FADERPORT 8 vs QCon Pro G2 8-channel universal DAW control surface?

[donreynolds]

Hey all!

Looking for some thoughts

I have the Presonus FaderPort 8 hooked up and it actually works ok except for the scribble strips banks not working correctly and syncing to the DP track layout
Presonus support said they do not support Digital Performer… great

So I though I am going to order the QCon Pro G2 8-channel universal DAW control surface and see if it any better
It says they have DP templates? But I read on another post that the QCon also had issue with scribble strip track names?? The QCon support tol them it was a DP issue as DP was not sending the track info?

Any thoughts??

Don

[terencepalmer]

I had purchased the single channel Faderport and I could get one half of it or the other to work, but not both. I returned it when i saw that Presonus had dropped support for DP. I later ended up with the QCon Pro G2 8-channel and I have not had any issues with it using the Mackie Control mode.

The Digital Performer template refers to the plastic overlay, if I am understanding what you mean. That also works fine. by which I mean the buttons all work by labeled. The "Control Surfaces Help" -> Mackie Control PDF are the applicable instructions, even though they are showing a Mackie unit.

I will say this is the second time recently that I have seen someone mention DP not sending track name info (in the other case it was with FabFilter Pro-Q 4), but that also works for me, so I don't know what I am doing differently.

[donreynolds]

Thank you!

The Qcon is on it’s way!

[GlennK]

I was considering the single channel Faderport. So, if it supposedly uses MacKie and HUI, what doesn't work about it? And excuse me because I am totally new to control surfaces. Thanks.

[JSmith1234567]

I have looked at these a ton, and still haven't figured out the best idea?

One thing to remember about the Faderports is that there are not individual pan-pots for each channel.

It kind of defeats the purpose to me...the whole idea for me is like to balance a drum kit for instance, or section of players, and having physical faders but with panning on each channel would be essential.

I wish any of these had phase switches too!

I looked at the stuff Icons digital was making early on, and they seemed cheaply made, but the newer ones I've seen look terrific. They look like that company got their @$%&%@$ together! They seem solid and not cheap.

The SSL one looks really great, but then you pay for that too.

For myself, I wish someone had a 16-channel one that was stripped down to just faders, channel-name-readouts and pan-pots.

It's weird that the Avid Artist series, now discontinued, you can get the 8 channel one used really cheap now, but the 16-channel versions of it Artist S-3 isn't double that price, more like 4-5 times the price, even used and discontinued.

The whole Eucon vs Mackie MCU thing...having used both, I thought the Eucon would be way superior until I actually used it, and the Mackie MCU protocol is way hipper than I would have assumed. I kind of like it more than Eucon in actual use.

[primeevolutionary]

I absolutely love my Mackie MCU and two extenders. They work with DP near perfectly if not perfectly. If I were to replace them, it would just be to go back to using a board instead of controller.

[James Steele]

It's weird that the Avid Artist series, now discontinued, you can get the 8 channel one used really cheap now, but the 16-channel versions of it Artist S-3 isn't double that price, more like 4-5 times the price, even used and discontinued.

The whole Eucon vs Mackie MCU thing...having used both, I thought the Eucon would be way superior until I actually used it, and the Mackie MCU protocol is way hipper than I would have assumed. I kind of like it more than Eucon in actual use.

I'm using an Avid S3 combined with Avid Control on an iPad. It's a nice solution. I paid about $2K for the S3 used a couple years ago I think? I've been pretty happy with it, but yeah... it wasn't cheap. If I were on a tighter budget I'd probably go with two Artist/Avid Mix units plus Avid Control on the iPad.

But hey... to each their own. I really like the color coding on the S3 unit as opposed to the Artist Mix units (I had an Artst Mix + Control setup previously). It's much easier locating a track on the S3 since the LEDs on the S3 will reflect the track color.

[monkey man]

Isn't SSL an option, especially with the handy overlays (including one for DP) that come with it?

I know it's pricey, but so is Avid.

[JSmith1234567]

It's weird that the Avid Artist series, now discontinued, you can get the 8 channel one used really cheap now, but the 16-channel versions of it Artist S-3 isn't double that price, more like 4-5 times the price, even used and discontinued.

The whole Eucon vs Mackie MCU thing...having used both, I thought the Eucon would be way superior until I actually used it, and the Mackie MCU protocol is way hipper than I would have assumed. I kind of like it more than Eucon in actual use.

I'm using an Avid S3 combined with Avid Control on an iPad. It's a nice solution. I paid about $2K for the S3 used a couple years ago I think? I've been pretty happy with it, but yeah... it wasn't cheap. If I were on a tighter budget I'd probably go with two Artist/Avid Mix units plus Avid Control on the iPad.

But hey... to each their own. I really like the color coding on the S3 unit as opposed to the Artist Mix units (I had an Artst Mix + Control setup previously). It's much easier locating a track on the S3 since the LEDs on the S3 will reflect the track color.

I should look again at the S3.

I do really like Eucon, and the idea of just being able to pick thing up and take it to wherever I'm working is really appealing.

Eucon is very cool too. I guess I was saying that Eucon looked so good, I couldn't imagine looking at MCU, but was surprised after all about how well MCU worked too.

I've tried IOS versions of both, but doing it on an iPad instead of physical faders was just too weird?

it made a HUGE difference to me being able to grab physical faders rather than trying to worry about whether my fingers were touching the right tiny spots on an iPad.

Actually the SSL Nucleus, long discontinued, looks pretty hip too?

The audio part of it probably won't work anymore, but just as an MCU control-surface?

Though I guess I should look at what those units, 20 years on, have maintenance problems with.

[James Steele]

I should look again at the S3.

I do really like Eucon, and the idea of just being able to pick thing up and take it to wherever I'm working is really appealing.

Eucon is very cool too. I guess I was saying that Eucon looked so good, I couldn't imagine looking at MCU, but was surprised after all about how well MCU worked too.

I'm happy with the S3 myself, but I don't want to push any solution on someone for fear that they may not care for it. It's very subjective. In my studio I have an S3 directly in front of me and iPad on a stand off to the right. I find this to be a pretty powerful combo. I'll drop a pic below:

S3+iPadSetup.jpg (640.87 KiB) Viewed 7 times

Again, though, I paid about $2K including shipping a couple years back for the S3. That's probably about the cost of two S1s? The primary reason I didn't go with two S1s is because of my main display placement. If i had added iPads/tablets for the two S3s (for the meter bridge and other functions) they would have been two high and I would have had to raise my primary display (43" Samsung 4K TV) up to an uncomfortable height. So form factor played a role in my decision. I think it's also less deep and less wide than two S1s side-by-side. Moreover, I believe the S1s are made of plastic and I believe the S3 is metal? Not sure, but because it was originally designed for touring and not DAWs, it's supposed to be much higher build quality and more sturdy.

Having Avid Control running in conjunction with it is a big help. You can see the iPad to the right and it has several views. The current one is track overview. You can locate a track by selecting it on the iPad and the surface will bank to that track. Both the S3 and S1 have LEDs on each channel that will reflect the color of the track in your DAW, including DP. That has been a big time saver. I used to have an Artist Mix and Artist Control and having to READ the track names to find it was a hassle.

You can make a pretty inexpensive, powerful combo though by substituting to Avid or Euphonix Mix units connected together plus the iPad to the side running Avid Control. There are some limitations though. You can't use Avid Control to create custom plugin parameter maps with the Mix Units. You need to have either an S1 or S3 for that. Regarding lack of meter bridge on S3... if you look at the pic you will see an on screen meter bridge. That's called "Avid Desktop Control" and you can install it with the EUCON installer. You can then size it and position it so that the on screen meters align with the physical fader strips on the S3 surface. I set up a hotkey in Keyboard Maestro so that I hit F12 and Avid Desktop Control pops up and I hit it again and it goes away which is helpful since it does obstruct what's behind it on the main monitor.

Another thing I like about the EUCON surfaces is that they have a VCA spill feature. I am starting to do this with all my projects. I create a VCA Group for certain families of tracks: vVocal, vKybd/Synth, vGuitars, vDrms/Prc. I then assign each track to the corresponding VCA Group. Of course I can then raise or lower all the tracks by moving just the one fader on the VCA track, but I use it more for organization to help me find a track quickly. I have a "layout" recallable via an assignable button the VCA that will set faders 1-11 as "unassigned." The tracks controlled by these faders will change as I bank left or right. I then have faders/strips 12-15 to be locked to always display my VCA faders. Fader 16 is always my Master Fader.

So... VCA spill... the way it works is if I want to quickly adjust a particular vocal track, I double-press the SEL button on the vVocal fader. It then "moves" to Fader 16, and then all the faders to the left of it update to show ONLY the tracks that belong to the VCA group... they "spill" onto Faders 1-15 so I'm only seeing vocal tracks. I easily find the track I want to adjust and then when finished, double press the SEL button on "vVocal" and it returns to the previous state. For me this was a big thing when I discovered it and started using it. For all I know, however, Mackie protocol units have this, also, though.

Again... I have to disclose I have never really used a Mackie Control surface before so I'm not sure what Mackie Protocol can do. So again, I'm not trying to push EUCON... I will say that DP support for it has improved a great deal in version 11. For a week or two I was involved in a direct dialogue with a programmer at MOTU about a number of issues I found with EUCON support in DP. To be honest, I was sort of surprised that it had shipped for so long in that state and that it was able to may perhaps suggest that the number of users using EUCON with DP isn't that large. I did sort of raise a fuss on this forum about how custom plugin parameter maps were broken in DP. That EUCON feature allows you to set things up so that every time you bring up a particular plug in only the parameters you want appear on the encoders and in the order you want them. This prevents you from having to page through multiple pages of parameters that you're not interested in to find the one you want. For example, I have delay plugs when I edit them, it may be that only Mix, Delay Time, and Feedback appear, etc. Big time saver. Anyway, that feature was broken in DP and now finally works. If I have any gripe however, though, when you open a plugin the current value of the parameters aren't always reflected. They need to fix that, however, MOTU has greatly improved EUCON support.

I've tried IOS versions of both, but doing it on an iPad instead of physical faders was just too weird?

it made a HUGE difference to me being able to grab physical faders rather than trying to worry about whether my fingers were touching the right tiny spots on an iPad.

I'm with you there. I came very close to buying a used Slate Raven. The seller couldn't/wouldn't demo it for me prior to purchase so I passed. I'm sort of glad I did. Not putting people down who like Raven, I seriously don't judge anybody for their preferred tools and workflow. I just found that I like tactile knobs and faders. I also get a little concerned about whether Slate will continue to provide specific support for DP into the future.

Actually the SSL Nucleus, long discontinued, looks pretty hip too?

The audio part of it probably won't work anymore, but just as an MCU control-surface?

Though I guess I should look at what those units, 20 years on, have maintenance problems with.

I know nothing about that unit. And given that S3 support ran out in Dec of 2024 (or is it Dec 2025?) that could be a concern although Mix units are still working so I'm hopeful that the S3 will continue to be viable. As far as parts and repairs go, however, that could be dicey. I think you can still obtain replacement faders at reasonable cost from Avid, but I recently had a cracked button on my S3 and I don't believe replacements were available. I ended up making a VERY careful repair using a toothpick and super glue and it actually turned out pretty well. So don't mash the buttons... at least not the ones that have the tiny window cut in them so they light up. Two of those cracked/broke on my unit because their structurally weaker than the solid knobs. Again, fortunately I fixed them with some glue and they came out looking pretty good.

Oh well... sorry for the novel. At some point, I want to make a very simple video demonstrating the S3 + Avid Control (iOS) combo and what it can do. There are a LOT of features and I'm by no means an expert at this point, but just to show some of the basic stuff that is pretty cool. I'm also tempted to do one with two Artist Mix units and Avid Control (which in theory would be huge bang for the buck), but I'm concerned about hooking my old units up again and then messing something going back to the S3. Plus seems obvious that the old Artist units are going to cease to work sooner. It may be possible to revert to and older version of EUCON and keep them going, but who knows?