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Old 05-26-2007, 06:57 AM
Ted Spencer Ted Spencer is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 235
Default Re: Mackie Control Universal or Tascam 1082 for control surface?

Quote:
I've used the Mackie Control for a couple years now and I really like it. I recently purchased an extender. The only thing I don't like about the extender is the rotary encoders only pan. I was under the impression they would change along with the main unit. I could be wrong on that however. There isn't much documentation on using Mackie extenders with Pro Tools.
The extender's rotary pots do change modes properly in other DAWs like DP and Logic. The problem in PT, so I've been told, is in PT's own HUI software. It evidently is only capable of full control implementation on the first 8 channels. Perhaps this is because the original HUI never had an "extender", and was therefore strictly limited to 8 channels.

It would appear that updating the software would be fairly easy for Digi to do, but since they're now heavily into the controller business (and weren't when the HUI software was written) they appear to be disinclined to do anything to address that shortcoming.

I have a MCU/Ext pair myself, and either use the mouse to control aux sends on the extender's territory or channel-scroll the main unit 8 times to bring the extender's channels onto it. Either way it's a PITA, and regrettably so, since again, it would seem that a short trip to Digi's software doctor's office would fix it.

Unfortunately in this case, Digi rules the DAW world, knows it, and really doesn't seem to give a crap if your MC Extender doesn't do all it's designed to. Their implied position is that we should be delighted that our "legacy controllers" (as Digi has categorized them for years now) work at all.

Again though, in DP or Logic (dunno about others) all is well. DP allows 6 characters on the channel name field as well.
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