Do You Mix Primarily with a Mouse or Control Surface?

[Anderton]

What got me thinking about this was talking to someone who was raised on making music with computers instead of tape, and he seemed genuinely surprised I was so ardent a supporter of mixing with a control surface. Which got me thinking, "he, poll material!"

 

So, let us know which of these choices comes closest to how you feel, with the understand that even if you use a control surface, you're likely to do some mixing/editing with a mouse.

[Mark L]

I mix with neither

[Lee Flier]

Well I prefer to work with a control surface, though I don't always. One of the major reasons I prefer to use one, which isn't in the poll, is that I like to mix with my eyes closed a lot of the time - so I'm really hearing what I'm doing as opposed to just seeing it. I really feel that looking at waveforms and grids and envelopes can skew your sense of what you're hearing.

[Bookumdano2]

Control surface mostly for me. By the way, I started a thread last Christmas about the fantastic new 3M 22" Multitouch display that can use up to twenty fingers at once. I've been watching the pace of application development (very fast except for pro audio/video)...and notice there is also a raised nudged etched glass /tactile version on the way which will also be cool. The display (or several) in a horizontal position built into your desk would be ideal for mixing for me and the 3M is cool cool cool

 

...anyway, for audio, I see that Bob Lentini of all people seems to have jumped on this before others.

 

This is definitely where I'm going if Steinberg would get on the stick and adapt.

[veracohr]

I know there are low-cost control surfaces these days, but I still chose "too expensive". I would like one, but when you have to choose carefully where your pennies go...

 

Actually I haven't thought about control surfaces much in some years. When I was in school mixing on analog desks, and then moved to mouse mixing on my computer at home, it was annoying, but I guess I've sort of gotten over it.

[UstadKhanAli]

I mix with both, primarily the mouse, but also a controller surface.

[Gus Lozada]

Mouse, primarily because I'm never at home and do the most of my work while I travel (at hotel rooms, aiports, etc).

 

 

However, speaking in the most formal way possible, I MIX with a control surface, because I only do serious, final mixing, when I am at a studio with a controlled environment. And there, the most of the times I have access to a control surface.

[Ernest Buckley]

I`ve been eyeing a Mackie Control Universal for some time now. I guess I haven`t pulled the trigger because I have a hard time wrapping my head around spending that sort of $$$ on something that doesn`t make sound in any way. However, I will most likely get it in 2011 while re-designing my entire studio.

[ggm1960]

I'm just accustomed to using the mouse to mix, in fact depending on which program I'm working in, I often just stay in a track view rather than going to a mixer view because I'll often be adding volume and/or panning envelopes.

[Beck]

Primarily analog mixing console... if you want to count that as a control surface, but I don't mix ITB... well hardly ever.

 

It's not a mouse... we know that much.

[1manband]

I mix with the mouse. But that's kind of fatiguing and also kind of boring. I'd like to do it with a control surface. And I've tried to integrate control surfaces before, but they where often more of a pain to set up or get to work right, so I reverted back to the mouse.

 

Back when I first stated (late eighties), I would use hardware mixers. That was much better, I think.

[1manband]

 

- so I'm really hearing what I'm doing as opposed to just seeing it. I really feel that looking at waveforms and grids and envelopes can skew your sense of what you're hearing.

 

 

 

I'm really starting to realize how true this is lately. You've got to trust your ears, not your eyes. It is audio after all.

[blue2blue]

I picked option one but not so much because it's more precise but simply because I prefer it.

 

About the only time I use the 3 bank, 8 fader control surface built into my 88 key MIDI controller is when I'm playing it.

 

I primarily use rubber band or snapshot automation because it offers quick control that's easy to see and manipulate.

 

As I wrote in a thread elsewhere earlier today, I strongly suspect many of the folks who go on about how they just have to have the feel of a mixer are those who started out on digital and are afraid they missed out on the analog period's various golden era aspects.

[temnov]

I'd say both, but mostly mouse because I'm mixing and editing at the same time. Almost always I'd turn off the screen at some point just to LISTEN.

[Anderton]

 

Primarily analog mixing console... if you want to count that as a control surface...

 

 

It's the original control surface!!

[Anderton]

 

I`ve been eyeing a Mackie Control Universal for some time now. I guess I haven`t pulled the trigger because I have a hard time wrapping my head around spending that sort of $$$ on something that doesn`t make sound in any way. However, I will most likely get it in 2011 while re-designing my entire studio.

 

 

Depending on your needs, you might want to check out the Alesis Master Control. I reviewed it once and was very impressed...and it didn't sell very well because they were late to the party, so you can get eight motorized faders and a bunch o' other stuff for cheap. If I didn't have a Sonar V-Studio console, I'd use the Alesis.

[Cry Logic]

I have A CME UF5 keyboard which has a control surface built in.

8 Faders between 3 banks between 3 banks and 8 knobs switchable

between 2 banks.

So 24 fader controllers and 16 knob controllers.

Pretty cool, but I hardly ever use it.

It's just easier to enter Automation track by track with a mouse

or graphics tablet.

[techristian]

Logitech Thumbball actually. I wish more of you would buy them to get the price down. I still have to pay $50 for one! I have 2 here. This one is almost 15 years old and dying a slow death. I broke down and bought a new one last year.

 

OK. I take that back. TigerDirect has one for $38, but regular mice can be as cheap as $10.

 

Dan

[Lee Flier]

As I wrote in a thread elsewhere earlier today, I strongly suspect many of the folks who go on about how they just have to have the feel of a mixer are those who started out on digital and are afraid they missed out on the analog period's various golden era aspects.

 

Really? REALLY? So let's see... I've heard often that "anyone who likes to use a mixer is somebody who grew up using them and is afraid to move forward."

 

And now, apparently someone who didn't grow up in that era and yet still dares to want to use a mixer or control surface is "afraid they missed out on analog's golden era?"

 

Good Lord.

 

How about maybe some people just like to use mixers, and others don't? How the hell can you possibly second guess people's underlying motivations like that, and why would you want to?

[Lee Flier]

 

Logitech Thumbball actually. I wish more of you would buy them to get the price down. I still have to pay $50 for one! I have 2 here. This one is almost 15 years old and dying a slow death. I broke down and bought a new one last year. OK. I take that back. TigerDirect has one for $38, but regular mice can be as cheap as $10.

 

 

Yeah, but a $10 mouse isn't very good, generally. The mice I like to use tend to run more in the $25 range, which gets them closer to the trackball price. And the trackball really is more precise, which IMO makes it worth paying a bit more. I like trackballs myself, but there are very few of them made for lefties.

[blue2blue]

Really? REALLY? So let's see... I've heard often that "anyone who likes to use a mixer is somebody who grew up using them and is afraid to move forward." And now, apparently someone who didn't grow up in that era and yet still dares to want to use a mixer or control surface is "afraid they missed out on analog's golden era?" Good Lord. How about maybe some people just like to use mixers, and others don't? How the hell can you possibly second guess people's underlying motivations like that, and why would you want to?

Of course, I can't really respond to the unsourced quote in the first paragraph -- a thought that I don't agree with and can't imagine myself saying (unless maybe I started drinking again -- I used to say just about anything when I was on a roll) -- but that seems included here in such a way as to suggest I might agree or might have even said it. Which wouldn't really be fair pool, I don't think. But thanks for including it so I can make it clear that it's not something I would say. (It's pretty rare when one can catch me making such an recklessly unqualified statement. But if you do, post it, because it's a level of carelessness and sloppy thinking and expression I aspire to avoid.)

 

I do think many -- but, of course not all (which is why I said many) of the young folks who use digital control surfaces -- you know, the kinds with free spinning knobs and non-motorized, non-dedicated faders whose positions bear no relationship to the parameters they set -- and so, offer no quick visual analog if one is switching banks or if one has automation enabled.

 

I'm not saying they're fools or that they can't get some positive results from their approach and, quite possibly, develop a style of approach that works well for them.

 

 

But, yeah, sure, what I said -- not your impermissibly more expansive paraphrase of what you apparently thought I said (in your second paragraph) is precisely what I think about at least part of the motivation for some of the users of those surface.

 

You know, I've used plenty of real mixers, and I use one just about every time I record. I don't see the free-spinning knob, non-motorized slider type control surface -- which I also have -- as having very many of things I do value most in working with a conventional analog mixer.

[Lee Flier]

Of course, I can't really respond to the unsourced quote in the first paragraph -- a thought that I don't agree with and can't imagine myself saying (unless maybe I started drinking again -- I used to say just about anything when I was on a roll) -- but that seems included here in such a way as to suggest I might agree or might have even said it.

 

If you mean MY first paragraph - no, I wasn't attributing it to you. I've heard it said here quite a few times, though. However...

 

But thanks for including it so I can make it clear that it's not something I would say. (It's pretty rare when one can catch me making such an recklessly unqualified statement. But if you do, post it, because it's a level of carelessness and sloppy thinking and expression I aspire to avoid.)

 

My point was that I think that what you DID say was just as recklessly unqualified.

 

I do think many -- but, of course not all (which is why I said many ) of the young folks who use digital control surfaces -- you know, the kinds with free spinning knobs and non-motorized, non-dedicated faders whose positions bear no relationship to the parameters they set -- and so, offer no quick visual analog if one is switching banks or if one has automation enabled.

 

Errhhh... a good many of even the cheaper digital control surfaces these days do have motorized faders.

 

But, yeah, sure , what I said -- not your impermissibly more expansive paraphrase of what you apparently thought I said (in your second paragraph) is precisely what I think about at least part of the motivation for some of the users of those surface.

 

Again, where's your evidence for this? And why does it matter to you?

[blue2blue]

If you mean MY first paragraph - no, I wasn't attributing it to you. I've heard it said here quite a few times, though. However... My point was that I think that what you DID say was just as recklessly unqualified. Errhhh... a good many of even the cheaper digital control surfaces these days do have motorized faders. Again, where's your evidence for this? And why does it matter to you?

 

My evidence of what I suspect the motivations of some others for some behavior might be?

 

I had thought I'd made it pretty clear this was surmise.

 

But I would say that that surmise is rooted largely from the gap between using the kind of inexpensive control surface I and many other folks do have (and that I described) combined with the many hundreds of thousands of words I've read by young recordists who so often express a sense of nostalgia and longing for a period that came before them -- much as I grew up longing nostalgically for the 30s of tough talking gangsters, snap-brim fedoras, and tougher-talking Stanwyck-type dames with hearts of gold. (Chances are I might not have liked standing in bread lines or working for $5 a day if I was lucky enough, but, you know, that's how nostalgia for what we've never known directly works, innit?)

 

Why does it matter to me?

 

I like those existential type questions... I guess it interests me because I'm profoundly interested in the craft of making recorded music and have been my whole life. But I'm not sure that I consider it a matter of any great import. It's just interesting. I mean, I hope you didn't get the mistaken impression I think it's a bad thing that should be somehow stamped out...

[UstadKhanAli]

I'd say both, but mostly mouse because I'm mixing and editing at the same time. Almost always I'd turn off the screen at some point just to LISTEN.

 

So, huh, weird, shouldn't you just mix visually, based on how your waveforms look? What's this "listen" thing you speak of?

[Lee Flier]

My evidence of what I suspect the motivations of some others for some behavior might be? I had thought I'd made it pretty clear this was surmise.

 

You did. But I assumed that your "surmise" was based on something. And I admit I really can't understand it when people make these types of assumptions about people they don't know - especially relatively large groups of people. I see stuff like that all the time here: "People who like tape only like it because it reminds them of their youth." "Musicians who slag off other musicians just do it because they're jealous." And so forth. As if everyone (or even most people) who does these things has the same motivations, and as if you can read the mind of whatever individuals you're "surmising" about.

 

I just don't see anything good coming of any of that.

 

But I would say that that surmise is rooted largely from the gap between using the kind of inexpensive control surface I and many other folks do have (and that I described) combined with the many hundreds of thousands of words I've read by young recordists who so often express a sense of nostalgia and longing for a period that came before them -- much as I grew up longing nostalgically for the 30s of tough talking gangsters, snap-brim fedoras, and tougher-talking Stanwyck-type dames with hearts of gold. (Chances are I might not have liked standing in bread lines or working for $5 a day if I was lucky enough, but, you know, that's how nostalgia for what we've never known directly works, innit?)

 

I don't think there were too many music loving youngsters in the 60s and 70s who were pining for old Victrolas or wax cylinders, though. It was pretty clear that recording technology and sound quality had taken a big leap forward since the 30s.

 

By contrast, I think there are a lot of young recordists who aren't quite satisfied with the typical working methods of today - perhaps they just really don't like mixing with a mouse, and would love to have a hefty console, which is something they know already exists and still sounds and feels great in the right circumstances. But not knowing any better or perhaps just not being able to afford anything better, they get a cheaper substitute control surface, and it might, in fact, be a decent compromise between mixing with a mouse and using a good console. We really don't know, and I don't associate this phenomenon with "nostalgia for something that never was." Consoles did and do exist, and some people still do prefer to use them over a mouse. So your statement struck me as pretty bizarre.

 

I like those existential type questions... I guess it interests me because I'm profoundly interested in the craft of making recorded music and have been my whole life. But I'm not sure that I consider it a matter of any great import. It's just interesting . I mean, I hope you didn't get the mistaken impression I think it's a bad thing that should be somehow stamped out...

 

Not exactly, but generally when people do this kind of second-guessing, it's dismissive. It's ad hominem - saying that an point is less valid because of the alleged motivations of the person making the point.