Euphonix MC Control & MC Mix

MC Control Power Features:

• Customisable touch-screen interface
• 12 assignable soft keys
• 4 touch-sensitive motorised faders
• 8 touch-sensitive rotary encoders
• Jog/shuttle/zoom wheel and transport controls
• Control multiple applications & workstations via Ethernet
• 250x faster and 8x the resolution of MIDI
• Supports EuCon, HUI and Mackie Control protocols
• Studio Monitor Express software
• Slim-line design for easy studio integration and portability

MC Mix Power Features:

• 8 touch-sensitive motorised faders
• 8 touch-sensitive rotary encoders
• 8 displays for surround metering, parameter and track names
• Link up to four MC Mix units and/or an MC Control for up to
  36 faders
• Control multiple applications & workstations via Ethernet
• 250X faster and 8x the resolution of MIDI
• Supports HUI and Mackie Control protocols
• Slim-line design for easy studio integration and portability

EUPHONIX & THE EUCON PROTOCOL

The Euphonix name has always meant luxury, large-format digital audio consoles and control surfaces as used by thousands of major music, film and broadcast studios worldwide. This time, however, Euphonix have branched out into a more affordable area under the new Artist Series banner and have released the MC Control and MC Mix.

They now appear to have made the luxurious affordable by squeezing the same Ethernet-based DAW control technology from the larger consoles into a package that will fit into the smallest personal studio, and even a backpack!

The MC Control and MC Mix both feature EuControl (or EuCon), a high-speed control protocol developed by Euphonix that enables simultaneous control of multiple applications and even workstations over an Ethernet cable at 250 times the speed and 8 times the resolution of MIDI. EuCon automatically detects whatever application is in the foreground and instantly sets the high-resolution touch-screen and OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) displays, motorized faders and arsenal of controls to match.

Euphonix has worked closely with the world's leading software developers like Apple (Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro), Steinberg, MOTU and others in order to integrate more deeply the native EuCon support into their DAWs to provide high-resolution, high-speed control over almost all DAW functions for an unmatched editing and mixing experience. The MC Control and MC Mix also support the HUI and Mackie Control protocols, allowing for greater flexibility at faster speeds and higher resolutions than any other controller.

With the MC Mix and MC Control you get the same high-speed, high-resolution connectivity and control as the pros. The great thing about EuCon is that it works not only with applications that directly support EuCon, such as Nuendo and Logic Pro, but also with any application that supports HUI or Mackie Control protocol applications, such as Pro Tools and Final Cut Pro respectively. There is no other protocol out there with this amount of versatility and power.

MC CONTROL

The MC Control, pictured above, uses a generous touch-screen to communicate with the attached DAW. From this, you can call up and edit channel settings, meter signals, and essentially control most of the common features of your sequencing software. Soft keys are the order of the day: there are 12 of them beneath the MC Control's screen, and they are banked and fully assignable so that you ca

n allocate your favourite feature to a specific button. There are eight assignable rotary encoders flanking the screen that can be used, for example, to change EQ parameters or channel gain settings.

To the left of the screen there are four motorised faders, complete with Solo, On, Select, and Record enable buttons. Of course, these are also banked, so you can manually scroll through and ride the fader of any channel in your DAW, but you can also set up and assign mix stems to the four faders. The right-hand side of the MC Control accommodates a variety of useful left/right controls, including Nudge, Page, and Bank, while a full transport control fans out from the jog/shuttle wheel.

MC MIX

The MC Mix, as you can see from the picture below, doesn't feature the touch-screen or transport section of the MC Control but has instead an extra four motorised faders (making eight in total). Each channel has its own assignable rotary encoder, as well as the afore-mentioned channel selection buttons and a small but detailed OLED display. There are hot-keys for accessing the connected DAW channel's inserts and auxiliary sends, and the same left/right Nudge, Page and Bank controls that are found on the MC Control also appear on the MC Mix's top panel.

Each unit has a single Ethernet port that can be connected directly to the host computer or hooked up to conventional LAN switching equipment, enabling a number of devices to be set up in a system. Should you wish to utilise multiple MC Controls and Mixes, they can be slotted together to form a long mixing console-like arrangement.

Using it

Considering most of the units we've had in stock were quickly snapped up by keen customers of ours, I was lucky to manage to book one out of stock to have a closer inspection of it myself.

First impressions are excellent, the first pleasant surprise being how compact the unit is. Measuring just 16.5 x 9.5 inches and being barely an inch thick - not to mention its neat layout, clean lines and uncluttered panel - it looks thoroughly sleek and professional.

Installation is seamless: run the installer, plug in the supplied ethernet cable and launch your host application of choice.

For a network product requiring its own software back-end, setup couldn't have been easier. EuControl launches automatically upon starting your Mac and runs in the background. Power up the MC Mix and a green Euphonix icon appears in the Mac menu bar signalling a successful installation; click that icon to access EuCon, where you can set the MC Mix so the software tracks which knob set is selected and subsequently displays the appropriate controls on-screen. In other examples, you can also have the DAW software open a plug-in window when the MC Mix is editing that plug-in or select the track when a fader is touched on the MC Mix (the same as pressing the fader select key). I tested it with Logic Pro as that's where a lot of the deeper functionality is implemented, but it's worth stating at this point that we also tested it with Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro. Setup is really straight-forward with both applications and one of the key strengths becomes apparent when you switch between them and the MC Control immediately snaps to whichever application is active.

You can also manage how tracks are assigned to the MC Mix's channel strips. By default, tracks are automatically assigned in banks of eight, beginning with the first eight when a project opens. Alternatively, tracks can be assigned automatically in response to the Bank and individual channel Nudge buttons, or you can assign a strip to always display the currently-attended DAW track. You can save those track preferences as individual layouts, recallable at a later time. That allows you to, for example, save separate layouts for a song's basic tracking/input scheme, drums sub-mix, rhythm section, vocal group, and effects returns - fully maximising what you can accomplish with only eight faders at once.

EuCon interfaces directly with the host and integrates at a much deeper level in its native mode than HUI or Mackie Control. Loading up a previously saved session, faders snapped immediately and quietly into place; the first eight track names appeared (to a maximum of 10 characters); individual tracks' solo/mute status lit up; and the rotary encoders defaulted to reflect pan settings. Aux buses, sends, inputs, master faders and more all showed up correctly as well.

I immediately wondered how plug-in assignments would appear, so I headed to the Knob Set selector section to call up the Inserts view. Some of the knob sets feature sub-menus. For example, the Inserts knob set shows the names of every plug-in inserted on the track in Channel mode (one plug-in name per knob). Depressing a given knob displays that plug-in's first eight parameters across all knobs. Plug-ins with more than eight parameters must be paged across or, if you have multiple MC Mix units ganged, they'll cascade across.

You can also instantiate plug-ins straight from the MC Control.

I had no problem navigating even the deepest of my plug-ins, pressing the Back key occasionally and the Top key to return to the top of the Inserts knob set.

I really loved how EuCon finds the parameters and maps them out for you, and the OLED display keeps you constantly informed of the currently-selected track by highlighting it with a grid of small yellow dots. Back in Normal mode, a vertical level meter shows peak-hold and clip indication to the left of each track name and automation status (read, write or read/write) shows on the right. Simply tapping a fader or knob momentarily replaces a track or parameter with a numeric value for that fader or knob. That's the non-destructive beauty of touch-sensitive encoders.

The MC Control is the only controller in this price range to feature touch-sensitive rotary encoders and OLED displays, which make all the difference for intuitively interacting with plug-ins. Combining intelligent native knob-set assignments, view-modes from EuCon-supporting applications, and smart user-programmable layout recalls, it's far easier, faster and more enjoyable to edit effects and soft synths on the MC Control than any other compact controller in this class. I would, however, like to see complete user-programmability of controller routings in future EuControl updates.

In the MC Control & MC Mix, Euphonix have created the first affordable high-speed Ethernet-based controller to hit the personal studio market. JazzMutant's impressive Lemur and Dexter Ethernet touch-screen controllers pack tons of futuristic tricks up their sleeves, but they also cost considerably more.

The bottom line and sales-clincher for me is EuCon's ability to control almost any parameter or chain of processes and to flip seamlessly between applications while doing so. That makes the MC Control a wise investment that can grow with you. It sounds too good to be true, but the MC Control works with any application running on Mac OS X. For each and every application you use - from Pro Tools to iTunes - the MC Control remembers your favourite soft keys which pop up as soon as the app is in focus.

Price

Now, if you are anything like me, you are already thinking to yourself: "££££££!" Well, here's the best part…

You get complete control over all your software, the touch-screen, and motorised faders, all packaged in a beautifully designed unit, and for a lot less than the big price tag you might immediately expect.

The MC control is £1020.00 exVat

The MC Mix is listed at just £722.00 exVat

The only thing that comes close to this kind of seamless integration (that I know of) would be the Digi 003, and even at nearly double the price it still doesn't control Pro Tools to the extent that the MC Mix and MC Control do - the latter really do drive every piece of supported software you can throw at it.

Congratulations Euphonix - you guys have seriously shown me the WOW!

For more information and details, check www.jigsaw24.com . You can also get in touch with us on 03332 400 222 or email broadcast@Jigsaw24.com.