Novation Nocturn

[Siegfried Meier]

Is anyone using the Nocturn in HD 8 to control plugins? I've searched for a few posts on here but most lead to a dead end.

If this thing is no good in PT, is there anything else besides a Digi or Euphonix device that is a great little plugin only controller?

Thanks,
Sig

[whatsprotools]

I've used it before. Here & there. Worked fine.

[TimNielsen]

I've been using the big brother to the Nocture, the Remote Zero SL for over a year now, and love it. I've had a few plugins that refuse to be 'wrapped' but most of them work, and it's superb for using EQs especially.

The only other real options is the M-Audio Axiom keyboards and devices, which have some 'HyperProtoccal' or something (can't remember the name, sorry) which does sort of the same thing, but in the demos I've seen, it wasn't as slick as the Novation solution.

BUT, I'm sure Novation is 'rigging' their solution, I'm sure it's not supported, so one would have to assume with new versions of PT it will 'break' until Novation can make it work again. But it's really something Digi should have latched onto years ago, and offered something like it, a plug-in control surface. The command 8 had super rudimentary functionality, but once you use the Novation one, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it, IMHO.

For stability (just being cautious) I wrap only the plugins I really need to use it with, all my EQs for instance. I don't let it wrap every plugin which it might try and do be default.

But it's slick.

[audiogeekzine]

I have the Nocturn 49 keyboard and AutoMap Pro. it is excellent but you'll have to put in some time to set the mapping how you like, the defaults for each plugin aren't logical.

It doesn't replace the mouse for most things but for Virtual Instruments it's essential.

[Siegfried Meier]

Ok, so for basic Waves SSL channel control, and other eq's and dynamics, it's working well? No crashes, weird sh•it?

For $85 it may be well worth looking into then. Can you jump from one track to another easily, or does it require you to mouse click to open each one? How exactly does that work?

Thanks!
Sig

[TimNielsen]

Automap Pro is a stand alone app, that will run alongside ProTools, it always stays in the foreground and has controllable transparency. You can also have it show up only when you touch a knob on the Nocturn.

Basically, if you 'wrap' a plugin, then anytime that plugin is in the foreground, automap switches it's screen to match the maps for that plugin. It's pretty seemless. Once it's running, if you click on a plugin, you can instantly just start moving knobs on the Nocturn.

As someone noted, it takes a 'bit' of setting up, you have to build your interface for each plugin, but only once. Then you can save it to a file as well, but you can also, once built, tell it that this is the default map always for this plugin. So you start another instance, it starts with the map again as you set it up.

Once you take a bit of time to set it up, it's very fast to use.