Review: Euphonix MC Control

Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Nick Peck

           
 

IMPROVE YOUR WORK FLOW WITH SPEED AND STYLE

BONUS MATERIAL
Using the Euphonix MC Control With Other Programs
Download the Spec Sheet as a PDF

The MC Control is a control surface designed for DAWs and other media-based Mac applications. It utilizes Euphonix's EuCon protocol, which acts as a conduit between the hardware and the software it controls. The MC Control's Ethernet connection gives it significantly faster throughput and higher resolution than control surfaces that rely on MIDI or USB. The system is compatible with any 1.25 GHz Mac G4 or better running Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Currently it does not support Windows.

The MC Control communicates most effectively with EuCon-aware applications such as Apple Logic Pro, Apogee Maestro, and Steinberg Cubase and Nuendo (MOTU Digital Performer should support EuCon soon). It also offers a HUI-emulation mode for use with Digidesign Pro Tools and other compatible software (for more information, see the online bonus material at emusician.com). In addition, it supports any software that responds to the Mackie Control protocol, such as Ableton Live and Propellerhead Reason. The Mac application EuControl, which allows you to configure the control surface, furnishes a soft-key editor for programming commonly used keystrokes for any other application.

Hands on Hardware

FIG. 1: The MC Control is a visionary product that brings customizable touch-screen control to Mac-based sequencers and other media applications.

The MC Control is about the same width and twice as deep as a computer keyboard (see Fig. 1). The hardware was specifically designed to fit on the desktop between the keyboard and the monitor — a form factor that puts the MC Control at the user's fingertips at all times.

The MC Control has four fader strips, each with a 100 mm touch-sensitive motorized fader, Solo and On buttons, and dual-purpose Record/Automation and Select/Assign buttons. The faders have a smooth, silky feel, and they're quiet when they move. The fader strips don't have dedicated data knobs; instead, the data-control knobs surrounding the touch-screen area handle functions such as pan.

The touch screen near the center of the control panel is the heart and soul of the product. Its dimensions are 6 × 3.6 inches, and it operates at 800 × 480-pixel resolution. The colors are vibrant, and the text is crisp and clean. The screen displays a great deal of information, however, and some of the data can be a bit tough to read comfortably.

The touch screen is divided into several functional areas. The right and left sides display the position and parameter assigned to each of the eight data knobs. The top area displays information regarding the current application selected, as well as the name and gain level of the four tracks represented by the fader strips. The bottom area shows the labeling for the 12 surface soft-key buttons. Data used in the view modes (more about those later) takes up the lion's share of the touch screen's real estate.

Directly beneath the touch screen are 12 physical soft (reassignable) keys, arrayed in 2 rows of 6 buttons. These keys execute the soft-key commands displayed in the touch screen's bottom section. You can have as many soft-key banks as you like; a pair of navigation buttons scrolls through the banks. Euphonix designed the physical soft-key bank to hold the keystrokes and tools you would use most often, and thus added the tactile controls below the labels so that you could operate the buttons without moving your gaze from your computer monitor.

Eight Velocity-sensitive parameter knobs are adjacent to the touch screen, four on either side. They feel great and have sufficient room between them for easy use. Pressing down on the knobs causes them to act as buttons. You use the parameter knobs primarily to change plug-in settings.

The MC Control has eight navigation buttons. The Bank and Nudge buttons allow you to scroll between tracks. A pair of Page buttons lets you scroll through parameters currently assigned to the parameter knobs. A Mixer button brings up the mixer window in applications that have such windows, which is a nice touch. The Workstation button allows the MC Control to operate applications running on another computer on the same network; you can even use it to send keystroke and mouse commands to a remote computer. In addition, the front panel has two unlabeled Shift buttons, one in each lower corner.

The transport section is located in the lower right-hand corner. The transport buttons are laid out in a curved fashion designed to emulate the positioning of the four fingers of your right hand. Below those are Jog/Shuttle and Zoom buttons, and to the right is the Jog/Shuttle wheel. The data wheel has a ridge around the top and ribbing to grip your finger, but I found it stiff to move and awkward to use. I would have preferred a more standard-issue jog-wheel design.