I couldnt decide whats the right forum for this, but since most members around here also produce electronic music i thought it would be right.

tldr:
I am looking for a solution to have hands on control for the DAW mixer. Asking for advice and experiences.

• Strictly mixing, no tracking or transport needed.
• 24 faders would be good, 16 faders would be ok. 8 faders is not an option.
• Cubase Pro on PC, Windows 7, 64 bit.
• Budget is roughly 2k Euro. Few more would be doable, but not too much.

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I am about to finish my project studio. Acoustics, monitors, audio system .. everything is done.

The one thing that is still missing is a hands on control for my DAW. I dont talk about start stop record. I am after faders and buttons for DAW mixers and mixing in general. No tracking. No transport controls necessary.

I basically would like to work as close to a console workflow as possible.

When Nuage appeared, i had high hopes Yamaha would release a more affordable control surface for Cubase too. But that hope was void.

So here i am with 3 options i see so far. If you know more any hints are most welcome.

1. MCU based controller like S3, Nucleus, MC Pro, iCon qCon, Behringer etc.
2. digital mixers able to be configured as controller
3. special solutions like Softube Console 1 or Presonus CS 18 AI

The problem with MCU based controllers is, the better ones are ridicolously expensive..
5k+ for Avid S3 or SSL Nucleus and still rather limited in terms of integration.
Mackie protocol didnt improve since 10 years or so.

I dont know enough about digital mixers and how they can be integrated into DAW workflow.. Do they need many midi channels, how is parameter feedback going to work?

There is the Presonus CS18 AI, but it doesnt work for Cubase.
Actually i even consider to switch after 23 years from Cubase to Studio One 3 for only this one reason. Is it crazyness to consider a additional DAW only for mixing, since i would do everything als used to in Cubase?

Console-1 requires a specific workflow. I am not sure i am able to cope with it. Its also a software product with license registering, so it often is excluded from 30-day return policies.

Bottomline: I am looking for a working solution. It should be reasonable priced but doesnt need to be cheap. I am open for any idea and not pre-decided on anything.

Thanks for reading thru this wall of text and even more thanks for helping

Just FYI, the Avid S3 is not an MCU controller -it runs on the Eucon protocol which in my experience is a lot better than MCU with Cubase.

I use Cubase with an S3. I've also had Mackie MCU in the past and some other controllers, like Steinberg CC-121, Nektar Panorama, Steinberg CMC stuff. I'm pretty sure you'll find that the S3 is the best integrated, most powerful controller for Cubase unless you go up to Nuage, S6 level. It definitely has some shortcomings but overall it's very very good. It's not quite within the €2k budget you've mentioned though, unless you can find a used one.

The Avid artist series controllers are great. I'm using the Mix and Control boards together and they are a brilliant combo, loads of shortkeys and you can bank through all the faders in your DAW session, full recall, automation, the works. I use them with ProTools but I would imagine they are just as deep with Cubase, Logic, Ableton...
The Eucon protocol they use is very solid and accurate

Yes, I forgot about the Avid Artist series. I used to have two Artist Mix's before my S3 and they work nicely with Cubase.

Thanks for helping with this. I dont know much about the topic, thus i am grateful.

S3 is EUCON indeed, thanks for the heads up.

May i ask what made you go from 2 Artist Mix to the S3? Its basically the decision i am facing. Go 2k with the Mixes or bite the bullet and go higher, if its worth it.

What shortcomings do you see in the S3?

cheers!

Keep in mind if you want 16 channels AND a decent amount of soft keys, you will need 2 x Artist mix plus either a Control or a Transport and then you're not too far from the cost of an S3. I'd say there's no doubt the S3 is objectively superior to the Artist series but whether it's 'worth it' of course is subjective. With DAW controllers though, small details can make a lot of difference.


Here's a copy/paste of a post I wrote on the Avid forum outlining some pros/cons of the S3 with Cubase. Number 4 and 5 might not sound that huge but they're both MAJOR advantages over the Artist series in my book:

"THE GOOD THINGS:
1. Basically everything works as you would expect and it's been 100% solid and stable for me with Cubase 7, 8 and 8.5. When you put the S3 in EQ mode, your mixer/inspector will automatically open the EQ tab. Put the S3 in Sends mode, and your sends tab will automatically display. etc. You really don't feel like you are using a compromised controller that was designed for another DAW.

2. Almost all the buttons can be assigned to any key command or macro that you want. You have 22 buttons that are useable plus 4 buttons on the touch strip. Each button has a shift layer so you can potentially assign two functions. (Only the 'Solo Clear', 'Mix To Mons', 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons can not be assigned and are therefore currently useless). You also have Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and Command modifier keys.

3. Plugin editing is excellent. You can customise the parameter layout for your plugins (not sure if this is even possible with Pro Tools? Or maybe they've fixed that now?). e.g. I have all my compressors set so that Threshold is always on knob #1 , ratio is always on knob #2 etc. Using the Cubase plugin manager to organise your plugins in folders makes it really quick to instantiate plugins from the S3. You also have full control over VSTi parameters although there are so many parameters on a typical synth that this will involve lots of scrolling through pages of parameters so I prefer to use the mouse for synth editing most of the time.

4. Colour coded channel LED's is a major plus on any controller and this works perfectly with Cubase. Great for finding tracks quickly. I have also edited the Cubase colour settings to match the various S3 modes which makes things more intuitive. e.g. My Aux sends are yellow. (The S3 knobs light up in yellow when in sends mode. Turquoise for inserts, purple for EQ's etc. It's not just about looking pretty, it makes things more intuitive because you can see at a glance what mode you are in without having to think.

5. I have a monitor directly at the back of my S3 and I have it scaled so that 16 channels on the Cubase mixer line up perfectly with the S3 channels. This is great for getting loads of visual feedback on what you are doing. Similar to an S6 or Nuage setup.

6. The OLED screens actually show a good amount of characters which means you don't have the problem of identifying severely abbreviated track names. Probably up to 10 depending on exactly which letters are being displayed. Way better than an MCU or controller which has a limit of 6 characters.

7. The metering is useful. It's not very high resolution but it's more valuable in terms of helping to quickly find the track you are looking for.

8. The S3 has a Quick Controls mode which lets you change/automate Cubase Quick Controls.

THE BAD THINGS:
1. This is the first of two significant negatives for me: When you hide tracks in Cubase, they are still shown on the S3. Maybe this will be fixed one day by Steinberg but impossible to know if they will do this. However, I've found a pretty good workaround for this using some software called Autohotkey that is enabling me to more or less achieve the same thing (I'll post details of it here at some stage. Just fine tuning the method at the moment). Not quite as good as the real deal but it's pretty close.

2. The second significant negative is that the Cubase mixer doesn't scroll when you bank the S3, although as soon as you select an S3 channel or touch a fader, the mixer will scroll. My Autohotkey workaround mentioned above is also helping in this department.

3. If like me, you use the Cubase channel EQ a lot, it only spills across 8 knobs rather than 16. This means you have to press a button to switch the knob between Q and Frequency which is a bit frustrating when there are 8 empty knobs that could perform that function. Hopefully Steinberg will sort this out one day. EDIT: I've now discovered you can edit the parameter layout for EQ BUT you can only access this layout by using the S3 strip more -this basically means you have to press two buttons to open the EQ instead of only one button so a little bit inconvenient but not the end of the world.

4. The responsiveness of the knobs could be improved (This is not specifically a Cubase issue, it's the same with any DAW). The knobs have a degree of acceleration which can make it harder to adjust a parameter accurately if you are in a rush. Hope to see this addressed in a future EuControl update, as it has been on the S6 recently.

5. Again, not a Cubase specific issue but the built in AVB audio interface does not work with Windows currently but personally I prefer to use my existing Steinberg MR816CSX audio interface anyway. I believe you can still use the S3 as a monitor controller (to switch between two sets of monitors and control their volume) but I haven't actually tried this yet.

6. There can be a small discrepancy in channel volume when you first touch a fader to write automation. i.e. say your fader is at 0dB in Cubase. You play your session in write mode. As soon as you touch the fader and begin writing, the data written may not start at 0dB but maybe +0.05dB, or -0.1dB. A 0.2dB error is about the worst case scenario here and it's not something which I find hugely problematic personally. No idea if this happens with other DAWs.

Can you explain how you do this? I guess that's within the Cubase program and not in Eucontrol? I work on Pro Tools and I'd really like to map plugins, but as far as I know it isn't possible yet...

The avid controllers are very easy, there's almost no setup involved unless you want to create your own macros and that sort of thing.
Plugin mapping is very intuitive, when you have say an eq plugin on a track, and you have the track selected on your controller, you hit the eq shortcut button and the BAM! All the eq controls are assigned to the rotary pots at the top of the channel faders , same with dynamics plugins.
You can 'flip' faders to become to aux sends levels, or even 'flip' faders and use them as controls for an eq .... They are super awesome, fast to mix with, feel great, and just work straight out of the box. Obviously they lean towards better integration with the Avid plugins too

Yes, it's a feature within Cubase called 'Remote Control Editor'. Every plugin has a Remote Control Editor setup window which enables you to choose which parameters will be displayed and in what order. You can also change the name that appears on the OLED screen for each parameter. Once you've done this, any time you open that plugin in the future, you will see your custom parameter layout on the S3.

That's a real cool feature. I hope Avid will create it in Pro Tools too, many people have been asking for this.