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Old 11-22-2011, 07:42 AM   #83
Nick Morris
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington View Post
Obviously just another voice from the peanut gallery, but in designing the 8 Fader module, I think you want:

1) At least 2 rotary encoders for stereo pan,and other duties.

2) OLED tops to indicate which mode the encoders are currently in.

3) Dedicated OLED display for each rotary for value readout, current function assignment, etc.

4) Don't need 2 send buttons -- do push top rotaries like the MCU and cycle through sends.

5) What does the insert button do?

4) What does the shift button do?

5) Overall, I still like OLED's a lot more than LCD displays, don't know how costly they are to implement though.

6) I never use Flip, whenever I think of Flip, I really mean, assign this value to the fader for a sec for some fine adjustmnet, then go back to normal.

7) Phase switch, IMHO is unecessary and just adds clutter -- most mic pres have a phase (polarity) switch, and if you are doing something fancy like MS, just use the mouse to flip the polarity of the channel of interset.

8) Wondering if automation should be controlled from a central location and act on the selected channels, as oppposed to having dedicated controls for each chanmnel.

9) This brings up an interesting ergonomic point - control surface busyness (lots of widgets) which provides extremely quick operation and visualization of state versus more modal control -- lower cost, less busy, but tends to deteriorate into the one parameter at a time mouse model.

10) I think there are some lessons to be learned from the big boys like the Smart AV stuff, like combining multi-touch screens with hardware faders, etc.

Great discussion, keep it coming.
All great points. As soon as I looked at what I drew, I noticed that the automation buttons do not need to be on each strip.

The Tango is a wonderful piece. I would love to be able to build something like that, but I feel it is way over my head. I really do not know what is involved with touch screens and their software needs.

I first wanted to add pieces of the Reaper channel strip and then see what is needed or not for the control surface. Flip can be done away with. Same with phase.

As for your points above,
1)I figure 4 encoders, two assigned and one for pan, and one for send.

2)Do not know how I forgot that.

3)Agreed. My drawing sucks but this is in it.

4)Agreed. My drawing has this same idea.

5)Insert is the fx insert button on the channel strip in Reaper.

6)Shift could be a modifier button to change to a user defined second layer action. (this was really a filler button idea)

7)agreed

8)they should be in just the master module. Noticed it as soon as I looked at what I uploaded.

9)I come from the school of thought that the controls for should be available without having to menu through to them. The System 5-mc has this same approach, as does my analog console.

In one of our rooms we had a DMX-R100 digital console. It had a center section that was a hit with people because of the fact that every control for one channel was laid out and there was no menu to sift through to reach the function or parameter you wanted to get to. Having used other digital consoles this was huge for speed and intuitiveness.

On the control surface side I would like this mentality to be included. This was one of my main reasons for interest originally in the Euphonix system 5 mc.

If our control surface can mirror this approach, workflow will improve dramatically.

I really would like to find what we would like in the control surface before we start weeding out what can fit and can't fit price wise. Once everything is laid out, we can have a cap on the price and start eliminating the less of a priority features.

10) Smart AV know what they are doing. I wish I knew how to do any of that. If I could I would make my system-5mc have sex with a tango and steal its baby.
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