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Getting as many decent faders and knobs as possible, some setup questions
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| Astralist |
Hi all,
I've been giving some thought on how to get close to full knob and fader control in Ableton. I own a Novation 61key SLMK2 keyboard and have been thinking of selling it off as it doesn't seem to achieve much of what I want. I'm not a fan of the small faders, or the 8 endless knobs, or the lack of additional knobs for channels, or the XY pad.
Since I have a digital piano too I've been thinking of perhaps getting a smaller keyboard for midi input, and some other knob/fader setup entirely. I'm not sure if anything really exists like I'm after, or if I should eventually just get an analog or analog/midi mixer. I've thought of everything from a full desk to just getting a few Korg nanos for now to provide decent knobs and faders.
The budget really depends on what I'm getting for the money but I'd like to keep it reasonably cost effective. A lot of midi gear looks really limited, or only has 6 faders requiring you to scroll or menu dive constantly. I'm not sure of how much of a pain a analog desk is to work with if I largely produce in the box, with just a few pieces of outboard gear.
I may eventually add some more outboard synths or effects, but this hinges on wanting to get rid of the mouse as much as possible, as cheaply as possible, while having decent faders and ideally ending-knobs to control mixing channels and as much else as I can. I also like to map knobs to my digital synths, so having a lot of knobs is important. The fader + 8 of the 16 knobs I have on the current keyboard leave a lot to be desired.
Anyone have any advice for this kind of situation? Many thanks. |
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| tehlord |
Low budget option would be a Presonus Faderport which works really well. It has a motorised fader and comprehensive transport controls.
Higher up in the budget scale would be a Nektar Panorama. These come in non key and keybed versions. Officially they only support Reason and Cubase right now, but I suspect Live support will happen and they can still be mapped as a standard midi controller. The non key version doesn't have a motorised fader, the keyboard versions do have one.
Top end budget (within reason at least) would be something like the Mackie Control Universal or even better the Avid MC Control/Mix. An MC Control gives you 4 motorised faders and a ton of customisable control.
I suppose you also have the option of something like Lemur on an iPad, but I'm not a fan of virtual control devices like that, I like physical controls. |
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