Re: S1 impressions?
Pretty great so far! I've mostly mixed with a mouse over the years and tried out an artist mix/raven and a few other lower budget controllers, but never really clicked with them. I figured I'd try out a couple of S1s with a dock since the price seemed right.
The faders seem exactly the same as the dock fader and get the job done - they're not as smooth as a high budget console, but I have no trouble nudging up parts in 1/10 of a dB increments. The eq/dynamics section/etc switches work great - it's very quick to pull up an eq/compressor/send. The values spill out over the two units so I can have up to 16 knobs to control an eq which brings up pretty much everything. One difference from the dock is that the knobs have a much looser feel - there's a resistance to the knobs on the dock which took some getting used to, but which is absent from the S1 knobs. Both seem to get the job done though.
As far as tablets, I went with a couple Fire 10" tablets and they stay synced up really well. It's nice to see the eq curves and just a big splash of color near the track name to keep aware of where you are in a big session. I think I may swap out with some 12" iPads at some point as having the tracks and meters line up would be a little more elegant when working quickly. Occasionally I grab the wrong track.
Overall build quality seems great and the magnetic link up is pretty cool - my only complaint is that one of my "flip" button was labeled wrong on one of the units.
-Brian
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