy control surfaces like the Pro Control and Control 24 with Pro Tools 11 and above as well as other DAWs. We asked if you would complete a short survey and Paul has now announced the outcome of the survey and how he plans to move forward. 

Paul received a lot of encouraging and useful feedback and wanted to share an update on his progress and answer many of the questions that were asked in the survey. Paul explains...

Firstly the winner is....Sal F. from New York City. Sal has won V-Control Pro free for one year.

The survey confirmed a couple things. First, many of you really love your Pro Control and Control 24 surfaces. Now that I have been using them a lot recently, I can understand why. Pro Control's fast, smooth faders are a delight. And Control 24 is incredibly packed with great features in a compact space. Second, people want us to release something as soon as possible. Message received!

We are focusing now on making reliable, stable, professional control of major DAWs with Pro Control and Control 24 on Mac and Windows. I hope to announce a release soon, but we still have to solve some difficult things before we can make any promises. 

Thank you again for your help in the survey!
 

As promised Paul has answered several questions that came up in the survey.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

How does your system work? - V-Control Pro runs on your DAW computer and is a bridge between control surfaces and DAWs. It communicates natively with control surfaces and adapts them to the DAW, similar to EuCon. For Pro Tools, we use the HUI protocol for up to 32 faders of control. HUI is a very good protocol and integrates well with Pro Control and Control 24. For Logic Pro X and Cubase / Nuendo, we use custom control surface plug-ins for superb integration.

Will this be for Mac and Windows? - V-Control Pro supports both Mac and Windows. But communicating over ethernet with Pro Control / Control 24 is a new technology we have to add. It is working well on Mac. Windows is not working yet because it is more complicated. But we are making progress.

How many faders will it support? - 32 faders simultaneously, which can be banked to access an unlimited number of channels / tracks. 

Will this use a direct ethernet connection or does it require WiFi? - Pro Control and Control 24 will use a direct, wired ethernet connection for super-fast performance. WiFi is only used for our V-Console, V-Panner, V-PlugIn, and V-Control Pro 1 apps running on phones and tablets, although some can also be connected directly using USB.

Will it work with Pro Tools Native or just HD? - Both. All versions of Pro Tools support HUI peripherals so they all work with V-Control Pro.

Will it be easy to set up once so that it just works or do I have to set it up every day and modify sessions? - It can be set up once and will always work as long as V-Control Pro is running on your Mac or Windows computer before you launch the DAW. We recommend setting it up to start automatically when your computer reboots. Then it should always just work.

Can I use the Pro Control Edit Pack’s motorized joysticks? - No. Unfortunately, Pro Tools does not provide surround pan position feedback. The first version will not initially support any Edit Pack features. Our hands are full making the fader units work great.

Will this connect Pro Control / Control 24 to EuCon? - No. Avid does not provide a way for third-party surfaces to connect to EuCon. That is why we invented V-Control Pro, which is similar to EuCon, but is more flexible so that a wider variety of control surfaces can be supported.  

Can Avid make your software fix incompatible with their Pro Tools updates? - Not likely. Many third-party products use the HUI protocol, including V-Control Pro. If Avid stopped supporting HUI, it would make many third-party control surfaces incompatible. We do not think that is likely, but we cannot guarantee it. I chose this design because I feel confident that it is the best way to provide a reliable system. We could have chosen other tactics such as spoofing Pro Tools, but it seems unethical. I used to work for Avid, I wrote a lot of Pro Tools code (D-Verb back in 1994 for example!), and I want to stay on good terms with Avid.

Can this work in tandem with the Pro Tools dock? - Our initial tests indicate that HUI control does work in tandem with Eucon. But we cannot guarantee that Avid will not change this in future versions of Pro Tools.

Does the Monitor section work in Pro Control and Control 24? - Yes, the monitor sections are separate analog systems that operate independently of the DAW.

Will it support DAWs besides Pro Tools such as Logic, Cubase, Nuendo, Studio One, Mixbus, Ableton, Digital Performer, etc. - Yes, V-Control Pro already supports many of these DAWs for the Slate Raven and V-Console surfaces so we can control them with Pro Control and Control 24. Please be aware that not all of these will be in the first version. Our initial work is to make them work reliably and professionally with Pro Tools.

What about 002, 003, and Command 8? - We have not looked into any of those but it is an interesting idea.

I have a Slate Digital Raven MTi/MTx. Can I use it alongside Pro Control / Control 24? - Yes. The Raven already uses V-Control Pro so you can simply add a Pro Control or Control 24 to the list of controllers and set it up in tandem. The Raven is a 24 channel surface, so any other surfaces set up in tandem will bank 24 channels at a time.

I already use the V-Console / V-Control Pro 1 app as a remote control and love the V-Window feature. Can I use it alongside my Pro Control / Control 24 with V-Control Pro? - Yes.

Can you please hurry? - We are trying to hurry!