The Raven MTi2 Thread

[Gravity Jim]

Fixing that MIDI bug was my last major contention with the Raven, and I'm really getting into it. I also have to give a big shoutout and pour a 40 on the ground for my new homies at Slate Digital, who have gone way out of their way to make sure I'm happy. Some of the best support ever.

I think I'll keep it.

[Bennie Sims]

Just discovered that MIDI problem myself, Bernie. Is your A88 connected by USB?

I'm on Yosemite, too. Try using two fingers on the NavPad and let neck is if you see the same crash (Raven disappears but doesn't quit).

I fixed the A-88 situation thanks to this thread it was the command window thing!!! The two finger swipe gives me the same problem!! Oh my name is Bennie.... LOL!!!

[Bennie Sims]

Fixing that MIDI bug was my last major contention with the Raven, and I'm really getting into it. I also have to give a big shoutout and pour a 40 on the ground for my new homies at Slate Digital, who have gone way out of their way to make sure I'm happy. Some of the best support ever.

I think I'll keep it.

Have you tried to make any Batch Commands? I made one that works and one that's not even close to working. Especially dealing with the channel strip routing and inserting.... It is seriously hit or miss!!

[Gravity Jim]

Just getting into it. One thing I noted is that if you include mouse clicks in a batch command, you have to be clicking on something that is always going to be in the same place... It's recording the cursor location on the X-Y screen grid, so if the batch command executes the click and the button isn't there... No joy.

[wonder]

Thanks for the posts, guys.
I'm on the fence about the MTI and reading these first hand experiences to help make my decision.
Keep em coming.

[Gravity Jim]

The "two finger gesture on the NavPad" crash seems confirmed. (Sorry for the typo, Bennie... The autocorrect got me.)

Other than that, I have not encountered any problems that have not been solved. It's Batch Command Day.

FYI: Slate was surprised that Raven got screwed up under El Cap on my system: the current version is in El Capitan beta testing and seems to be okay. I'm expecting a phone meeting with a couple of their guys on the subject... I'll report anything I learn.

Here's my finished studio refit at work:

[mattdodge]

Hey Guys,

My name is Matt Dodge, Software Director for Slate Media Technology & the RAVEN Multi-Touch Consoles. I wanted to formally introduce myself and let you guys know that my colleagues and I will be keeping an eye out here with the intention of providing RAVEN DP users with support, as well as answer any questions some of you might have. Furthermore, RAVEN DP is a new release and growing product, I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas for future updates as we're always working to improve for our customers.

Thank you,

md
--
Matt Dodge
Software Director,
Slate Media Technology // Slate Digital LLC
slatemt.com // slatedigital.com

[Gravity Jim]

Welcome, Matt! I almost posted that you guys were watching this thread and forum, but didn't know if you wanted your presence known.

Have you tried to make any Batch Commands? I made one that works and one that's not even close to working. Especially dealing with the channel strip routing and inserting.... It is seriously hit or miss!!

Bennie, one tip I can give you that might help: I was scripting a button to create 6 mono audio files with specific ins and outs, using DP's "Create Tracks..." feature. It didn't work when I input my data using the mouse... but when I accessed the various pull downs and buttons by touching them, it worked perfectly. (I almost always start with 6 track for background vocals if I'm doing a jingle demo... many more for final.)

[waxman]

The "two finger gesture on the NavPad" crash seems confirmed.

Yep 2 finger nav pad is instant crash... Good to know it's been stable for you... between hassling the screen watussi and learning the thing I was thinking it may have been buggy but it sounds like it's going to be rock solid and snappier then I imagined...

[Gravity Jim]

...but it sounds like it's going to be rock solid and snappier then I imagined...

Indeed. One of the questions I asked them before purchase was about CPU usage, and it's true that it doesn't use any, or not so you'd notice. Runs just as quick as DP itself, so I can't wait till it runs consistently under El Capitan, which ramped up everything my Mac did while I was running it.

[waxman]

Thought I would put this over here for the MTi2 seekers...

I got the mixer yesterday afternoon and it took a few hours to get everything installed. Bottom line is this a great piece and I will become a Raven user eventually. It's uses an iLok which is not my favorite. Slate does things a bit different from other companies on installs but they have great support videos that walk you through their system. Having to log into the site name and password every time is a bit annoying but not the end of the world.

So I got on up early and spent the whole day on the mixer. It’s kind of a bummer because I have a defective unit. It’s a hardware issue that makes the screen look like you booted up in safe mode and sometimes it just does the watusi. But I marched on.

I set up on another system to test. I was not about to tear up the studio until I tested it. I got through 90% of the functions and it really does work. The batch commands are amazing and speed things up. The key is to make your own batch commands for the way you like to work.

The faders feel great. When the screen sits in front of you it is a different ergonomic feel then hand on mouse and looking straight ahead. It’s like reading a book or looking slightly down on a giant iPad similar to a Sony Tap 20 phablet which I use for video broadcast on Black Magic. You can prop it up but that will play games with the stereo field. So having it at a the flat horizontal angle like a regular console in front of you is how it won’t screw with the stereo image. I would also recommend sound absorption under it to stop any issues like concave reflection.

The way it works is the mixer floats over DP… that is really cool. One button and the mixer disappears and there is DP9. It works so much better then the Mackie MCU Pro and 2 XT’s I have used for years. Those mixers just did not line up with the screens and always felt disconnected. You can bank 24 channels at a time. What also works great to just slide your finger over the mixer and scroll to get at the addtional channels.

Some of the pre-made batch commands don’t do what they are supposed to. Like a Vox AC30 pops up instead of a dynamic processor listed. But that can be easily edited. The Slate remote for iPhone and iPad is pretty cool. Lots of functions

There was a product out last year called the V-PRO. It used NIFI and worked ok. Problem it was to small on an iPad... Slate is using that software to interface. There are some things on DP9 that are just too small to work with touch even though it’s a 27 inch monitor. But the size is very usable. I would go for 34 inch Ultra HD monitor like LG makes but Slate probably tried that and the 3440x1440 aspect ration was too small for touch. So the mouse is not going away anytime soon. I noticed myself driving with one hand and shifting with the other like a stick shift. It feels fine.

I am hoping Slate will get me another unit right away. I wil practice for a couple more days then change my whole studio around to make this happen. But alas I may need to wait a while unless Slate steps in and helps me out. If not it’s another month or two until Sweetwater gets another shipment. So it's bitter sweet since I got a lemon I made lemonade and when the new one comes it will highly impact how I work. I am a convert. This is really the cutting edge and these things will probably get cheaper and better as new revs come out. But at $1000 bucks I can roll with a new version every year or two. The good thing is there will be so many people wanting to buy a used one since it fits right into the home studio or pro set up… It’s not soup yet but the new updates after user feedback will just make these things better and better.

[waxman]

so I can't wait till it runs consistently under El Capitan, which ramped up everything my Mac did while I was running it.

Thanks Jim for input. I was feeling a little out on the limb with the MTi2.

I'm not going near El Capitan for a while. It seems this El Capitan is taking a long time for the manufacturers to adopt... I have it on my MacBook air and it works fine. For email and banking...

[Gravity Jim]

I was running El Capitan before the Raven arrived, and everything ran perfectly. According to Trevor and Matt, it might/should have run okay, too, but I had some consistent crashing and weird graphic behavior. If there are problems with 10.11.1, they'll be addressed in the upcoming maintence release.

[Bennie Sims]

Welcome, Matt! I almost posted that you guys were watching this thread and forum, but didn't know if you wanted your presence known.

Have you tried to make any Batch Commands? I made one that works and one that's not even close to working. Especially dealing with the channel strip routing and inserting.... It is seriously hit or miss!!

Bennie, one tip I can give you that might help: I was scripting a button to create 6 mono audio files with specific ins and outs, using DP's "Create Tracks..." feature. It didn't work when I input my data using the mouse... but when I accessed the various pull downs and
buttons by touching them, it worked perfectly. (I almost always start with 6 track for background vocals if I'm doing a jingle demo... many more for final.)

I’ll try that today!!!

[mattdodge]

Hey Guys,

First off, thank you so much for the warm welcome! We released our RAVEN 3.0.1 maintenance update today, which addresses the DP NavPad crash issue some users were experiencing as well as some other bugs from our primary release version. Please make sure and check your Slate Accounts for the latest update.

Just to do some clarifying here for those of you on OS X 10.11 (El Capitan,) when we released RAVEN 3.0, we were careful mention that the support for 10.11 is only currently in beta and not officially supported. Our development machines have been handling it very well, but we are still making some tweaks to the code to provide for full support in a future update.

If you're using OS X 10.11, things should generally function fine, however if you experience any issues, please contact our support department at slatesupport.com and let us know your specific issue so we can be sure and address it for the full support release.

Thank you,

md
--
Matt Dodge
Software Director,
Slate Media Technology // Slate Digital LLC
slatemt.com // slatedigital.com