Ridiculous "Mixing Mirror" Work-around

For those of you still furious about the lack of the Avid hardware following their DAWs, also known as “Mixing Mirror,” I have an, admittedly ridiculous pseudo work-around. Steinberg - EUCON. Why are you ignoring Avid users? - #77 by Outsounder - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

This work-around will allow you to APPROXIMATE A SNAPSHOT.

You’'ll need to do some prep-work to set this up.

  1. Make a layout of ALL BLANK CHANNELS.
  2. Store this layout into 4 slots and label them Snapshot 1, 2, 3 and 4

Now for the workaround.

  1. Select the channels you want to see
  2. Execute the SHOW ONLY THESE TRACKS option in Cubase/Nuendo. Now you have your snapshot view onscreen.
  3. Save it as “Snapshot 1.”
  4. Launch Snapshot 1 on your Artist Mix/MC Control, which will be all blank.
  5. Load your selected tracks into the hardware and then store it into Snapshot 1 in layouts.
    Now, your hardware matches your DAW.

It’s a ridiculous amount of crap to go through to get the effect. But, if you really need it to do what you had in mind, this method can be done in under 2 minutes, which isn’t a total workflow killer. Thus, it beats a blank! :unamused:

I find it infuriating to have to bother with this when other controllers will do all of this in, literally 2 clicks! But as Tango is no longer available and Nuage is prohibitively expensive, this is the only suitable option I could find. :frowning:

Use it or not. But if you try it, I’d be interested in your feedback on it’s efficacy.

Thanks for staying on top of this. I’ve been eyeing an upgrade to N10 along with an Artist Mix, but projects haven’t come in to the degree I need it yet. Anyway, keeping an eye on this and if I can borrow a controller this week I’ll check it out on my end too…

I’m really curious as to whether anybody thinks it’s even worth it to bother. On a Tango or Nuage, you can just pick the tracks, make the view you want (1 click) and store it into one of the 4 spaces (2 clicks)! The mixer matches the screen and you’re off and running! :smiley: On the Artist Series you don’t even get a control button to select your tracks! I tried holding down the control button on my QWERTY keyboard and selecting my tracks from the Mix units and the cursor kept advancing to the next track! Seriously? We couldn’t even have that?

Like I said, I’ve built macros that married my 8 visibility agents with 8 matching layouts that creates the illusion of the hardware following Nuendo with one button. This takes care of the lion’s share of the work, as I know I’ll be using those views on a regular basis in pretty much every project. But those “Snapshots” are meant to be QUICK and TEMPORARY! They may or may not happen in any given project. So I’m not sure how useful this work-around is. How do you decide? If you’re going to work on it for more than 10 minutes, is it worth the investment of 2 more to apply the work-around. Or will it be like using the mouse/trackball over the encoders (why bother with the encoders when the mouse was already in your hands and you’re already over the control you wanted)? If you can move faster with the mouse, it’s pointless to apply the work-around. But I’m not sure about what the exact criteria might be. So, I decided to post it and see what you guys thought. Does it help or is it just a frustrating reminder of the lack of the most basic fundamental of a controller? :unamused: :question:

I will say that if you have more than 8 tracks in the snapshot, it can’t be worth it! The confusion comes with the other tracks being in the way of the ones you need on screen. Presumably, they were far apart and that’s why you made the snapshot. Having to make a layout from scratch is a time consuming event because the default setting is to have them auto assigned. So, just loading the snapshot tracks isn’t very helpful among all of the auto- assigned tracks, hence the idea of pre-cleared tracks already located in for spots. At least then, you’re loading the snapshot tracks to a clear palette. But if you have 8 or more tracks to load, that’ll suck up as much time as clearing out the auto-assigned tracks and reloading the snapshots into a layout. I’m guessing at that point it couldn’t possibly be worth it.

One more hiccup is the lack of a “DELETE CONFIGURATION” key command. I made a Configure shortcut and an Update shortcut on my Mixer Commands Page. So, that makes it a little faster creating the short cut. After you’re done with it, it would be nice to be able to just hit the delete button. But you HAVE to use the mouse for that.

Anyway, you guys can let me know what you think. I’m particularly interested in feed back with those of you with 20+ fader setups! Thanks!