The crazy fader noise.... ready to scrap McMix [Fixed in EuCon 2.6.1]

[brianjanthony]

I recently got 2 MC Mixes from SW. I really love the concept. But I cannot get past the crazy fader noise. Not noise when they are moving. When they are silent. SW tried some other units before they shipped me a replacement. The in-stock units buzzed too. Why bother getting a replacement?

I've googled and searched and it seems this is a known issue and can be addressed by firmware. Avid support was chiming in as early as May I think on this issue, saying a firmware fix was forthcoming. Now it'll be August. And with Lion out, I'm sure they have their hands full. 3 months and waiting...

I'm having a hard time justifying spending $2k for something I can't be sure will ever be fixed. Try mixing a quiet acoustic vocalist with a bumble bee in the room. I'm trying to write tails on a song and I hear buzzzzzzzzzzz..... I've had 4 Artist Series sent to my house. 3 have been broken/malfunctioning from the box. That's a 75% failure rate.

Has anyone tried a 2 ipad combo with some of the app controllers out there instead? I could buy 2 ipads and software for the price of one of these MC mixes. And hopefully it wouldn't buzz like a fly. And I'd have more options with it.

Any word on a fix for the faders, or whether the ipad is a viable alternative for the next few years is appreciated.

[robertg]

touching the fader or banking back and forth will stop the buzzing.. at least until the new firmware is out

[Xill]

Mine is totally silent. Nothing at all.
Have you verified your electrical wiring?

[brianjanthony]

You are a lucky one if it is silent. My wiring is fine and everything is hooked up to 1kVA or 2kVA UPS systems.

Banking or touching the fader only shuts them up (for me) if I do nothing else after that. In other words, if they're buzzing, I touch them, then silence. But if I hit play again, or bank again, they get even louder.

Then in complex sessions, they will randomly disconnect, which I don't get. But the buzzing thing is more irritating. I figured I wouldn't hear it over the music. But it has become distracting. Sad part is, my Behringer BCF2000 (joy for $200 yeah baby!) seems to have less issues.

I may get an ipad to see if I can handle the non real faders. Not the same thing I know. ANyone have any real world experience with these in this capacity?

For $2500, I expected more from these MC Mixes. At least to not make my job harder. I don't need a console with preamps and etc, already have 32 preamps and don't want any more. I don't need outboard anything. Just controllers. Bugs me that the thing branded Avid actually doesn't work as advertised. At least for some of us.

[Xill]

I don't know what to say really. My wiring is not professional here, just standard grounded powerbar, but I cannot hear the Mc Mix or Transport at all unless the faders move (but I have a totally blank bank set on my Transport to prevent that noise in playback).

I would presume it's a chain-manufacturing fault and therefore that it should be replaced by tech support.

[robertg]

Originally Posted by Xill

Mine is totally silent. Nothing at all.
Have you verified your electrical wiring?

It's not wiring; it's a known problem having to do with different types of faders in different models and the firmware.. support has acknowledged it

[hpfmn]

I guess you refer to this: http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=290728&page=6

[Xill]

Originally Posted by robertg

It's not wiring; it's a known problem having to do with different types of faders in different models and the firmware.. support has acknowledged it

Then it's a faulty unit, it should just get replaced.

[Artist PM]

It's on the way. We had to validate that it fixes noise, jitter and slam issues on mixes built from 2008 to now. This took a lot of testing and tweaking.

Regarding Lion our tests with EuControl 2.6 (shipping software) have been good but look for an officially qualified release that includes the firmware very soon. I'll update this, and other threads.

Thanks a lot for your patience on this. We are excited to have a solution in sight.

Best,
JC

[brianjanthony]

Soon is nice. I have an ipad in house and its been interesting to compare the McMix to some of the ipad/app solutions....