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FEBRUARY 2010
VOL. TWENTY THREE
NUMBER FIVE
FEBRUARY 2010
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BY DARWIN GROSSE
Euphonix
MC Control
World-class DAW control comes to the Mac desktop
Have you noticed a new trend in
recording hardware? Some of the
Great Names Of Recording, in addition to making large-format mixing
consoles, are now creating recording
tools specifically designed for the
project studio. Why is that? It’s
because the definition of a professional studio has completely changed.
More CD releases, film scores and
commercial tracks are being produced in home studios than ever
before, and the demand for small-format, high-performance recording
devices is massive.
Euphonix, maker of some of the most
famous and expensive mixing consoles
in the world, has now entered this market with its Artist Series of control surfaces for use with Apple computers. In
an earlier article (February 2009) we
examined the MC Mix control surface,
which brought the high-end controls of
a large-format console to bear against
the compact world of DAWs. The centerpiece of the Artist Series is the MC
Control, a transport/mix/control center
unlike anything we’ve seen in the small
studio environment.
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RECORDING FEBRUARY 2010
What it is...
The MC Control is an amazing work
surface. This device combines 4 channel strips with motorized sliders, a set
of transport/shuttle controls, a huge
array of software-controlled knobs
and buttons, and an 800 x 480 pixel
touchscreen that makes it all fly. This
touch screen is directly interfaced to
your DAW software, providing an
array of functions from track selection to monitor control.
Euphonix has decided to move
beyond MIDI connectivity to interface with your software. The Artist
Series of work surfaces uses an
Ethernet-based protocol dubbed
EuCon to communicate with host
computers—the exact same protocol
used in the large Euphonix desks.
This protocol provides a larger data
pipeline between your software and
the MC Control, and also allows the
controller to access any computer on
your network. A software package
called EuControl is installed on your
computer and manages the hardware
connections, software-specific interfaces and user-customized functions.
On the MC Control, the touchscreen is
the center of attention. It implements a
set of 24 virtual buttons used for track
selection and DAW control functions.
The list of supported touch-key functions is quite surprising, featuring everything from window selection to editing
functions, and can be completely reconfigured within the EuControl software.
The MC Control isn’t limited to a single
program’s definitions and layout, either;
it pays attention to the application that
is currently in focus and will instantly
switch the touchscreen’s functions to
support that software.
Below the touch screen is a set of 12
hardware buttons called “soft-keys”
(because they are software-defined).
These buttons are used to select editing tools and functions, effectively
replacing your host software’s toolbar.
On either side of the touch screen are
8 touch-sensitive knobs, used for
everything from track panning to
insert effect control. All of the information for the soft-keys and knobs is
clearly presented on the screen, so you
are never confused about what functions they are currently supporting.
Excerpted from the February edition of Recording Magazine 2010.
©2010 Music Maker Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
5408 Idylwild Trail, Boulder, CO•80301 Tel: (303) 516-9118 Fax: (303) 516-9119
For Subscription Information, call: 1-800-582-8326 or www.recordingmag.com
SS REC 02-10: REC mag 04/05
12/23/09
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To the right of the touch screen are
the monitor, fader strip and transport
controls. A knob is provided for monitor level control; this is implemented
through a monitor matrix system provided with the software, and interfaces between your DAW and your
audio interface. Another set of buttons
allows you to switch the current
assignment of your fader strips and
the touch screen’s menu system.
Finally, there is a set of transport buttons and a jog wheel. In addition to the
typical jog/shuttle function, this wheel
doubles as a hardware-controlled zoom
controller, further removing you from
having to manipulate your software
with a mouse.
On the left side of the device are
the automated fader strips, featuring
four of the 100mm motorized faders
found on the MC Mix. There are track
selection and record-ready buttons
alongside the faders, and solo/mute
buttons above them. The layout of the
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based networking to be the sort of plumbing job that requires an expert; it was
good to see that I never had to think
about the network for a minute.
Since Logic Pro supports EuCon
directly, I never had to configure anything on the software at all. From the
moment that I started the DAW software I was functional with the MC
Control. That was another huge relief;
configuring software to work with
hardware can be quite a headache, and
I was glad to be able to avoid any interaction with Logic’s Preferences system.
The default setup of the MC
Control’s touch- and soft-keys seemed
like they would work well for most of
the work that I did, so I left them
unchanged. By having the soft-keys
assigned to tool selection and the
touchscreen keys assigned to on-screen
control (primarily track selection and
edit function), it quickly became second nature to focus on the MC
Control’s screen when mixing.
By weaning myself from mouse mixing
and using more of the MC Control’s
control-surface functions, I improved both
my efficiency and the quality of my mixes.
device is remarkably comfortable. It
also comes with riser mounts that lift
it just high enough for a Macintosh
keyboard to sit right in front of it.
Speaking of the Macintosh—as
mentioned earlier, this system is currently Mac-only. While the hardware
could speak to any type of computer,
the implementation of the EuControl
software and monitoring matrix obviously required extensive system-specific development. Other than telling
your software that you have a connected controller, the MC Control
seems to “do the right thing”—even
with basic Apple software like the
DVD player and Safari browser.
Throughout this review, I used
Apple’s Logic Pro 9 as the main DAW
host, with Snow Leopard as the main
OS version. This combination seemed
to suit the EuControl software and
MC Control hardware quite nicely.
In use—General
Setting up the MC Control couldn’t
have been easier. I installed the
EuControl software (you’ll want the latest
version of everything from Euphonix’s
support website), plugged the hardware
into a power strip and the computer’s
Ethernet port, and was immediately
operational. I usually consider Ethernet-
The software-defined knobs are
dual-purpose: they control both function selection (by pressing on them)
and function control (by turning the
knobs). At first, this seemed sort of
awkward; you have to press a knob to
select a “knob set”, then control the
functions from there. If you want to
select a different function, you have
to use the Back key to jump to the top
level of controls and select another
knob set. After a few hours of mixing
and editing, though, this became second nature, and I never found myself
losing my place (or getting lost) in
this function-based menu system.
In use—Mixing
Recently my recording and mixing
schedule has been rather brutal. I got
the MC Control just a few days before
starting two important mixing projects,
and I dove in with some trepidation, but
the easy installation and setup calmed
my nerves somewhat. I spent a few minutes with the PDF manual and then
jumped into the first project.
My first session was a small two-day
mixdown of an album for a local
singer/songwriter. I had tracked the
project earlier in the month, so I was
very familiar with the material and
the track count was quite reasonable.
Excerpted from the February edition of Recording Magazine 2010.
©2010 Music Maker Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
5408 Idylwild Trail, Boulder, CO•80301 Tel: (303) 516-9118 Fax: (303) 516-9119
For Subscription Information, call: 1-800-582-8326 or www.recordingmag.com
RECORDING FEBRUARY 2010
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Euphonix MC Control
I primarily used the MC Control for
its automated faders and transport
control and didn’t worry too much
about the touch screen. I quickly
became accustomed to having this
control surface under my hands.
About 10 seconds into using the MC
Control I was using the transport controls and slider banks almost exclusively. The mix came off seamlessly,
and I prepared myself for the bigger
session to follow.
The next project was a seven-day
mixing marathon, featuring a solo musician that I enjoy working with. Most of
his songs represented 20 to 30 tracks,
and the session files provided by the
tracking engineer were a mess. I had to
spend a day on housekeeping, using the
MC Control to help set up layout of
tracks and a very basic starting mix.
In doing this basic track work, I found
that having only four sliders was rather
limiting. On these large sessions, I
found myself spending a lot of time
either nudge-nudge-nudging my way
across the mix environment or selecting tracks solely to move the sliders
into their correct position. Luckily for
me, Euphonix also sent a pair of MC
Mix surfaces for me to test in my mix
system, both of which set up and went
to work with equal ease (see the sidebar). This provided me with up to 20
sliders; due to limitations in my workspace I settled on using the MC Control
with a single MC Mix surface—giving
me 12 sliders to work with.
Combining the MC Control with multiple MC Mix units
As mentioned in the review, I was provided with two MC Mix
units that I could network into the EuControl system to create a massive, 20-slider mixing system. (A full setup can include one MC
Control and up to four MC Mix units, plus the new MC Transport
smart transport controller, as shown in the impressive photo above.)
To test this monster rig, I needed to go beyond the standard
Ethernet connections on my desktop computer; I grabbed a Linksys
router, set it up as my network hub and connected all three MC
devices, and all of my studio’s Macs, to it.
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RECORDING FEBRUARY 2010
As I became more comfortable with
the MC Control, I started taking
greater advantage of the touch screen
and soft-controls. Working in this way
was kind of trippy, because I found
myself having to spend a fair amount
of time looking to the MC Control’s
touch screen to figure out a control’s
function. However, as I got more comfortable with the surface, I found
myself preferring the efficient controls provided on the MC Control’s
touch screen, and started performing
fewer functions with the mouse and
keyboard. As I’ve discussed in a previous article, working with a control surface can produce much more organic
mixes. By weaning myself from mouse
mixing and using more control-surface
To say it was “plug-and-play” would almost be an understatement. This system is designed for bonehead-proof operation, and
worked within seconds. The EuControl software immediately recognized the devices, and set them up in a pretty logical fashion (even
splitting up the two MC Mix units to be left and right of the MC
Control unit). Logic immediately recognized the new layout and I
was able to massive-mix right out of the box. I can’t imagine a more
streamlined way of working with large-format controllers—by staying in the middle of the action, the EuControl software does a great
job of removing hardware hassles from the setup process.—DDG
Excerpted from the February edition of Recording Magazine 2010.
©2010 Music Maker Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
5408 Idylwild Trail, Boulder, CO•80301 Tel: (303) 516-9118 Fax: (303) 516-9119
For Subscription Information, call: 1-800-582-8326 or www.recordingmag.com
SS REC 02-10: REC mag 04/05
12/23/09
12:24 PM
Page 23
Excerpted from the February edition of Recording Magazine 2010.
©2010 Music Maker Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
5408 Idylwild Trail, Boulder, CO•80301 Tel: (303) 516-9118 Fax: (303) 516-9119
For Subscription Information, call: 1-800-582-8326 or www.recordingmag.com
functions, both my efficiency and the
quality of the mixes were improved.
One thing I found disconcerting was
that the faders’ lowest level when interfaced to Logic’s mixer was –120 dB.This
may seem (and is) plenty low, but the
Logic sliders have a negative infinity
level that I could not reach with the MC
Control’s faders. On the other end of
the scale, the maximum level of the MC
Control’s fader is +12 dB, but Logic only
goes to +6 dB, so there was some resolution lost between hardware and software. In real life terms, it was close
enough, but it meant that what I felt
(with the faders) and saw on the screen
didn’t always match up. [Euphonix says
this bug appeared with the release of
Logic Pro 9 and is being fixed.—Ed.]
The functional design of the MC
Control is impressive, with simple additions that can help save time and frustration. One example is the method used
for track solo notification.When you solo
a track, the entire interface goes into a
sort of “hand-waving” function, with all
of the lit controls and everything on the
touch screen flashing in a wave-like pattern. Working on these large mixes
meant that most of the tracks weren’t on
the computer monitor, so it was great
to have this level of warning—and the
ability (on the touch screen) to change it.
As simple as this function sounds, it’s an
indication of the care put into this interface by a company used to designing for
professional engineers.
My first mix, done while still learning
the system, went quite smoothly. I found
that I spent less time with the mouse
and a lot more time with my hands on
the controller. The results were just as
organic as I’d hoped, with much more
automation because of the ease of working with hands-on sliders and controls.
The second mix, done after having more
time with the unit, was splendid; I
would say that I saved an entire day’s
time using the MC Control and MC Mix.
The integration of editing tools, track
handling and automation controls made
for extremely efficient editing and mixing. I was much more active with things
like eq and effects automation, and
complex mixes came together faster
than I could have imagined.
Conclusion
I’ve worked with many control surfaces over the years, and I can truly say
that no system has been as elegantly
appointed as the Euphonix MC Control.
With most control surfaces, I find myself
automating the slider-assigned functions
(typically volume and—through slider
flipping—pan and send controls), but
with the MC Control, I was automating
everything. It was also the first time that
I felt completely at home with a device’s
transport controls; the jog wheel is so
comfortable and has such an accurate
feel that I ended up becoming married
to it during mixing. The controller
became an extension of my hands and
my mind, and made me both a better
and more efficient engineer.
There are few pieces of gear that combine such eye-catching design, superefficient control, and painless interaction with your software. Euphonix has
combined its long history of console
design with some heavy software work
to create a best-in-class control surface.
This system is a dream, and should be on
every project studio owner’s wish list.
Price: $1499
More from: Euphonix, 1330 W.
Middlefield Rd., Mountain View, CA
94043. 650/855-0400,
www.euphonix.com.
Darwin Grosse (grosse@recordingmag
.com) is a Colorado-based musician,
engineer, and sound designer.