Euphonix MC Control - is it worth the hype...?

[Malonius]

Euphonix gave a phased release of their Artist Series Mix & Control Units.

The MC Mix is available in the UK now for £699 & was reviewed by Paul WHITE in this month's SOS. The video for the MC Mix has been available for a month or so now on the Euphonix web-site.

It now appears they have recently released the "video tour" for the MC Control (the MC Mix's Big Brother)...

In case anyone was wondering what extra features this has to offer, most of it is shown on this video. EUPHONIX MC CONTROL

Apparently it's going to be priced at £999 in the UK and is due for UK release soon...

So I thought I'd ask some questions to see if this is worthy of debate...

Is it worth the extra £300 over it's baby brother..? Is this unit really going to be all it's cracked up to be....? Does it claim to do more than it's cousin, the Mackie Control Universal...?

Is it budgeted correctly for this market...? Is there only so much you can do with a control surface or will the MC Control raise the bar significantly...?

Does this really matter or should I think about something infinitely more important like 'Why do they call orange jam "marmalade"...???'

Over to you...

[narcoman]

worth the money? yeah - i reckon its cheap. And the fact that you have a modular system...cool. I'm getting one with 4 fader packs. Awesome stuff.

[Studio Support Gnome]

and , on top of Narco's reply, which i entirely agree with....

I'd add that Marmalade is so called because it was what Mary queen of scots used to have when she was ill.... having always been given oranges when she was ill as a child she formed the belief that anything made from oranges would do as a substitute when fresh oranges weren't available... so , the staff running round shouting "madame est malade" is what it's contracted from.

[Stephen Bennett]

Whereas 'Euphonix' comes from the merger of a Euphonium manufacturer and a particularly persuasive dominatrix.



Stephen

[Malonius]

Max,

You are indeed the oracle... Can you help with:

Can fat people go skinny dipping? and

What if the Hokey Cokey IS what its all about...?

[Studio Support Gnome]

1) yes
2) we're all doomed!, doomed I tell ye...



seriously though, the MC control touch screen implementation, and application switching tricks have the potential to make it the most flexible and personally task orientated control surface out there...

and the eucon ethernet protocol is also massively faster than Midi... the immediacy of response is quite noticeable compared to using older devices over midi.

and of course, entirely irrelevantly, it's gorgeous, and it doesn't look like it ought to be a behringer product.... unlike the new Mackie Control Pro series... I wonder if mackie did that on purpose?? would that be the ultimate product "rip off" irony???

there's lots of other stuff as well.... but I ought to let you guys discover something for yourselves... it's hard work being an oracle you know.... , and I still have to make my own tea sometimes as well !

[Aural Reject]

Whereas 'Euphonix' comes from the merger of a Euphonium manufacturer and a particularly persuasive dominatrix.



Stephen

Don't jest - doing what I do you might actually get what you wish for

[muzines]

and of course, entirely irrelevantly, it's gorgeous, and it doesn't look like it ought to be a behringer product.... unlike the new Mackie Control Pro series... I wonder if mackie did that on purpose?? would that be the ultimate product "rip off" irony???

Lol - yeah I really don't like the new ones, horrible...

[narcoman]

and of course, entirely irrelevantly, it's gorgeous, and it doesn't look like it ought to be a behringer product.... unlike the new Mackie Control Pro series... I wonder if mackie did that on purpose?? would that be the ultimate product "rip off" irony???

Lol - yeah I really don't like the new ones, horrible...

Or the old ones - they peaked with the HUI - which was brilliant for its time!

[northsoul]

Should be interesting to see if anything similar comes out at a lower price point from the competition. Fingers crossed anyway!

[Studio Support Gnome]

bear in mind that BOTH MC control and mix are cheaper than the mackie when it first came out as the control universal (as opposed to the Logic control...) mackie hiked the RRP price by about £300 when they made it "universal" , from £799 ish for the logic control, to something like £1079

[necromunger]

no
its a toy like all the others!!!
get this

necro

[narcoman]

no
its a toy like all the others!!!
get this

necro

It does all of the necessary stuff that the daddy surface does. Most of thoe facilities are not needed by music makers - it much more fits in wirh music for media. The bigger Euphy system is actually a bit pants on its own - i've used one a few times with fader packs and it's brilliant - but without the faders it seems a lot of money for what it is.

[muzines]

Note that you can do application switching with soft-takeover in the exact same way as shown using an MCU + LC Xmu, so if you have Live & Logic running on the same computer, switching between them will instantly update the MCU with the top applications control surface...

As for the multi-machine controlling, that's more useful for production facilities I guess, and not that useful for the average (well, considering the price of the big consolse, *above-average*) home studio...

I do hope that buttons/keys with integrated displays filters down the technology chain to become affordable one day - it would be nice to have context-sensitive keyboards which change labelling according the application...

[Malonius]

Necro

Thanks for the You Tube stuff. It helps explain the Artist Series' position in the market place a bit better to me...

Like Narco says, the MC Control appears to focus on these main functions shown in the You Tube videos.

If this is the genetics of the MC Control, it bodes well for the Project Studio & Semi-Pro (if not full Pro) user in my opinion...

It's expandable, has a very flexible feature set which suggests that you can make it work the way YOU want it to work & (agreeing with Max...) it looks the business as well. The ethernet feature seems to be the biggest plus point to me, effectively gazumping midi in one bold step... Paul WHITE's review of the MC Mix seemed to suggest that the ethernet system was not noticeably processor-hungry... Doesn't seem to take up much in the way of "desk real estate" either...

Am I right in thinking this is Mac only...? The MC Pro doesn't seem to mind which platform it works with, according to the You Tube stuff, but I think I may have read somewhere that the MC Control is particular to the mac at the minute...???

[muzines]

They also need to get the new style Apple keyboards on the MC, it's much lower profile and won't look nearly so ugly...

[EnlightenedHand]

Yeah, its mac only. Bummer for a large portion of the world. Although in a perfect place I guess every computer would be as fine as a mac.

Liz

[redleicester]

Yeah, its mac only. Bummer for a large portion of the world. Although in a perfect place I guess every computer would be as fine as a mac.

Liz

I think you'll find the PC version will be shipping at around the same time as the MC Control launches.

Narco - stop pointing out how damn good the CM408T fader banks are, I've run out of wifey's spare stockings after robbing the last bank for the MC Pro.

Oh, and you can put any keyboard on the MC Pro - I helped a colleague install his last week complete with the new low profile nasty horrid Mac keyboard thing.

[muzines]

Oh, and you can put any keyboard on the MC Pro - I helped a colleague install his last week complete with the new low profile nasty horrid Mac keyboard thing.

It's actually grown on me, and I really like it now... it's especially good as it's much quieter to operate the keys than the old Apple keyboards...

[EnlightenedHand]

I think you'll find the PC version will be shipping at around the same time as the MC Control launches.

Narco - stop pointing out how damn good the CM408T fader banks are, I've run out of wifey's spare stockings after robbing the last bank for the MC Pro.

Oh, and you can put any keyboard on the MC Pro - I helped a colleague install his last week complete with the new low profile nasty horrid Mac keyboard thing.

So do you know for sure if Euphonix is indeed planning to manufacture a PC version? I've been wondering because I use a PC and I haven't been able to find any official word from Euphonix about PC compatibility and the artist series controllers, (aside from the current info about them being non-compatible).

[narcoman]

Yeah, its mac only. Bummer for a large portion of the world. Although in a perfect place I guess every computer would be as fine as a mac.

Liz

I think you'll find the PC version will be shipping at around the same time as the MC Control launches.

Narco - stop pointing out how damn good the CM408T fader banks are, I've run out of wifey's spare stockings after robbing the last bank for the MC Pro.

Oh, and you can put any keyboard on the MC Pro - I helped a colleague install his last week complete with the new low profile nasty horrid Mac keyboard thing.

Ha! They're really good. I prefer it over the ICON although I'd probably go Logic or similar if I bought an MCPro for here. Mighty impressive with the faders - the screen feedback is incredible - you feel like you're using something similar to Duality!

[Commander]

Is it any good?

The main and perhaps most important thing is that it looks and feels fantastic and as such will encourage me use it more than I currently use my Mackie Control Pro.

[redleicester]

Is it any good?

The main and perhaps most important thing is that it looks and feels fantastic and as such will encourage me use it more than I currently use my Mackie Control Pro.

Drop me a call on the base hotline, and I'll go through it with you old bean.... lots to talk about.

[Zukan]

[redleicester]

Ah Zuke.... erm....... was wondering when you'd turn up..... erm........ er....... ummm.....

MOVE ALONG!

NOTHING TO SEE HERE!

MOVE ALONG!



(PS, have you seen my MCP?)