pen & tablet....

[SteveGarman]

If you're like most of us, you've held a pen or a pencil most of your life. That's why a pen is a natural choice for editing on pro tools. It takes up much less space and it's really intuitive. My Wacom 4x5 pad is tiny and it's the perfect match for PT. My hand has never tired using the pen because I've grown up preparing for it. If you want to move your mouse across double screens you have to literally roll it from one side to the other--the mouse balls rolls for every inch of space the cursor moves. Not so with the pen. You're in one corner of the screen. You simply lift the pen point off the pad move your wrist a tad and set the point down on the other corner of the pas and Voila! your cursor is automatically there and you didn't have to roll or drag anything all across the mat to get it there. That alone is worth the price of admission for me. Plus when editing breaths out of regions, nothing is more precise. Picture a surgeon cutting. A scalpel is almost the same movement as a pen! Intricate and precise. Would you want someone cutting on you while holding a mouse?
I don't think so.
Try an ADB mouse from wacom. Be sure to get the small 4x5 pad. That's all you need. Give your hand a chance to go back to what it's used to and your carpel tunnel will disappear.

[Rocco]

I use a Wacom Graphire USB tablet with a G4 and PT 5 and works great, specially for automation and waveform redrawing.

[KingTor]

Steve -- the part I'm still trying to work out in my head is how this system adjusts to having two monitors. The aspect ratio of a single monitor is very similar to the 4x5 tablet, so the double monitor should require something like a 4x10 pad, no? How does it work that out?

[SteveGarman]

Simple the left side of the 4x5 pad put cursor on the left side of the left monitor's screen. Lift the pen to the right side of the pad and the cursor is at the right most side of the right monitor. Any where inbetween corresponds to the same point spread over the two monitors. In other words, it is a perfect marriage! You'll love it. Does your mouse span the two monitors well? Yes! So will the Pen only better because there isn't as far to move. The only drawback I've found is in Waves plugins the pen can't set slider parameters. When you touch a slider with the pen, it shoots back to zero and you can't move it again. I have the mouse on-line simultaneously (a nice feature in ADB) for those few occassions. We usually store our settings as defaults so they come up with the plugin anyway.

[dar]

Thanks to all who replied, in particular Mr.Garman. As I told him in a private post, the day after my intial post I had to go in for emergency surgery and required the use of a surgeon. His was one of the first posts I read and the timing of it actually made me laugh. I will be going to a pen & tablet as soon as I am back to work (3 weeks). And you know what? I really miss my PT. Maybe we should start a thread for recuperating PT engineers.........

[KingTor]

digital audio withdrawal. it's not pretty my friend, but I have confidence that you'll make it.

[fishing444]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">quote:<HR>Originally posted by KingTor:
digital audio withdrawal. it's not pretty my friend, but I have confidence that you'll make it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

try the new kensington turbomouse.. very smooth and easy.