Alpha Track availability

blue · Post by **blue** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 5:17 pm

The wireless unit is called "Tranzport" and it does indeed share some of Alphatrack's functionality (the transport). But, the Tranzport is really just a remote control for your DAW. To me, the main benefit of the Alphatrack is its control surface capability.

RMD Music · Post by **RMD Music** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:17 am

Yes, it is powered by USB fully and is hassle free installation. When switching between HUI and Native Mode, you may have to have the go to Control surfaces open the window and click to reactivate the mode, but everything else seemed to work real well. The touch sensitve scroll bar is kinda cool, especially when you tap either end and it goes from marker to marker. Also there are at least programable buttons which are very handy.
It's real cool, because the fader is automated and the knobs and buttons feel pretty sturdy. The display is also nice. Having eight faders is nice, but really most of the time I just use them on a single track. Will continue testing some more with it.

RD[/u]

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:00 am

RMD Music wrote:Yes, it is powered by USB fully and is hassle free installation. When switching between HUI and Native Mode, you may have to have the go to Control surfaces open the window and click to reactivate the mode, but everything else seemed to work real well. The touch sensitve scroll bar is kinda cool, especially when you tap either end and it goes from marker to marker. Also there are at least programable buttons which are very handy.
It's real cool, because the fader is automated and the knobs and buttons feel pretty sturdy. The display is also nice. Having eight faders is nice, but really most of the time I just use them on a single track. Will continue testing some more with it.

RD

What do you think of the feel of the fader and the responsiveness? Some proponents of FaderPort say that the fader is clunky, etc. because they went just with USB power whereas FaderPort uses an AC adaptor to power the fader.

Resonant Alien · Post by **Resonant Alien** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:23 am

American Musical has them in stock.

http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i- ... TRACK.html

Just ordered mine. Don't know how many they have. Get'em while their hot!

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:09 pm

Just received my AlphaTrack today! Well, downside is that other issues came up and I didn't get much chance to use it, nor will I for the next five days. Seems I always receive my toys right before a period where I won't be able to use them for a while... aarrrggghhhh... but I digress.

Now keep in mind you're talking to a guy who has never owned another contol surface before, so I can't compare it to anything else. That said, I'm pretty darned pleased with AlphaTrack so far and am glad I went with it instead of FaderPort. The fader works just fine for me. I don't have any issues with it.

The AlphaTrack does require considerable USB power, so it will have to be plugged into the Mac or a powered hub. Note that even with a powered hub, if you have too many devices drawing current on the powered hub, the AlphaTrack might get starved for power and will appear to be on but have blank display until it can get more juice. I found this out because I bought a 7 port powered USB hub tonight by D-Link and proceeded to plug everything into that. I swapped it for my older powered hub that only had 4 connections. Well, AlphaTrack, which worked swimmingly before didn't like it and didn't work. I ended up having to reattach the 4 port powered hub to the Mac, chain the 7-port USB hub off of it, and plug the Alpha Track into the first hub by itself. This is all a longwinded way of saying that if you put this baby on a powered hub, it's going to want to hog most of the available power for itself.

With the hub problem solved the thing is great. New drivers were released recently. It works like a charm. There's visual feedback of exactly what track you're working on in the display. Click a track in DP, and you see the track name. FaderPort doesn't do that. Touch a control... see a bar graph and numeric readout of the parameter. Step through the tracks the names change... no guesswork.

Here's one of my favorite features... the "flip" button. Again, not on FaderPort. Let's say you're adjusting volume and pan on a track. The fader defaults to the volume of course. You can turn a knob and set pan. Want better control over pan? Hit the "flip" button and now the fader controls the pan with better resolution. Of course the REAL advantage to this was when you press the "Send" selector to control a channels effects send. When trying to set just the right amount of reverb it's "iffy" with the rotary knob. Hit the "flip" button. Voila! The long-throw fader now controls the effects send... you can finely control just how much.

Usual transport controls work fine. Tap the left or right sides of the touch strip to jump backward or forward through markers. I did find though that when using two fingers on the touch strip which was supposed to "shuttle" more quickly than using just one, it was not a marked difference. That really didn't work as well as I had hoped.

Also there are function keys that can be used to do whatever you can assign the key command to do in DP. Meaning that on the Alpha Track the F1 - F4 keys are "hardwired" to send the equivalent of pressing "Opt + F1" through "Opt + F4" respectively. If you use AlphaTrack's shift button, F1 - F4 become F5 - F8 and when pressed send the keyboard equivalent of "Opt + Shift + F1" through "Opt + Shift + F4". So in order to program these, you just go into the commands window and choose the function, highlight the area for the key command and you can either press the appropriate keyboard command, or (I just tested this) even easier, just press the appropriate button on the AlphaTrack and it appears as if you typed it on the Mac keyboard.

I ended up setting up F1 - F4 on the AlphaTrack to be my most common Window Sets. I recall my Window Sets by using the numeric keys across the top of the QWERTY keyboard. They are differentiated by the OS from the numbers on the NUMERIC keypad, so it doesn't cause any problems and they're just one touch away. So I recalled one of my Window Sets, then chose "Capture Window Set..." and gave it the Window Set the same name with "(AT)" appended to the end, then highlighted the key command box and press the key on the AlphaTrack. Save it... Voila!

I haven't had much time with the unit so I may want to use the programmable keys on the AlphaTrack for other functions than changing Window Sets. Time will tell. And again, calling those keys "programmable" or "assignable" is a bit of a misnomer as they are hard-wired to send specific keyboard combinations. It's up to you to program DP to do what's desired when it detects it.

Any way... all I can say is TWO THUMBS UP! Glad I waited.

blue · Post by **blue** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:37 pm

Thanks for the report, James. I will be having one of these just as soon as I can.

Resonant Alien · Post by **Resonant Alien** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:43 am

Yeah, the Alphtrack is great. Been playing with mine for a couple of days. It works great with DP. I have to say that I don't miss my Mackie MCU at all. While it was kind of cool having 8 faders and all that, I really only use one fader at a time anyway for automation. The transport controls are actually better on the AT I think. It's great having my desktop space back - the MCU is so darn BIG!

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:49 am

I want to post something that appeared on the MOTU-MAC list from "Victor." There's some new information in here including how to get the two-finger shuttle to work better and changing automation modes from AT:

My experience with AT has been similar to James'. I have been pleased with the way that the unit interfaces with DP. I agree with Hiro that it would be great if there was an indicator in the mix window which shows which track is selected but until there is, the AT lcd makes it easier to see where you are when you have a eyeful of tracks displayed on
screen. I'm finding that the more I dig into the AT the more stuff I find: For example, using the pot to move through tracks will skip over master and buss tracks (auxes, I haven't checked). Access to those tracks requires that you push the pot down and turn it left to access Master mode. I initially didn't get the shuttle/scrub strip to work, either. But it
worked for me the way described only after I widened the distance between my fingers a little, I assume making it easier to read as two fingers (One finger=scrub, two fingers=a faster shuttle). And yes, the automation modes may be switched using one of the pots after turning write or read automation on (also switchable via the AT). The fader has been fine for me also. It is not silent, but I've had no problem with mix moves with it and after editing one button push turns the fader motor off. The only caveat I would venture is if you install more than one driver for use with multiple programs___ The AT cannot (so far, at least) cleanly handle multiple programs loaded in ram at once. I wanted to load DP and Reason and rewire them but somewhere in the process the AT switched to control Reason and stayed there even when I manual switched back to DP. I suppose this is probably true of most devices which have specific drivers talking to the programs. AT's manufacturer says that until the software manufacturers make the programs release the hardware when not in the foreground, this kind of transparency won't be. OK, it works great with DP, works great with Reason, just not together. Overall though, I am so far happy to add this to my desktop as the "go to" link to my main DAW setup. I would think that it might be even more useful with a laptop setup.

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:58 pm

I just wanted to add that I too have the alphatrack as I picked it up today and I am VERY happy with it as well. The only issues I have noticed is:

1) The fader seems a little slow to respond when switched as compared to other control surfaces I have used. I am hooked through a hub so I might try and hook up directly to my mac and see if that speeds up that communication or maybe current draw for the movement. I say this because no one else has complained about the speed.

2) When I click on a track in the mixer, it doesn't select that on the alphatrack. Maybe it shouldn't but it would be nice if it would, which brings me to issue 3 which is related.

3) When nothing is selected in the tracks overview it defaults to the first track. I'd rather it just kept the last track that was selected. Why? Well when you are in the MIDI view and say select some automation or notes, it switches to that track. But, when they become unselected, let's say you delete them, then it goes back to the first track again. That seems pointless to me. It should just stay on the last thing selected.

If someone could comment on these, I'll wait before writing Frontier. I LOVE their products so I will certainly be sending them feedback to improve some of these issues.

As far as using it, I was writing two songs for some commercial material today and found myself using it without interuption. It just feels really natural to make changes, to the point where I am not using the Mixer so much in DP. No real need other than setting inserts and sends and stuff. I VERY much recommend one, and the display, is priceless. Really.

Also, the tap to the markers. Wow.

THIS is what I call innovation.

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:05 pm

I'd like to report that I just recorded frequency settings for the LMF in the Masterworks EQ with the slider on the alphatrack! Wow. It was EXTREMELY easy to do. And I just road the fader through the part and when I played it back, because I still had the plugin selected, the fader of course tracked the value.

Now I want a second one if they can work together!

toofar · Post by **toofar** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:04 am

grimepoch wrote:1) The fader seems a little slow to respond when switched as compared to other control surfaces I have used. I am hooked through a hub so I might try and hook up directly to my mac and see if that speeds up that communication or maybe current draw for the movement. I say this because no one else has complained about the speed.

Thanks for reporting with your first impressions. I hope to follow suit soon.

Regarding issue #1, I was just reading someone else's post on Big Blue Lounge about this. He has both Alphatrack and Faderport, and feels that the fader on the Presonus unit is noticeably better. Maybe the other features can make up for this?

Bill

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:22 am

I wrote on the Frontier forum as well asking about the response of the fader. I will say, the display ABSOLUTELY makes up for it. I will NEVER use a control surface without display as it's a no brainer when determining what you have selected.

Compared to the Radikal SAC2.2k, this fader is slower and clunkier to respond. That said, it's on a hub, and I want to make sure there isn't maybe some issues with my hub so I've asked them about it. (I would move it, but it's a lot of work to re-organize things and anytime I mess with USB devices AudioMidi has issues with the ExpressXT and thinks it is a new one, making me remap EVERYTHING to the new one). It's a known issue.

Working with it more today.

Also, the knobs are a bit slippery, can make them a tad hard to turn. I still think the rotary encoders on my nord rack 3 are the best I have used to date.

toofar · Post by **toofar** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:15 pm

Got to agree with you on the benefit of a visual display. Frankly I'm a bit surprised that Presonus didn't think to put one on theirs. Bet they're rethinking that one now.

Bill

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:29 pm

You'd have thought tascam pretty much shined the way to what happens with a display less set of encoders. And really, LCD displays are CHEAP today.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:58 pm

grimepoch wrote:2) When I click on a track in the mixer, it doesn't select that on the alphatrack. Maybe it shouldn't but it would be nice if it would, which brings me to issue 3 which is related.

I think that's something that MOTU would have to modify DP for in order to make that work, because I don't think you can actually "select" a mixing board track (name of track becomes highlighted).

Heck... I wanted to have MIDI patch change available on mixing board track.

MOTUnation.com

Alpha Track availability

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