In this article, we have brought together an Expert Panel to share which control surfaces, if any, we use and the reasons behind our choices. We hear from people working in music production as well as others working on post-production. Some of our expert panellists work at home, others in larger facilities. If you are looking at buying a control surface you should read this article.

We start with the Avid consoles from the smallest to the larger before we move onto control surfaces from other brands including Slate Digital, Mackie, Behringer and SSL. We finish up this article with panellists who have chosen not to have a control surface at all.

Avid Dock - James Richmond

I’m going to explain this in terms of “what I like to have in front of the keyboard/trackpad/mouse”. In the past, I’ve had a Mackie MCU and an SSL Nucleus 2. Both are excellent devices so nothing I say here is a slight on them- this is just a really difficult area to get right.

Now I have an Avid Dock and it is the best compromise between functionality and ease of use I’ve come across with a couple of slight exceptions.

I use the iPad in the Dock to control 8 sources for hardware monitoring in the Avid MTRX.

It is great but because I lock the MTRX monitor controller to the iPad screen I need to have another app-specific device to do some important macro-based functionality and I use a Stream Deck for that. I also have a DAD MOM and a Grace M905 remote.

The MOM allows me to control headphone level etc for talent and provided overall volume control to the monitors and I use the Grace M905 as the world’s most over-engineered headphone amplifier.

In truth I don’t really need both, if the DAD MOM or the MTRX had a headphone amplifier then I’d sell the Grace. Why am I talking about headphone amplifiers here?

Because IMHO a control surface is only part of the solution. What I want in front of me is a DAW remote control, something to control headphone sends for talent, a headphone amplifier of my own and ways to control applications via programmable buttons, which is why I have these 4 devices in front of me.

I really want a console's centre section and DAW remote control and I can’t think of one device that does it properly without significant compromises. With all of that in mind, I am considering expanding what I have with a pair of S1’s, or perhaps moving up to an S4.

Two Avid S1s - Graham Kirkman

I have used many, many control surfaces over the years, so when it came to choosing one for my own garden studio you’d think the decision would be kinda difficult because I’d tried them all and would struggle to choose. But no - It was actually REALLY easy - I had to choose the one that would fit!!! That basically made a list of two (The Artist Mix or the S1). I already had 3 x Artist mixes but was never really happy with their quality or features so soon replaced them with two S1s.

I’m first and foremost, a fader man. I never use the mouse to mix and rarely use clip gain either, and the S1’s are a massive leap in fader quality to me.

The size of the S1 belies its capabilities. Flip faders for EQ when mixing DX; Pan/send when doing FX. When fine tuning I tend to keep my VCA’s locked to the furthest right faders and am constantly expanding and collapsing them, such a great feature. (especially the ‘remember last spill’ function).

I plan to get a 3rd S1 soon to keep solely as a VCA controller. The addition of 2 Amazon Fire tablets as meter bridges is just the icing on the cake. So easy to quickly see key information right in front of you. I don’t have a physical Dock, but I do have the iPad that would go on it, so as someone who rarely uses knobs anyway it’s perfect for me. I can see all the info I need and adjust it on the S1 mapped out to the faders.

I guess the only downside (which doesn’t affect me but could affect larger, London facilities) is that clients still expect a large mixing desk in their finishing suite!! I can imagine their thoughts if they walked into a room to a few S1s rather than an S4 or 6!!! But, as this doesn’t affect me I’ll keep happily mixing on my S1s!!

Two Avid S1s And Dock Combination - Damian Kearns

Control surfaces aren’t consoles but ideally, when I operate a control surface, the thing ought to feel like a console. That’s my comfort zone.

When I first went freelance I bought an AVID Artist Control, later an Artist Mix to push my fader count up to 12. Post audio mixing is all about faders in my opinion, or at least it has been for me since I started mixing in 1996. There’s nothing quite like the feel of high-quality faders under the fingers. Though I wouldn’t class the Artist series faders as ‘high-quality’, they certainly aren’t horrible by any means.

My friend, Colin, bought an Avid Dock unit last year and raves about it. I had been looking to replace my Artist series surfaces with something Euconized, so I could port my soft keys and other preset touchscreen settings to whatever new surface I acquired.

After some discussion with friends and the local vendor I settled on two S1 units and a Dock. I admit, I thought the Dock was some sort of toy and the iPad integration seemed to me to be nothing more than a gimmick.

I was completely wrong! The Dock is my favourite piece of hardware. It does everything I used to do with my Artist Control but the hardware knobs and faders are higher quality. The iPad integration is a genius move. It allows for so many configuration options. Couple with two S1 units, I now have 17 faders, many hardware knobs and a wider range of user-defined preset options than I’ve ever used on any other surface.

If you ask me, a Dock and an S1 is my favourite new work surface. Add in another S1, it’s a powerful console with unlimited potential.

Two Avid S1s And Dock Combination - Korey Pereira

If I were to win the lottery, I will be running an Avid S6 M40 with 24 faders. 16 on the left and 8 on the right along with a Joystick, Post and extra Knob modules installed.

Until that day comes, I am happily running a pair of Avid S1s on either side of an Avid Dock.

For the S1s, I am using 1st Gen 12.9" iPad Pros as they are a little wider than the newer models and fill out the width of the S1 perfectly.

For the Dock, I am using a 3rd Gen 12.9" iPad Pro as it is a little less wide and obstructs the center speaker a bit less than the earlier generation models.

I use the multi-master mode to call up my VCAs on the right unit and use the left S1 as my ‘spill zone’ for calling up individual tracks from my VCAs.

I also have a number of custom layouts set up for when I am cutting dialogue, mixing music or effects.

While my setup is not exactly the same as my dream S6 config, it gets me pretty close for a fraction of the cost.

Two Avid S1s And Dock Combination - Mike Exeter

I’m an old school console and tape machine veteran.  When I started back in the 1980s computers with pointing devices were relegated to high-end computer labs and eventually incredible audio workstations such as the Fairlight CMI with its Light Pen and later pen and tablet UI.  Most interaction was with a keyboard and green glowing VDU terminal.

Physical controls have always been the most efficient way of interacting with the tools that enable us to create. The 2 most obvious examples of modern UI controllers are the Piano Keyboard (pretty much a staple of every studio control room) and the Boeing 777 cockpit………more on that later.

I am a control surface evangelist - I know that correctly designed UI’s have a profound effect on our productivity.  Yet, half-arsed design attempts relegate them to large paperweights that engender resentment and ridicule from those who call them expensive mice.  

I have been using controllers since the original Mackie HUI with Pro Tools in 1997.  I had a brief connection with Euphonix consoles and early digital studio consoles.  I have worked (and continue to work with) digital desks that have all but wiped out analogue in the Live arena.  I have transitioned through Digidesign Icons and myriad JL Cooper (and other long gone) fader packs, and now work in the box using Pro Tools with dedicated Avid Controllers.

I have owned Baby Hui, Avid Artist Series, Digidesign C24 and am now using Eucon (2 x S1 and Dock).  When I cannot use my system I specify SSL consoles with HUI layers for all my recording sessions.

The one thing all these have in common is physical controls.  I am able to develop muscle memory and most importantly interact with the audio using all my digits and I am able to stay away from a screen so I can concentrate on the job of listening.

The Eucon system has its detractors due to being Avid and it has historically been buggy but it is, without doubt, the most integrated system for mixing with Pro Tools.  The only other competitor is the Nuage (Yamaha/Steinberg) system that works with the flagship Nuendo.  All others are merely sub or supersets of HUI/Mackie Control, which in itself is decades old and lacks UI feedback - pulling you out of the moment to look back at something on the DAW screen which ultimately has you reaching back for the mouse and keyboard.

I can go for hours without needing to look at Pro Tools and, with the recent updates, regard my S1s and Dock as an integrated mixing console.

I even asked to become part of the Beta program for Eucon so I could help shape the future of this system as it develops further into being the leader when it comes to feeling like an extension of my creative brain.  We are a brave set of users along with incredible developers constantly striving to improve the workflow and efficiency of the system to make the technology even more invisible to the end user.

The link between hardware and software is hugely important and, much like learning the piano or taking flying lessons, it takes a massive investment in time to become familiar and then highly efficient in operating the controls -  but the payoff is being able to switch off the left brain and engage the right and just get on with shaping the sound that we are hearing.

When it comes to a Boeing 777 - we look at the cockpit and marvel at all the screens, dials, levers and switches (much like the musicians who ask “how do you know what all those knobs do?” when they see a large recording console) and congratulate the wonderful flight crew who navigate the myriad techniques and problems to get us safely from London to Los Angeles.  

But in reality, they are essentially just operating a massive computer system using a complex, highly specific, control surface.  Does anyone say “Ha but it’s just an expensive mouse!!”?  I doubt anyone would be happy with the pilot being sat in front of a computer screen with just a mouse and keyboard whilst they guide the plane full of passengers at hundreds of knots through the air.

We’ve all struggled with entering notes on an on-screen keyboard using a mouse - the analogy is the same.

I use the ‘human user interface’ that gets the job done in a way that it melts into the background and allows me to listen and react to what comes out of the speakers, a by-product of which is considerably less time looking at a headache-inducing, eye and neck straining screen - and don’t get me started on badly positioned displays which push speakers out of the ideal listening position.

Behringer X-Touch To Avid S1s And Dock Combo - Steve DeMott

Through the course of any given week I tend to be in 1 of 4 places working; my mix room, my studio, the remote truck, my friend Dave’s studio. Each one of these spaces has different gear, but they all have some sort of control surface.

My studio & the remote truck both have Avid S1s with a Dock. The studio has 2 S1s and a Dock, while the remote truck has 3 S1s and a Dock. A lot has already been said about the Eucon surfaces. I will only say that I find them well built and they have very tight integration with Pro Tools and with the Metric Halo MIOConsole3D software, which I use to control my interface.

In my mix room at home, which is a converted finished basement about 21’ x 24’, is probably where I spend most of my time mixing. It’s conveniently located and allows me to work while taking breaks to engage with the family.

When I was first looking for a control surface the S1 was not yet a finished product, so I called my Sweetwater sales representative to order up a Mackie Control unit. During that conversation, he asked me what my primary need was, to which I answered that 99% of it will be for writing automation passes and that  I didn’t see myself using it to control plugins or anything like that.

So he mentioned the Behringer X-Touch as a good/cheaper option. My initial reaction was “No Behringer! it’s cheap and breaks within a year”. He assured me that this was well built and was surprisingly good for a Behringer product. So with that, and knowing I had 30 days to play with it and return it if I didn’t like it, I went for the X-Touch.

It turns out that the X-Touch is built well enough. It’s heavy & has not failed in about 3 years of heavy use. For writing volume automation at the end of a mix project, it is perfectly capable. The motorized faders are a little noisy, so it can be annoying with lower volume mixes.

I have learned to ignore it and just turn up. The other issue I’ve had with later versions of Pro Tools (post 2018), is that the X-Touch will occasionally lose its connection with Pro Tools, requiring me to power cycle the X-Touch to reset the connection & regain control. It’s an annoyance, but I only need to power cycle the X-Touch. When it comes back up, it reconnects to Pro Tools without having to restart Pro Tools. The last issue, which is an MCU issue, is that the Master Fader on the unit doesn’t lock to the Master Fader in my Pro Tools session. It’s just a wasted fader on the control surface that does nothing.

The other part of my initial decision on an MCU protocol control surface is that my second DAW is Digital Performer. And when I initially bought the controller I was using Digital Performer a lot more than I do now. Digital Performer doesn’t work with Eucon surfaces. About the only time, I launch Digital Performer these days is to get to an old session, so control surface compatibility with Digital Performer would not be a large part of any upgrade decision.

I also spend time in my friend Dave’s studio. Dave has had a Mackie MCU unit with the Mackie Expander for many years. The Mackie units are definitely better built than the Behringer. The faders are much less noisy when following automation. The problem remains that it is MCU and not Eucon, which means it is not as tightly integrated with Pro Tools & has the same limitations (including the Master Fader issue).

Since the Mackie Control & The Behringer X-Touch both use the MCU protocol they both offer the same amount of control for Pro Tools. Compared to the S1s, they are not nearly as tightly integrated with the whole DAW interface. It simply doesn’t do much more than simple control of faders and pan with basic plugin controls, but plugin controls are cumbersome, and not consistent from plugin to plugin. Once you’ve used an S1 with an iPad or Galaxy Tab for controlling plugin parameters and accessing group controls and VCA/Folder spills, you realize how limited the MCU protocol is with Pro Tools.

It may come as no surprise that I plan on replacing the X-Touch with an S1/Dock combination in the near future. Avid has made Eucon their preferred control protocol and anything else really isn’t ever going to be as tightly integrated or offer as much control. I also never expected to want hands on control of everything, but I’ve learned to really like not having to use a mouse as much. I feel like I make for artistic & less analytical decisions, especially when dealing with plugins that have a numeric readout of your control settings. Grabbing a knob makes me less likely to care what the numbers are, where I tend to round numbers when I use a mouse.

Avid S3 And Dock Combo - Nathaniel Reichman

Back when I was starting out, I would get hired to assist in one of the many New York City music-production houses. I remember countless sessions those days that would go into the wee hours while I watched the senior engineer using a mouse to move volume breakpoints in Logic or Pro Tools. It was grueling. Looking back on it, I couldn’t believe the clients tolerated this.

During this time, the Pro Control and HUI started breaking into the market. I purchased a Baby HUI. I remember the day I installed it in my modest edit room. My jaw dropped, the clouds in the sky parted, rays of sunshine came down from the heavens, angels started singing… I thought “Wow, this is what I’ve been missing this entire time!”

In the intervening years, I managed to log some time on the ICON series, and I used a Digidesign 003 and a Digidesign Control 24, each for a long time. I also tried Slate and some newer surfaces that use HUI under the hood but found they were not for me.

Fast-forward to 2018, when I purchased an Avid S3 to go with my Avid Pro Tools Dock. The S3/Dock combo is by far the best price/performance ratio I’ve ever had in a surface. Do I wish it was an S4 or S6? Absolutely. But the economics of those surfaces for the freelance engineer doesn’t always make sense. I’ve spent time on S6, which is easily the best control surface ever made. But S3/Dock gives me more than half of that functionality for a tenth of the investment.

The secret to getting the most out of any control surface is to design templates in your DAW that fit your surface. My Pro Tools mix template has multiple layouts that give me fast control over dialog, music and SFX tracks, aux returns, re-record tracks/monitoring, and all the VCAs. And the value of every Eucon surface out there went way up this year with custom plug-in maps. I had a handful of plug-ins that were painful to use on my Dock’s knobs because of the terrible mapping. I remapped them and now I’m flying.

Any control surface at all is better than none. But here are some example workflows that I use with my S3/Dock that I really like:

• Dialog Mixing 1: plug-in parameter flip Voice Denoise on the S3’s faders, with EQ on the Dock knobs at the same time. Two different plug-ins on the surface.

• Dialog Mixing 2: on the Dock, hit Capture of all the parameters changed for your perfect dialog mix, then on the Dock screen (Avid Control) save that mix to one of the (48) snapshots for use later.

• Music Mix: enable VCA Multimaster Mode by hitting both bank buttons on the S3, and the S3 splits in half with all the VCAs on the right, and spill zones on the left. This is a fast way to rough in a complex mix with hundreds of tracks.

• Television Mix with clients: put the Dock wheel into Move Sel mode, and use the Mark In/Mark Out buttons. Now when you shuttle around the session, video shuttles too. Clients love this because they can see where you’re headed in the program, and it makes you look like you’re working really fast and efficiently. And maybe you are.

• Monitoring: any Eucon-aware audio interface’s monitoring section can be controlled by Avid Control on the Dock. Room level, dim, mute, talkback, headphones, source selection and loudspeaker solo/mutes. So basically, my new favorite Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 monitoring controller is a free iPad app.

Avid S3 And Dock Combo - Phil McGowan

I've been using the Avid S3/Dock combo for a while now and it's a great setup for a smaller studio.

Admittedly, I don't use a lot of the features of this setup since I'm so used to doing many tasks in Pro Tools with my mouse and keyboard but I have been meaning to watch some training videos on all the cool things you can do with the Dock.

For me the Dock & iPad are primarily used to control the monitoring section of my MTRX so I'm almost always just on the monitoring page of Avid Control.

The only button I regularly use on the Dock is ‘Write to End’, the rest largely stays untouched as most of those features I just control with my mouse and keyboard.

Avid S6 -Reid Caulfield

I’ve used every Avid surface but the S4. My first choice is always an S6. I’d been working with a D-Command-ES for years (I have one of the last ones made, I’m told). Though I had spec’d an S6 for my new facility in Los Angeles in 2017, even after its installation, it took me some time to jump into the S6. The Atmos HE room where it was situated was the last of four rooms to come online when we built the facility, so I had some time to read manuals, look at forums. I found that there were three levels for me to integrate into the S6:

1. This one’s simple. Sit down and mix. Never mind the intimidating center section. Just get used to the experience. Anything I couldn’t find on the console I would do in Pro Tools software & a mouse.

2. Learn the entire surface, relying as little as possible on the mouse/screen combination. For me, this is like writing with your right hand all your life and one day just switching to your left hand; it can be frustrating, but it helps me to learn the surface’s shortcomings as well as its strengths.

3. Fly. Once I arrived at Level Three, I found the S6 to be an amazingly fast console to mix with. Really fast. I’ve heard people say of the Icon series that “they’re really just a big mouse”, and I’ve never thought this was accurate; I believe it to be an unfair characterization. However. Against the S6, there’s no apt comparison. Against the S6, the Icon series does indeed feel like I’m driving a bus instead of a Ferrari. A bus has wheels, but that’s about it. It can’t take corners very well. My sector of the sound industry has mostly been short turnaround content. I always thought it was just me that had to be fast. Somehow, Avid came up with a system in the S6 that doesn’t hold me back from being as fast as I want to be. It’s waiting for me, not the other way around.

However, I have to say that the Avid S6 isn’t perfect. My complaint about the S6 surface is twofold: the expense, and the fact that it doesn’t feel entirely solid. The Icon series feel like tanks. I get that the S6 is really a complex, modular, networked computer running Windows 10. That kind of complexity is expensive. The faders are almost there, but not quite. I’d like for them to feel a bit more weighty. I’ve also heard a great many people complain about the robustness and flimsiness of the knobs, but as of the 2017 console I’ve worked with, the knobs have plenty of weight for my tastes and have never caused me maintenance issues (breakage, etc).

Frankly, I think I would have loved the displays to have been touchscreens, and although the center section’s four-button panels are cleverly laid out, in the end they really are just macro keys. It’s a lot of expensive console real estate for macro keys. I do love the touchscreen in the center, though.

Avid S6 - Paul Maunder

I use Pro Tools in a few different locations. In my home setup I currently don’t have a control surface and this works fine for the kind of work I do there, which is mostly editing and tracklaying. I’m quite proficient at using Pro Tools with a mouse and so I’m able to do simple mixes by either manually adding automation breakpoints or by using Touch or Latch with a single fader at a time within the software, operated by the mouse.

For any serious mixes, I use the Avid S6 control surface at Spirit Studios, where I do some teaching. It’s a 24 fader M40 configuration in a room with 7.1 Exigy monitoring. I’ve used all of the Avid control surfaces to some extent or another over the years and the S6 is my favourite.

I like the fact that controls for EQ, Sends, Compression or any other plug-in can be expanded across the knobs at the top of the surface to give full control over every attribute of the plug-in. The attention track fader below the master section at the centre of the S6 allows for any fader to be replicated to a central position, with all of its attributes accessible from the central touch screen and the surrounding knobs. These 2 sets of 4 knobs can be assigned to any set of controllable attributes. It’s possible to have the 4 on the left controlling one thing and the 4 on the right controlling another if required. I can, for example, have one set adjusting a reverb and the other set adjusting sends.

Another feature I like and use is Layout Mode. This allows for custom arrangements of faders to be created and recalled easily. Up to 48 layouts can be created per Pro Tools session. When recalled, these layouts only affect the arrangement on the S6 and don’t disrupt what’s shown or hidden within the session itself. The layouts are stored in the actual .ptx session document and so move with the session between studios.

One slight downside to the S6 in a facility, which gets a lot of use by multiple people, is that some of the buttons can become loose. On a few occasions we’ve had to swap modules because buttons have been pushed in. By contrast, the older ICON control surfaces, while nowhere near as fully featured, have proven to be a lot more resilient to use over a sustained time period. If I had to point out one other small issue, it’s that the S6 seems to attract fingerprints and dust fairly easily. The shiny black finish makes them quite apparent so it’s necessary to clean it regularly.

To end on a positive, the scrolling waveforms in the meter bridge are excellent when mixing certain types of program content. For documentaries consisting of dialogue and music, for example, I can see when dialogue is coming up and duck the music appropriately by keeping an eye on the approaching waveform.

If you know Pro Tools, a lot of features on the Avid S6 can be figured out quite easily. I found the transition to it easy and it’s become an important part of my workflow for larger or more complex mixes.

Avid C24 - Audrey Martinovich

I am currently using an Avid C24 with Pro Tools 12 in my main room. We upgraded to the C24 from a Control 24 when we upgraded from Pro Tools 10 to an HD system a few years ago.

That said, between the two control surfaces, I prefer the older Control 24 because it had an angled shape making it a little more ergonomic to see and reach everything.

The C24 is flat except for the meter bridge so you have to be standing over it in order to reach everything.

It’s a shame but no matter what, our system will always have some kind of control surface paired with it.

I use it most frequently for volume and panning automation. For me having faders in front of you really speeds up that process rather than drawing in automation with a mouse.

Digidesign ICON D-Control - Michael Costa

After a largely unfulfilling experience with the original Mackie HUI in 1998, I was controller free, until my business at the time, was in a position to acquire a 32 fader Digidesign ICON D-Control in 2007. That business is now no more, but the D-Control is still with me.

Having the physical faders is one thing - many much cheaper systems can provide that. For me, the crown jewel of the ICON series is the custom fader banks and the flexibility they provide. For instance, for any mix I do of medium or greater size, I create between 4 and 8 VCA faders, which live right next to me. A 100 track mix can easily be contained within a small bunch of VCA masters. Then at the press of a single button, the contents of a single VCA can 'spill' itself out over the faders of your choosing. The immediacy of this workflow needs to be experienced to be appreciated. You are never more than two button presses away from having any track in your session within easy reach.

Another wonderful feature is the dedicated EQ and dynamics section. If plugin developers have played their part right, the high-mid frequency gain of an EQ or the threshold control of a compressor will always appear on the same knob. So whether you're using the basic Avid EQ3-7 band EQ, or some exotic Pultec recreation, you still reach for the same controls.

The most transformative feature for me though is the Pro Tools advanced automation system under your multiple fingers. Having the advanced Preview, Capture, Trim and others, creates an environment of never having to second guess or be reluctant to jump into automation, at any time. 

On the downside - it is now officially 'unsupported' and has been for many years. I know some users are concerned there will be some technological shift that may render it unusable, as happened with the Pro Control and Control 24 several years ago. I'm less concerned about this, because I believe the ICON range sold extremely well over many years, and there are many out there in the field. Certainly, it wouldn't serve Avid to deliberately do anything that would prevent these systems from working. Of course, anything can happen.

The other downside in my experience? As they age, they tend to blow LED power supplies - and they are EXPENSIVE! AU$500 just for the component, and I've replaced two so far, with a third one now needed. Each major piece of an ICON has one, so in my case, there's two fader packs and a centre section. And If you're not great on the tools, like me, you'll need a clever tech person to make the swap, because there's quite a lot of tricky steps required to get inside a D-Control.

Expected maintenance issues aside, it's been a wonderful device. When it finally gives up on me, I'll mourn its passing deeply as I move on to something more modern perhaps, but clearly much more modest. 

Slate Raven Mti2 - William Wittman

I’ve tried many control surfaces and for one reason or another, I never clicked with any until I got the Slate Raven Mti2.

For one thing, it’s just a great display. But the Raven software allows for ten multitouch points on the screen which means I can ride ten faders at once if I want to. I personally don’t find the on-screen faders difficult or off-putting at all, it’s just as good for me as touching a real fader and once you’ve made contact you don’t have to look at the screen to ride a fader (a common ‘complaint’ I read online from people who’ve likely never actually used a Raven).

In truth, I prefer the non-feel of the Raven faders to the feel of any physical DAW control faders I’ve tried (which are many). There’s a WEIGHT to the feeling of a good fader (like a P&G, or a GML or Flying Faders automated fader), which I find totally lacking in any of the control surface faders I have tried. They feel flimsy to me and that makes me feel disconnected from the sound I’m riding.

But where the Raven blows away the competition for me is the lack of need for mapping or adapting to an interface. You see the Solo button or the Mute or a plugin control on the screen and you touch it and change it. There’s no mental disconnect at all between what the DAW shows and your movements.

It’s the closest thing to what touching your actual console or outboard would be.

Add to this the built-in and programmable Batch Command system, which provides for automating many tasks and can be a real time saver.

Now, having said, that I’ll admit I don’t always use touch. There are plenty of things, especially in editing, that I prefer to grab the mouse for.

But when I want it, the Raven gives me that extra layer of direct control for mixing that makes me feel much more like mixing on a console.

SSL UF8 And Elgato Stream Deck Combo - Tom Lowe

Until about a year ago I’d been using the Avid Control (and its predecessor PT Control) app on my iPad, with some success, but I stopped using that a couple of months ago as I found the lack of tactile control of an actual fader more of a hindrance than a help.

I’d considered getting a Pro Tools Dock a number of times in the past but put it off as I knew I’d need more than one fader. The Avid S3 and dock combo was overkill for my needs, but then Avid released the S1, which looked like a perfect combination, but the requirement of an iPad or an Android tablet on the Dock and S1 put me off, especially as I’d rather have everything contained in one device, such as the displays and access to features. Relying on another device for these didn’t sit well with me. I also started to realise I probably wouldn’t use the Dock all that much, so a single Avid S1 and a new iPad (I’m an Apple user, what can I say) would be the way to go. However, around this time the SSL UF8 was released, which made me re-think which way I should go. 

As a Pro Tools user, I was very aware that the UF8 wasn’t a Eucon device, and that the HUI protocol I’d be relying on has severe limitations. The biggest drawback for me when using other HUI devices (such as the Mackie Control and a Presonus Faderport 8) at other studios, was the lack of fader resolution. Despite the low price of the Presonus Faderport 8 (and other similar devices) this always put me off buying one.

When looking into the SSL UF8, I quickly became aware that the engineers at SSL had overcome this issue by managing to use the least significant bit (LSB) to get 1024 levels of fader resolution, which to me seemed incredible and also made this a viable device. I was still torn between the S1/iPad combo and the UF8 though.

After watching a few videos on YouTube, particularly this one by James Ivey, I was leaning more heavily towards the UF8. A large part of this came down to cost. I’d ideally like to keep things as close to £1000 as possible. The S1 and a new iPad (my 2016 iPad Pro 9.7” was starting to get a bit sluggish when running Avid Control) would be coming in at around £1400 whereas the fully standalone UF8 was around £900.

During all this, I was also looking at used Avid MC Mix units on eBay and reverb.com to see what was available. Knowing they have Eucon support with Pro Tools and are cheaper than an S1, as well as being a fully self-contained device was appealing. However, I was soon put off this as I realised the MC Mix would probably no longer be supported by Avid and a second-hand MC Mix didn’t give me a significant saving over a new UF8 considering the potential problems I could face.

It was around this time I wrote my article taking a look at Nuendo 11. The UF8 works perfectly with Nuendo under the Mackie Control protocol, which while still not offering all the features of Eucon is certainly a huge improvement over the HUI protocol (supporting more than 4 characters for a track name being a big one). Knowing I’d get more functionality out of the device when using it with Nuendo as well as knowing I could use it reasonably well with Pro Tools made me decide to bite the bullet and go this route. I also got lucky as I found a brand new unit, which had a damaged box (no damage to the UF8 itself) and as a result I got a £70 discount, making it well below my £1000 threshold.

At the same time, I also bought an Elgato Stream Deck to work alongside SoundFlow to provide macros and shortcuts at the touch of a button for Pro Tools, Nuendo and iZotope RX8. One feature I’d really started to miss from Avid Control was customisable shortcut buttons and macros, which had sped up my workflow. Although the UF8 has customisable soft keys, I wanted to have a few more options available to me, as well as have them on a second device, which I could easily take with me if I’m ever working away from my studio. There’s also the added benefit of it working with iZotope RX8 when combined with the wonderful SoundFlow app - something which wasn’t possible with Avid Control due to the lack of Eucon support in RX8.

Excluding the monthly cost of SoundFlow, I spent £970 on the SSL UF8 and Elgato Stream Deck combination and couldn’t be happier with the setup and workflow improvements its bought. 

Mackie Control - Hardly Used - Eli Krantzberg

The areas of endeavours we generally engage in with our DAWs fall into three broad categories. Recording, editing, and mixing. Control surface functions generally center on the recording and mixing stages of production. I bought my Mackie Control Universal about fifteen years ago. After a couple of years of pushing myself to integrate it into my workflow, I more or less gave up on using it in my day-to-day work. Here is why: 

I found that switching my brain and muscle memory from mouse and keyboard to control surface required a very laboured transfer of focus. And there is a learning curve when using a control surface. Sure it's easy to make the connection between faders and pan knobs with what is on screen. But that is only a fraction of what something like the Mackie Control does. 

There are several nested functions requiring stepping through various menus and multiple button presses. Many actions are not visually intuitive or evident until you learn how to access them, like calling up plug-ins, adjusting sends, tweaking plug-in controls, and making routing assignments. Once you tap into all of this, the control surface becomes compelling, and the advantages are self-evident.  The problem was that I switch between tasks so frequently that I couldn't retain the necessary control surface details in long-term memory. Things like assigning ascending inputs for newly created multi-track drum recording, setting up new sends or subgroups, or tweaking a third-party compressor, always required fresh trips to the manual. 

I think control surfaces work best when you are constantly doing the same repetitive tasks. For example, if you are a tracking engineer recording live bands and need to assign inputs, outputs and sends regularly in your DAW. And you are doing this day in and day out on the same system. You can fly through these tasks with a control surface.  Or maybe you have your two or three favourite compressors, reverbs, guitar amp sims, and EQs set up in your mix template, and you are mixing for eight hours a day. Boom! Call the up and tweak with the knobs or faders, and you'll never look back. 

The problem is when you only do a little of all of these things, and infrequently. I found it hard to commit the necessary workflows to memory. Keyboard and mouse just always seemed quicker and easier. So now, I occasionally turn on my Mackie Control and use the transport controls (jog wheels rule!), or when I have a new client in the studio and want to up "my look." I've attempted to use it to write volume automation from time to time, but the faders are sticky with age, and the whole thing seems more trouble than it is worth. Frankly, it is taking up valuable desk space. At this point, I can't help but wonder if the desktop real estate could serve a better use for me.

Dom Morley - No Control Surface

My two cents on the control surface is that I'm really used to working without faders now and am not sure what I'd gain by going back to them.

The nagging issue in my head is accuracy of automation. When I'm drawing it in on Pro Tools, I can see the audio that I'm looking to change and I can really accurately get that move in.

If I'm listening and moving a fader then I'm reacting to the sound and will inevitably make the fader move ever so slightly late. This doesn't feel like progress to me.

Perhaps there are a million other use cases other than fader automation that makes a control surface indispensable, but I've not looked too deeply to be honest!

No Control Surface - Ufuk Onen

Control surfaces are great, but only if you develop motor skills or muscle memory, for using them. That way, they help you speed up your workflow as you do not have to pay attention to using them anymore. Instead, you focus on the job at hand.

In that sense, you can compare it to playing an instrument. For example, when you develop muscle memory for playing the guitar, instead of paying attention to pressing the frets to play the notes correctly, you focus on the song, your performance and your expression.

Developing motor skills take time and need practice. The more hours you put into practising your instrument, the better you get. Similarly, the more hours you work with a control surface, the faster you get.

At some point in my professional life, I was doing different types of work (music, post, radio etc.) in various studios. Those studios all had different setups. Since there was no way of developing muscle memory for a variety of control surfaces (at least for me anyway), I decided to stick to keyboard and mouse. As long as there's an extended keyboard with a numeric keypad, I was fine.

That decision I made in the past stuck with me to this day. Right now, in my home setup, I do not have a control surface. I only use a keyboard and mouse, and I'm very comfortable this way.

No Control Surface - Roger Guerin

Being a freelance re-recording mixer and teacher I am called to wear many hats.

I have a client that has a Control 24 for their ADR and Narration set-up, which works great. Of course Avid no longer support the Control 24, but I only use one fader to duck the guide and on some rare occasions use the mutes to a quick simulation of a composite performance, when working in this setup.

In their mixing rooms, they have different combinations of Digidesign's Icon, mainly for the client wow factor. Some mix in situ, while others mix from their homes and have a day of playback with the client(s) present. All the heavy lifting has been done off-site, and with today's computers the delivery elements are also rendered off site.

When teaching, I have one college that has three 5.1 mixing suites (mouse only), and two main studios, one of which hosts a Neve console (using Pro Tools as a multitrack recorder), and the second one houses an Avid S3.

The other college has an old Artist control surface, but the common thread is that no one is fighting to get studio time with the control surfaces, they prefer the mouse. I have to force them to make use of them to enhance their workflow.

Admittedly, I prefer the mouse, the amount of precision I get is essential to my workflow. Being able to duck or boost a syllable cannot be done with any control surface. Even when in playback with a control surface I reach for the mouse for the microsurgery, and use the faders to smooth out a fade or for a reverb push. With a control surface, I feel like Edward Scissorhands, but with baseball bats instead of scissors, awkward.

In Conclusion

Each Expert Panelist wrote their contribution in isolation, so it’s very interesting to see the common threads of workflow and muscle memory, which unite those who use a control surface and those that don’t.

Those working with Pro Tools, by enlarge, value the tight integration that the Avid control surfaces offer with Pro Tools but for those using other control surfaces the choice of which control surface to go for is clearly much wider.

Where do you stand on which control surface you use and why? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.