Artist Series Reliable Setup?

[reichman]

Our studio just bought an Artist Control and an Artist Mix. We're in the middle of a busy period of time. I know this is a tricky question, but can these be setup reliably without crashing in front of clients?

I configured them for about an hour and a half, and by the end of that time they'd crashed 5 times and I uninstalled the software out of frustration. If there's a way to make them work, I'll stick with them. If not, I'm going to return them and go back to our old controller.

[8dB.co.uk]

I bought one cheap expecting the worst from all the reports in here. Using Eucon 3.1.2 on Windows, on a "tech" lan with static IP addresses, all stable. Make sure your network doesn't blip out and dynamically resassign an IP.

[ianmiller]

If you are on a Mac, I have achieved a decent level of stability by using the Eucon preferences. I have a static IP in my 4 units. I do not allow the Mac to sleep. I turn on the Artist units, and then start up the Eucon app from the preferences pane. Once it connects I kick off Pro Tools. This now works most of the time. When I have finished a session I go back into preferences and stop Eucon services. Do this before turning off the units as that almost always causes a crash. Once Eucon services are stopped (you enter your system password to stop and start them) you can turn the units off.

[reichman]

Thanks everyone. I will reinstall and give these units a fair test. I love their size, so it would be great if they worked out.

[8dB.co.uk]

I have to say that since using an Artist Control I have fallen in love and am using the controller far more than I anticipated. Eucon is also surprisingly stable and intuitive.

In the UK, a Bafta Sound award winning show was 99% mix on one Artist Control. I can see exactly how that was possible now - it's incredibly powerful.

I bought one expecting to have to spend hours every day sorting it out, if you go by a lot of the loudest shouters on here. Mind you if you believed any of them you'd still be running PT 7 on a PPC....

[YYR123]

Well hell, I might just get one before I drop 8k on a C|24 then !!!

Aren't the prices dropping ?

[RyanC]

Originally Posted by reichman

Thanks everyone. I will reinstall and give these units a fair test. I love their size, so it would be great if they worked out.

Definitely set fixed IP's for all of them, that helped a lot for me, also if on mac disable app nap for the eucontrol app and the other in the folder there.

I do wish avid would whole heartedly take notice of your comment about the size.

Even the S3 studio or whatever it will be called is looking on the too big size for me, personally workflow trumps client wow factor by a huge margin, and I'm not giving up having my qwerty and midi keyboard in front of me.

[ALSTUDIOS]

Originally Posted by RyanC

Definitely set fixed IP's for all of them....

Hi

Does read a lot about this issue - I'm a Win7 64Bit user and does not really care about it.
It just does work - so probably just a MAC issue?


Cheers

[TimNielsen]

A couple of things. First, make sure you check 'Prevent App Nap' by getting info on the app itself, and check that box. It keeps EuCon running at full speed even in the background.

Second, 3.12 appears for many of us very buggy. I've gone back to 3.1 and my setup has been very stable.

The Artist stuff certainly can get confused with IP addresses and all that, especially in a big network environment. I have a situation where someone's computer on the Universal lot would grab control of my Artists, and NOTHING I could do could wrangle control. I had no idea where on the lot they even were! So figuring out the best way to connect ethernet to them can sometimes be tricky.

At my home setup, it's not a problem since no one else is on the network running EuCon.

So yes, trying static IPs might also increase their stability, I haven't had to try that myself.

The EuCon support is pretty shameful from Avid at the moment, all their focus is clearly on S6 and they don't seem to give a damn about the Artist series. That said, once you get used to them and get it stable, they're quite powerful and very useful.

[reichman]

Our studio tech put everything on static IPs, and we connected the Artist series to its own switch and to the 2nd ethernet connection on the Mac.

It's finally working, but if I copy a big file in the background over the network, PT beachballs frequently and Eucon starts to feel shaky.

We'll put these to the test in front of clients soon, and I'm optimistic that they'll work. But even so, they're nowhere near the bullet-proof consistency I experienced with Pro Control/Control|24/003. I've only logged a few days on a D-Control, but that also felt very solid.