The Avid S1 has been a huge success since its introduction in 2019. It opened up the Eucon ecosystem at an accessible price point and because of its ability to be used in a modular system, control surfaces with power rivalling the big ticket surfaces could be built using multiple S1s, inexpensive tablets and the Avid Dock.

If you’ve never tried one, check out these two videos which illustrate some of the most attractive features of the way these surfaces work together with Pro Tools.

Normal and Channel Mode

Although it’s not typical, the S1 can be used on its own and using it like this makes it far less disorientating when getting to know it for the first time. In the video above, Julian illustrates how the 8 encoders and OLED screens can be used to access mixer parameters and inserts, either row by row across the tracks on the Pro Tools Mixer, or vertically down a single track. these two alternative ways of using the S1 are called Normal and Channel mode:

Normal Mode

In this mode the 8 encoders and 8 OLED screens display whichever parameter is selected on the buttons above the screens (Pan, Aux, Inserts etc.) showing one horizontal row across the Pro Tools Mixer. The row displayed can be changed using the Page up/down buttons.

Channel Mode

This mode displays multiple parameters for the single, currently attentioned track. Plugin parameters and routing parameters can be accessed from here but in this example, the use of Channel mode is restricted to accessing the top level of parameters.

Folder and VCA Spill

The ability to select a Folder Track and to “spill” the tracks within that folder across all the faders of your S1 (or S1s, this works even better with multiple units) makes working on a control surface easy. For those used to working on analogue consoles this idea of bringing the fader to you rather than going to the fader you need was transformative when it was first introduced. These days most of us are familiar with this way of working but many of us still scroll up and down the edit window or across the mix window when working in Pro Tools.

Spilling Folders and VCAs is a first step on the journey into using Eucon control surfaces. There is far more to it that this but before jumping to Layouts and custom soft key assignments this one technique offers the biggest gains for the least effort when learning the S1. Start here!