Anybody here considering Avid S1 or S4 for Cubase/Nuendo?

As the title says. Is anybody here considering Avid S1 or S4 for Cubase/Nuendo? I’m on The Artist Series gear now and the improvements in the S1 Series are very tempting.

Of course, what I’d prefer is for SB/Yamaha to MAKE OUR OWN VERSIONS OF THIS HARDWARE!

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Looks nice, but I think the price is going to get pretty hefty with all the iPads or whatever pads you need for each bank.

Personally, I’ve been mixing on the same MCUs+ extenders since before I went Gray! LOL I don’t know what color my hair would turn if I went with those puppies!

Weren’t you having problems with the artist series that you’re currently using? Do you think it’s going to be any better with these new units? There was a time where I contemplating moving control surfaces, to the artist series. This was before Avid bought them. I never made the move. I never had issues with my setup and I just augmented my setup with a touch screen monitor and a iPad. My Mainstay of work was a lot of local bands, radio commercials, TV show vo and pickups and that kind of stuff.

You are absolutely correct, Sir. I was/am having issues with the Artist Series gear and yes, the temptation is because said issues are SUPPOSEDLY FIXED.
The S1 added Function Buttons (Control/Alt/Delete etc.) which will expand some options. The crashing issue with PT Control is supposedly taking care of because you can run it on Android (they were pointing to the Apple working with PC as the issue. People running Nuendo on Macs supposedly didn’t have the problem). You can get tablets for about $200.00 a piece now and YOU DON’T NEED THE TABLET. They’re just an option. If you don’t get them, it’ll be the same as the Artist Mix. At $1300 a pop, you could get a 25 fader setup (including a Dock) for less than $5K! That was the asking price for the S3 alone!!

IF IT WORKS, that’s way more affordable than the minimum Nuage set up at 3 times that price! I can assure you that I will NOT be gambling on this! I will try it out in the store first. If I delete a track in Nuendo and the hardware doesn’t follow with that change, IT’LL BE OVER RIGHT THEN.

But, for now, I’m curious if Eucon will be salvageable for non PT users. :question:

I just tried what you’ve tried to do in N10 with the Artist Mix on a mac based DAW that normally runs PT HDX. I too didn’t find a way to get the controller to not show hidden channels.

The next thing I tried to accomplish was have Nuendo hide channels and then auto-select one of the channels that’s left visible. My thinking was that if we could achieve that then at the very least we could have the Mix chase selected channel and at least bank over to the right area. So as long as we’re not mixing channel types for example it’d help. Of course non-contiguous selections would still be an issue, like ‘show tracks with data under cursor’ if they’re tracks 1, 3, 9, 13 for example.

Anyway, a bit annoying for sure.

Hi Ya’ll,

Just curious if anyone already has had the chance to try this out in person at a showroom or demo setup yet ?

Curious to hear your verdicts on this…

If I may I would go with Avid S4, but I would reconsider if the price is too big.

What qualifies as “too big?”

Bumping this as I’m also curious. Is the track-select crashing fixed? Are there any other potential deal breakers besides problematic track hiding?

Track Select Crashing issue APPEARS to be fixed in Eucon 20.5. BUT the new LAYOUTS FROM AVID CONTROL feature seems to cause crashing with the same track select error message! :angry: I’ve been working with it for several days now looking for “the trigger” but, so far, it’s inconsistent. You’re never sure WHERE in the process it will crash. You can only be sure that it will crash.

Other things,from the S3/S1/Artist Series that don’t work in Nuendo are (This complaint list is from the Avid Forum):
1) The Modifier Keys only seem to be working in PT, though it is not a PT only feature.
2) VCA Spill (PT only)
3) The new Track Folder feature is PT only
4) It’s now DROPPING KC FEATURES!!! KC’s that used to work via Eucon mapping have mysteriously stopped (lots of them!). I’ve had to rebuild a half dozen or so in the past 6 weeks with regular KC’s to get around this issue.
5) Nuendo doesn’t follow scrolling in the Avid control app / nudging or banking on the S1
6) If you open a plugin via the S1, it opens in Nuendo, but when you close it on the S1 (using the “back” button) it is not closing in Nuendo and remains on the screen.

Another factor that is a BIG MYSTERY is whether any of these issues effect Eucon at the S4/S6 level? Eucon for S6 is NOT THE SAME as Eucon for S3/S1/Dock and Artist Series. I have had multiple threads going for months now trying to find an S6 user working on Nuendo. I haven’t had a single reply to answer that one question.

I’ve heard from one owner who JUST took delivery of an S6 about 2 weeks ago. He promised to let me know how it worked. I checked in with him yesterday and he said as soon as they got set up, they had Pro Tools sessions running for the next few weeks. He said that he’ll be able to try it on Nuendo in 10 days. That was on the Avid Forum and that’s as close to an answer as I’ve come. Nobody on the Nuendo forum has answered the question. Meanwhile, I found that someone else was trying to find out the same answers on the Avid Forum and he got these vague “it ought to work” type answers. You can read that for yourself here. S6 and Nuendo 10 - Avid Pro Audio Community

But, I can’t imagine that, at that price point, anyone would put up with that crashing issue or not having the hardware follow the software at every turn. But without actual confirmation, It’s anybody’s guess. But, if you’re seriously considering an S4, why wouldn’t you just go with Nuage?!!? That’s a guaranteed blissful result at a fraction of the asking price for the S4.

Thanks for your explanation, that was immensely helpful. The S1 would be the perfect combination of price point/feature for me if it works… and It’s just sad to not have something in between CC121 and Nuage.

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