SSL Nucleus 2

[Zukan]

Deities, we gonna get one in for review?

My birthday's in May.

[Dave B]

See, now I know you're deliberately trying to bankrupt me. You do remember having to wipe up the dribble when the original Nucleus was launched, and now you to start it all again?

You're a cruel man, Zukan. Cruel....

[Zukan]

See, now I know you're deliberately trying to bankrupt me. You do remember having to wipe up the dribble when the original Nucleus was launched, and now you to start it all again?

You're a cruel man, Zukan. Cruel....

What can I do? Those bastards keep making damn good gear.....

You tried one Dave?

[OneWorld]

See, now I know you're deliberately trying to bankrupt me. You do remember having to wipe up the dribble when the original Nucleus was launched, and now you to start it all again?

You're a cruel man, Zukan. Cruel....

Does anyone want to buy my soul? Cost £3849.00 inc V.A.T

[Martin Walker]

But is it a pure soul OneWorld?

They are worth so much more, but so rare

Martin

[Matt Houghton]

As long as it's not an Are Soul...

[Zukan]

As long as it's not an Are Soul...

lol..

[Glenn Bucci]

I tried the Nucleus 1 and 2. I much prefer version 2 with the additional features including switching between monitors. Its a great DAW controller with two SSL mic pre's. Granted I wish the mic pre's had the VHD drive on it, but its still a great controller. I purchased the Mackie Controller Pro after Steinberg gave up on its' Houston controller. I then added an Mackie Expander and then a 2nd Expander for a total of 24 faders. The Mackie is still the cheapest/best quality controller out there in my book. But for additional features like talkback, monitor controls and mic pre's, the SSL Nucleus2 is hard to beat. By the way, I never liked the white color one in photos, but in person, it looks much better.

[Zukan]

Thanks G.

[Aled Hughes]

This does look exceptionally good.

I'm not up to scratch with Dante etc, but with a Nucleus 2, it can be a stand alone interface that could be expanded with more I/O, right? And with the original Nucleus, it was limited to 4 I/O as an USB interface?

Aled

[Forum Admin]

The Mackie is still the cheapest/best quality controller out there in my book.

Beg to differ Glenn. As a former owner of a Logic Control, my PreSonus Faderport 8 is a better designed, quality unit and Sweetwater have it for only $499.95 compared to MCU Pro's current $1099.95.

The Faderport 16 is even better - and great value at $999.95 (16 faders compared to MCU Pro's eight) -- admittedly, there's no easy way to expand up to 24 faders, though you can have multiple Faderports active at once in Studio One Pro DAW.

[Matt Houghton]

The Presonus looks decent for the most part but I don't like the lack of rotary controllers -- IIRC there's only one pan pot for all 8/16 channels, whereas the Mackie and others have a dedicated one per channel. Good price though. The Icon Qcon Pro X looks decent though I've not tried it yet. And there's Behringer of course...

But the control surface I really want still hasn't been invented yet!

[Hugh Robjohns]

How many people need to pan every channel in real time? Surely panning is one of those set and forget things -- easily done with virtual or assignable controls.

[Forum Admin]

How many people need to pan every channel in real time? Surely panning is one of those set and forget things -- easily done with virtual or assignable controls.

Exactly!

When the Faderport 8/16 is controlling native or third-party plug-ins, I much prefer using the faders to adjust parameters in real-time than a knob (I used to use my Novation SL's knobs button prefer the Faderport) -- and of course, you can't easily adjust more than one on-screen plug-in parameter with your mouse.

I like the flexibility to work with any combination of mouse in the DAW and faders.

[Forum Admin]

I don't like the lack of rotary controllers -- IIRC there's only one pan pot for all 8/16 channels...

In practice it never feels like any sort of limitation to me. As soon as you highlight a channel in your DAW's mixer or touch one of the Faderport's faders, that channel comes into focus and you just twiddle the single Pan encoder if you desire... or the DAW pan slider/knob, whatever is easiest at the time.

[Matt Houghton]

How many people need to pan every channel in real time? Surely panning is one of those set and forget things -- easily done with virtual or assignable controls.

Well, really we rarely need to do *anything* like this in real time any more, unless working live, faders included. That said, yes, I can think of stuff I've worked on where I used panning automation a lot.

But that's not really what I had in mind...  I tend not to use the default modes with most control surfaces (in my experience, they rarely make the most of its potential!), but to configure them to do the things I find most useful when mixing, using my DAW's Generic Remote editor. Things like send levels, pans, pre-inserts gain, HPF, compressor thresholds... Assuming the faders are touch sensitive, all these things can become available on any channel once you touch that channel's fader. All on one control surface.

So to me it's a simple equation: more encoders > fewer encoders. In other words, a control-surface system with eight (or 16 or 24...) continuous rotary encoders in addition to the same number of faders means far more things can be instantly controllable than when using a system with only one!

[Hugh Robjohns]

Good point well made!