SmartAV Tango DAW Controller

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by Animus

Well it's obvious. It doesn't have a LED scribble strip. That's an absolute necessity with a controller so it will give you a clue what track you are affecting, otherwise you will have to be counting faders to locate the one you need which would be a pita.

Actually - you *don't* have to count faders. The SoftLCD is really nice mini-app that allows you to track what your controller is running as opposed to your DAW track/mixer position. I know this since TASCAM lifted it from the FW series...



All you have to do is put your monitor within line-of-sight of the control surface and you're good to go. I've been running this way for years and it fairly kicks arse. The only thing I've seen to beat it is the scribble strip on the Euphonix Artist Series and the SmartAV consoles.

[Animus]

Originally Posted by HHaynes

Actually - you *don't* have to count faders. The SoftLCD is really nice mini-app that allows you to track what your controller is running as opposed to your DAW track/mixer position. I know this since TASCAM lifted it from the FW series...

All you have to do is put your monitor within line-of-sight of the control surface and you're good to go. I've been running this way for years and it fairly kicks arse. The only thing I've seen to beat it is the scribble strip on the Euphonix Artist Series and the SmartAV consoles.

Yeah the BCF2000 has the softled thing too. I used to have one and it was still a pain in the ass. You had to look at the monitor, see the position, then look at your controller and locate the position of the fader. I have a Mackie Control and the LEDs make a huge difference to me. THink about it. If you were mixing on a huge SSL console with no scribble strip and had to refer to a monitor that would be a huge holdup in workflow.

But if Tascam would release the US2400 with LEDs it would be a hot item.

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by Animus

But if Tascam would release the US2400 with LEDs it would be a hot item.

No doubt - but it would also cost a lot more.

I added a picture of my studio setup while you were responding - it's been this way for a long time, since I set up my studio to be more-or-less contiguous from console to monitor to center channel speaker, the ergonomics work out. If you had to break the visual line-of-sight, it *would* be a deal-breaker, for sure.

Such as it is, the Tango console really has the ultimate scribble strip - a 22" touch screen... which is one of the reasons why I'm trying it out.

[matt thomas]

is there an online version of the review of this in audiomedia?

narco

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by narco

is there an online version of the review of this in audiomedia?

narco

Looks like there's a way to sign up for a free online subscription on the AudioMedia site. I've filled in the form that said I should be seeing a confirmation to the provided email address, but it's not forthcoming - at least in the short term. I'll check later tonight when the day's work is done. My guess is that they'll hold off on publishing the electronic version until the hard copy has been out for a few weeks - looks like last month's copy is still showing the site (as of the last time I checked this morning).

[HHaynes]

I just got the unit today. So far - so good. Got the unit installed and working on familiarizing myself with the controls...
...one thing I can say without question - this thing is built like a tank. It has a very solid, very professional feel. The ergonomics of the board is very well thought out, and I *love* being able to write surround automation from the touch screen.

[SonicGravity]

Nice!

Can't wait to here more about your workflow w/Nuendo!

[HHaynes]

They have a 5-minute video on the SmartAV site that was just posted today. You can probably get something from that.

[sigmatibet]

It doesen't look "that" big as I thought. This is a good point (for pro!)
Is the touchscreen comfortable?

[matt thomas]

I am most interested in 3rd party plugin integration, if anyone would care to comment on that?

thanks
narco

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by sigmatibet

It doesen't look "that" big as I thought. This is a good point (for pro!)

It's as big as I'd tolerate for my space, given my nearfield setup. That said, between the 30" monitor, the 22" monitor, and the 88 key MIDI controller, the Tango seems to fit in nicely.

Originally Posted by sigmatibet

Is the touchscreen comfortable?

I'd say that it's everything I had expected it to be. There's a little bit of drag behind the touch position when doing things like moving the surround panner for a track (you'll see that in the demo video, btw). And there are situations early on when my accuracy was a bit off and I activated the wrong control - which happened to be beside the one I was targeting - but that had more to do with *my* being new to the device. After a little while, I got a handle on things and was flying around my project pretty well.

If by comfortable you refer to the ergonomics of reaching to the top of the screen to activate the MonARC, yes - think that's right on the money. I spent some time evaluating how much lean I have to give in order to reach the top of the screen - and the answer is "none". Then again, I'm 6' 2" tall with a 35" sleeve length. As a pianist I tend to want to just get my kness under the edge of the device, which is right for a piano keyboard and not so smart for a device with controls that lie further back. Most folks will be pulling under the console a bit deeper in order to reach everything without leaning - but no more or less than any other device in the same class.

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by narco

I am most interested in 3rd party plugin integration, if anyone would care to comment on that?

thanks
narco

I've seen some third party plugins that expose parameters and others that have little more than an activation switch. I have a feeling this has more to do with the third party's VST implementation than it does with anything that the Tango can control. I spent all of about 15 minutes on that so far, so forgive me if I don't have more on that yet. I'll be drilling into that area probably one evening later this week or over the weekend. I have two projects that need attention, and I need to get some "real" work done before my next mix review with each director.



I have one project with several instances of Voxengo's Pristine Space, and I'll take a look as I'm driving by those tracks. As far as going though all of my third party plugins and trying each one, that will probably wait for someone over the weekend when I'm resting my ears.

[sigmatibet]

mmm, looks great...
How about the virtual qwerty keyboard? I own MCU+2xt, but I still tend to use my mac keyboard for a lot of tasks. Do you have the feeling that one could get rid of it and use its virtual keyboard? Is it operationally "fast"?
If so, being just in front of the controller and the monitor would help me to get "into" it in a closer way

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by sigmatibet

mmm, looks great...
How about the virtual qwerty keyboard? I own MCU+2xt, but I still tend to use my mac keyboard for a lot of tasks. Do you have the feeling that one could get rid of it and use its virtual keyboard? Is it operationally "fast"?
If so, being just in front of the controller and the monitor would help me to get "into" it in a closer way

I keep a keyboard handy for non-Nuendo tasks (actually, it's on a KVM that's shared with my second PC) but when I'm facing into Nuendo I don't need it. The EditKeys overlay on the QWERTY are replaced by the edit windows on the Tango. I use the virtual keyboard for things like renaming tracks and that's about it. I supposed it could become more involved if I was doing things like adding notes to individual tracks. It's too soon to tell really - I haven't gotten rid of the keyboard, but then again I haven't been diving for it either.

[HHaynes]

FYI - I just pulled up an old project that had some third party inserts. You'll see different numbers of parameters available - depending on what the third party exposes through their plug.

Izotope Ozone 3 has 7 pages of parameters

Antares AVOX Mutator has 1 page of parameters

Voxengo Pristine Space shows 2 pages of parameters

All of them seem to correspond to what the user can access through the UI, but I haven't chased it down for an apples-to-apples comparison. The kicker is that the "Window" button brings up the plugin on your main monitor and when you adjust a knob on the Tango - you see the corresponding UI element "chase" that position on the plugin. Hit the "Window" button again and the plugin disappears.



There's also the "Active Controls" section above the transport that has a motorized knob that chases the position ofthe selected parameter, with stops at the top and bottom of the throw (instead of the alpha-style encoders that are used everywhere else). Along with that is a companion "fine tune" control - so you can dial something in very quickly and accurately. Like I said, this is a very well thought-out and very well laid-out control surface.

[Brad McGowan]

Does it let you tailor what is shown for various third party plugins. In other words, say you have a reverb plugin with 26 parameters, but you really only care about 8 of them...can you program it to only show you those 8 important parameters. This is what Novation Remote allows you to do effectively.

thanks,
Brad

[HHaynes]

I didn't see anything on the surface (haha - unintended joke) that looked like arranging/ordering/limiting was available for plugin parameters - but I'm sure they'll take it as a feature request and issue an update at some point that exploits that possbility. It's certainly something that I'd be interested in doing with Ozone, since I tend toward certain components and leave the remainder deactivated/out of view. I'll shoot them an email and ask about it - and help them define the requirement to put in their queue (if it's not there already).

[Brad McGowan]

Cool, thanks. Point them towards Automap by Novation. That's what all control surface manufacturers should be striving towards.

Brad

[TheSweetener]

Originally Posted by HHaynes

They have a 5-minute video on the SmartAV site that was just posted today. You can probably get something from that.

Is it just me or is their website down?

[~ufo~]

Originally Posted by TheSweetener

Is it just me or is their website down?

down for me too...

[matt thomas]

Originally Posted by TheSweetener

Is it just me or is their website down?

doh! that can't be good timing for them..

narco

[feck]

Strange. Down here too.

[HHaynes]

I just got an email from one of their peeps that the site has been taken offline until some issue with their mail service gets fixed. They had some major technical glitch with a mailing list.

[~ufo~]

Originally Posted by HHaynes

I just got an email from one of their peeps that the site has been taken offline until some issue with their mail service gets fixed. They had some major technical glitch with a mailing list.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright. couldn't they then just have temporarily removed the mailing list button in stead of taking the whole site off? I don't buy it. tutt

[Sirocco]

Originally Posted by ~ufo~

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright. couldn't they then just have temporarily removed the mailing list button in stead of taking the whole site off? I don't buy it. tutt

not buying what? what do they have to hide?

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by ~ufo~

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright. couldn't they then just have temporarily removed the mailing list button in stead of taking the whole site off? I don't buy it. tutt

You must have *really* enjoyed the X-Files movie that just came out...



The impression I got was that their ISP overreacted and took their full site offline until the glitch was fixed. If you were on their announcement distro list and got the hundreds of emails that were generated yesterday, you'd know what I was talking about.

Here's the salient part of the email I got from one of their folks:

Our webstie, mailserver and FTP site are still down due to some sort of problem with our mailout the other night. Our provider has “graciously” completely shut down our site because of us using their mailing list (which we pay for BTW) ... anyway, they have classified us as spammers because something went wrong with their mailing list and apparently 1000’s of emails were sent from our server somehow (I think that if someone replied to the mailing list email, it went to everyone else on the list or something??) ... anyway, we are still off line

*not*

[~ufo~]

well you didn't say the ISP took it offline.

companies give different reasons for doing things, especially initial statements are not always quite truthful. I'm not saying they have anything to hide, I was just saying that the reason you gave made no sense to me.

I am on the mailinglist and received nothing alike, if that's a quote from an actual e-mail notice that was sent in bulk then that's an odd, very "unprofessional" e-mailing. Don't misinterpret what I say: I'n not implying anything with that apart from what I state.

anywho, wouldn't mind seeing that video. I'm always interested in a nice full featured controller that could sit on the blank plates underneath my patchbay on the console.
Especially something with comprehensive edit features.

[antonbuys]

Originally Posted by ~ufo~

well you didn't say the ISP took it offline.

companies give different reasons for doing things, especially initial statements are not always quite truthful. I'm not saying they have anything to hide, I was just saying that the reason you gave made no sense to me.

I am on the mailinglist and received nothing alike, if that's a quote from an actual e-mail notice that was sent in bulk then that's an odd, very "unprofessional" e-mailing. Don't misinterpret what I say: I'n not implying anything with that apart from what I state.

anywho, wouldn't mind seeing that video. I'm always interested in a nice full featured controller that could sit on the blank plates underneath my patchbay on the console.
Especially something with comprehensive edit features.

Well, I got 25+ emails last nigh, all from people dfegad and about getting emails from people dfegad and about people that were dfegad and ...

So, if I were their ISP, I'd probably panic, too. But the timing sure sucks... Did manage to check the video earlier. Looks very nice. Am curious as to future development with regards editability of controls and 3rd party support.

Anton

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by ~ufo~

if that's a quote from an actual e-mail notice that was sent in bulk then that's an odd, very "unprofessional" e-mailing.

Well - there's a designated pud in every thread, and I guess you've volunteered for the honor.

I posted that *I* received the email quoted. I *didn't* say that the quote was part of the email distro. After receiving my Tango unit I've had some questions go back and forth with their main office and they've been very friendly and the support has been great. The quote was from an email thread that was focussed on answering some of my questions, and the quoted area was mentioned as part of a larger response. The casual tone in the email is simply that - nothing unprofessional about it. It was my mistake for posting part of an email to *me* and expect that you'd interpret it as communication that was made in good faith to a paying customer with whom they likely had some familiarty.

Forgive me for undercutting your paranoia with information that required the most basic level of interpretation in order to perceive that the company was acting in good faith. From now on I'll simply ignore you.



dfegadfuuck

[HHaynes]

Originally Posted by antonbuys

Am curious as to future development with regards editability of controls and 3rd party support.

Anton

Can you be more specific about "editability of controls"? And for third party support are you talking about plugins or other hosts/sequencers?

If you mean plugin support - there's a post up the line here where I linked some images showing how the Tango exposes VST parameters of third party plugins. For the larger question - well - I never asked because I'm a Nuendo user that's all I was concerned about at the time of purchase.