Artist series, Eucontrol, Support: Sorry, I don't get it.

[OTARI]

Hello, I'm new to the forum. Posting here because for the sake of my life I don't know how to get any help otherwise: I'm experiencing the most frustrating user experience of my life so far. I'm not exaggerating. If anyone from AVID is reading this, please drop me a message. Thanks!

Here we go: Recently purchased PT10 (vanilla), Artist Mix and Transport. Fresh install of OSX 10.6.8 w/all updates, for the sake of it. Clean install of PT10. Not one 3rd party app on the system (see specs in my user profile). So far so good. PT10 running smoothly.

A few days later I purchased an Artist Mix and Transport. Connected via a Ethernet switch to the machine. Install of Eucontrol (latest version). Both controls have the latest firmware and are talking smoothly to the machine, no firewall running, no connectivity issues etc.

Then the Horror begins: For 3 days straight, the Artist Transport, Eucontrol, PT10 and AVID support have been fighting me - and I haven't even gotten around to even trying out the Mix controller yet. Question: Since these surfaces and Eucontrol have been in development for 5 years now, how come I feel Eucontrol is the worst piece of code I have ever installed on my Mac?

Let me explain: When going into Jog mode (which I first need to push a soft key for? wtf? but I will get into that later), the nice timeline cursor in PT dissapears and all that's left of it is a castrated position marker in a random track (!)... okay, I Jog around a bit though I can't see exactly where I'm at. Then I go out of the soft-key-scroll mode to find that the mouse cursor in the PT window won't come back on the screen! I have to ctrl-click to get it back, randomly calling up some contextual menu because I don't even know where my mouse is at. Great. Same issue with the shuttle mode. Better not use the Jog or Shuttle at all if that is how it works. How come the latest pieces of equipment and software by the same company work together so lousily? For how long has Eucontrol been in development? Forgive my ignorance.

More on the Jog and Shuttle controls: The Jog wheel is recognized by Eucontrol as a single soft knob. So is the shuttle ring. Why in the world do I need to assign two (!) other soft knobs (as in the standard Eucontrol layout) to make them do what they're supposed to do? Just. Jog. And. Shuttle. No other magic functions (which all seem to work a treat btw). Since I figure I overlooked some basic concept, I go into the Eucontrol config and assign "Wheel: Jog" to "Edit Control: Jog", and then "Wheel: Shuttle to "Edit Control: Shuttle" for use with a single soft knob, which I name "Jog/Shuttle". And it doesn't work! The result is both knobs do only Jog, then Eucon freezes, then the controllers freeze, then ProTools freezes and I have to force quit everything and reboot, unplug the power from the controllers. In all honesty, does AVID expect one to first press a modifier button to be able to use the Jog wheel as a Jog wheel (which could be really easy in the first place if the functionality wasn't so horridly implemented)? And when done Jogging, one needs to push the soft knob again to go out of the "Jog mode", then press another button to be able to use the Shuttle ring, then press the modifier button again to get out of "Shuttle mode"? Is this a cruel joke or a case of really bad software implementation? Not even to speak of the timeline- and mouse cursor having dissapeared when I get out of shuttle or Jog mode and having to right-click randomly in the PT surface to get the mouse cursor back.

Then I figured I could at least configure the "Assignable knob" function, because it looks too good in the Euphonix demo videos: No, as soon as I do so, Eucontrol freezes, and I have to reboot the machine and unplug power from the frozen controllers.

Then I figured, before harrassing AVID support, I might as well uninstall Eucontrol, trashed Eucontrol prefs, trashed PT prefs, reinstalled Eucontrol, all to no avail. Same problems.

Then I figured "Since I bought all that expensive stuff, I have three AVID support codes in my mailbox, and now might be the time to use one".

Then I logged in to AVID support and tried to use the ASC form. And it doesn't even accept one of my three support codes. Upon submitting the ASC, nothing happens. The page refreshes with a blank field. I have no firewall on this system and I tried with Firefox, Chrome and Camino.

The telephone support numbers which AVID gives me for my country (Germany, thus my crude English, please forgive) are dealers and repair centers, not a dedicated support. Since this looks to me like a problem of badly implemented software, some online retailer or repair center will definitely not be able to help me out on this. And I will not call AVID support in the US for obvious reasons.

This is indeed a most worrying experience, if I dare say so.
If at least these support codes would be working.

Thanks for reading.
- O

[Bruce Paine]

Hi,

First of all, apologies for the problem you are having using your ASC codes. I escalated your issue to Avid Support. The European office will be giving you a call on Monday, but will need your contact info. Can you send that to me via instant message or the email address below?

[OTARI]

Hello Mr. Paine, thanks a ton.

PM sent.

[Bruce Paine]

I sent your contact info to the European support office. I'll check back later to make sure they follow through for you (2:30 am here, so I'm signing off for now).

[OTARI]

I'm aware of the time shift And I guess I can wait for another day. Really appreciate you helping out on this.

Good news: The graphics/mouse cursor issue was resolved by a fresh install of PT10.

Bad news: Each time I press one of the Transport's soft keys (row of 6 beneath the display), I get a loud "POP!" from my monitors. I took the Transport to a colleague who works on PT9, installed Eucontrol, et voilà: Same issue. The whole apparatus is most enervating in its current state, especially with this most clumsy Jog/Shuttle workaround and "Assignable knob" freezes.

Will report back. Thanks.


[edit]
Support just called. Thanks a ton. Will update w/findings.

[OTARI]

So until support comes up w/new findings, another problem:

Does anyone else get a pop from their speakers each time they use a soft button on the Artist Transport?

[ArKay99]

Originally Posted by OTARI

So until support comes up w/new findings, another problem:

Does anyone else get a pop from their speakers each time they use a soft button on the Artist Transport?

No, I don't. However, every three months my Artist Mix blows a ferrite in the power supply inside and I have to send it to Mountainside Ca. for three weeks to have it repaired.

I have a couple of questions. Have you also tried repairing permissions? Do you have the Artist stuff going through a router? Is your puter connected to a network in addition to the Artist stuff? Are you sure you don't have network address contention issues? How do you have the Eucon configured in Pro Tools? (Top Menu) -> Setup->Peripherals->Ethernet Controllers... I have Ethernet Port unchecked and Enable Eucon checked. I also have my Artist stuff on the second port of my Mac and have them statically set to their own subnet. 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.3 and the Mac's second port (the one controlling the small router I use with the Artist stuff) set to 192.168.0.1 . the rest of my network is on 192.168.1.xxx . When I want to check for firmware updates I change them to an open address on my 192.168.1.x subnet. This way they seem to stay connected better. I guess because there is less 'noise' on that subnet.

Also make sure you're on Eucon 2.7, and at least PT 10.3.4. I can confirm it works well on my Mac with those versions.

When you re-installed PT and Eucon, did you do a clean uninstall of Pro Tools and re-install that first?

IOW what I would do, and I'm doing this before I do my upgrade of my OS and install of PT11. I will first clone my OS disk so I at least can get back to where I was in case of a catastrophe. I will uninstall Eucon. Do a clean uninstall of Pro Tools. Then repair permissions, then re-install Pro Tools, then Eucon.

[OTARI]

Thanks for the reply, ArKay99.

Repairing permissions: of course I did that. Ethernet: unchecked, Eucon: checked. As in my initial post, the controllers are connected via an Ethernet switch to Port 1. Connection is just fine. In case I run into connectivity issues, I might want to try your approach. Thanks for the idea.

I have Eucon 2.7.1 and PT 10.3.5.223. Install/uninstall: I have a clean OSX clone on an ext. HD - I just cloned it back and installed PT, then Eucon. Now that Eucon 3.0 is out I will give it a try.

Weird issue with these soft button speaker pops - starts to sound like a hardware issue with the Transport, no?

[ArKay99]

Originally Posted by OTARI

Thanks for the reply, ArKay99.

Repairing permissions: of course I did that. Ethernet: unchecked, Eucon: checked. As in my initial post, the controllers are connected via an Ethernet switch to Port 1. Connection is just fine. In case I run into connectivity issues, I might want to try your approach. Thanks for the idea.

I have Eucon 2.7.1 and PT 10.3.5.223. Install/uninstall: I have a clean OSX clone on an ext. HD - I just cloned it back and installed PT, then Eucon. Now that Eucon 3.0 is out I will give it a try.

Weird issue with these soft button speaker pops - starts to sound like a hardware issue with the Transport, no?

I was wondering if for some reason when you hit a soft key you are getting a brief scrub and it's putting a few samples out the speakers...I have no idea how the soft key's would actually interact with an actual audio path other than causing a scrub of the audio. I was just giving you a synopsis of my setup which has been working for me as a sanity check.

[OTARI]

Originally Posted by ArKay99

I was wondering if for some reason when you hit a soft key you are getting a brief scrub and it's putting a few samples out the speakers...I have no idea how the soft key's would actually interact with an actual audio path other than causing a scrub of the audio. I was just giving you a synopsis of my setup which has been working for me as a sanity check.

And I'm thankful for your thoughts on the matter - more thoughts than support has offered so far. Still in communication with support (slow process). Will report back with further findings (in case there will be any). Trying hard not to rant