Mackie Control Universal Pro $1199.99 USD Musician's Friend The Mackie Control Universal Pro is a control surface made to give you tactile control over all the parameters of your computer recording software. Since it employs the proprietary Mackie communication protocol, Mackie Control Pro Series controllers know just how to sweet-talk your software, and your software knows just how to respond. You get deep, intuitive control of mix and plug-in parameters, realtime visual feedback, and setup is plug and play—no MIDI mapping head games!The Universal Pro control surface, Extender Pro control surface extension and C4 Pro plug-in and virtual instrument controller all seamlessly integrate, so you can put control of all your music software parameters right at your fingertips.Simply put, Mackie Control Pro Series controllers give your music production software what it needs to feel complete.

Digidesign Command 8 Control Surface $1149 USD Musician's Friend The new Command 8 control surface puts integrated, tactile control of Pro Tools TDM or LE systems running on Windows XP or Mac OS X at your fingertips more affordably than ever before. Through a simple USB connection, Command 8's 8 bankable channels of touch-sensitive motorized faders, rotary encoders, and LCD displays enable you to control your Pro Tools system with a fully featured, intelligent control surface. As with other Digidesign control surfaces, Command 8 gives you channel strip mixing functionality along with the ability to view and edit plug-in parameters and to automate sends, pans, track volume, and mutes. Transport controls (Play, Record, etc.) are also included, complete with a footswitch jack for QuickPunch and TrackPunch in, further increasing your independence from mouse-and-keyboard-only interaction with your sessions.Command 8 also features a 1-IN/2-OUT (16 channels in/32 channels out) MIDI interface for integrating your MIDI-compatible gear into Pro Tools. Its Standalone MIDI controller mode enables you to use the Command 8 with your favorite third-party MIDI applications and devices - any device or application that accepts MIDI control change messages for level, panning, solo, mute, MIDI Machine Control, and other mappable parameters.For keeping an ear or 2 on your mixes, Command 8 includes an onboard monitor system featuring acclaimed Focusrite audio performance and quality. It...

Behringer BCR2000 B-Control Rotary $129.99 USD Musician's Friend The Behringer BCR2000 B-Control Rotary is an innovative, hands-on control surface with 32 endless rotary encoders for the ultimate control of virtual mixers, organ-drawbars, synths, and samplers. Control all the virtual gear in Cubase, Cakewalk, Logic Audio, and other major audio software. Tired of using a mouse? Match your "virtual hardware" setup or cascade them together for the ultimate workstation. The BCR2000 is USB compatible and features full MIDI In/Out/Thru capability. 8 of the rotary encoders have a 15-element LED indicator plus a push-to-set function that lets you select, adjust, set, and control a myriad of functions. Assign a dedicated knob, fader, or key to your most frequently used functions and make edits without touching the mouse. Tweak "front-panel" settings by simply turning a knob. It's like having the real knobs for every control on the screen! Best of all, discover just how awesome MIDI can be! Simply connect your B-CONTROL to your computer via USB. Then assign and control MIDI/audio sequencers, software mixers, or virtual synths/plug-ins with real knobs without using your mouse! You'll spend less time clicking around and more time enjoying your music!

I'll start this article off with the bad just to get everybody going.

The Disadvantages of DAW Control Surfaces

So what's the disadvantage of buying a DAW Controller? This is an easy one. THE PRICE!! Dumping 1200 or more smackers on a mouse alternative is a giant resource hog (in this case, the resources are the things you would otherwise blow the money on). If you have nothing else to buy, then this is a non-issue. However, there are a handful of things that are giant priorities. Frankly, I don't consider DAW control surfaces to be giant priorities when it comes to making great recording.

Check out my article: How To Achieve Pro Recording Quality

You will notice that the article makes mention of the song, the musician, producer, engineer, room acoustics, recording gear etc. It does not make any mention of having a human feel on the mixing console. Nor does it mention having a comfortable chair to mix in or an air conditioner.

In other words, I see use of real faders on a mix as a luxury. While there are some advantages to using faders, which I'll get to here in a little bit, the bottom line is you should be able to achieve everything you want to achieve with a good piece of recording software. Recording programs have highly advanced automation built in. They have to take advantage of the automation inputed with a DAW Controller.

Better Things To Blow Your Money On

Since, I consider DAW control surfaces to be useful toys, but certainly not required for making great music, I'd like to list the things I would blow my money on first.

#1 Get Better Clients – This is a huge one. I'd take a pay cut and offer to produce a band cheap as long as you get the chance to work with the best bands.

#2 Improve Your Monitoring – The hardest part about mixing is not the recording software. Switching to using faders vs using a mouse has no guarantee that your quality will improve. However, improving your monitoring systems ability to give an accurate perspective of what's going on WILL improve your mixes. There is no doubt about it. So before you get your panties in a wad about fancy little electronic gadgets that move on their own, focus on what is definitely going to improve your recording quality.

#3 Improve Your Mic Collection – It sucks not having the right mic for the job. Arm yourself with enough mics to handle just about any task (assuming you don't already have all of your tasks taken care of).

#4 Improve Your Plugins – Having the right tools for mixing is very important to me. I've rather have the right compressor for the job or a killer reverb than a mouse alternative.

The Advantages of DAW control surfaces

I must admit that I've never mixed any recordings with a DAW controller. However, with mixing many live shows and talking to enough guys who do (people been trying to convince me to get a controller for years) I'll list some of their arguments.

Human Feel During Automation
Before I begin this section, you may want to check out Volume Automation: The Most Powerful Mixing Tool . Even if you don't read the article (Oh come on! You don't want to miss out on this literary masterpiece!!), the title implies that volume automation is a big deal. In fact, it's a HUGE deal. Most beginners have absolutely no idea just how much levels change in their favorite mix. Without you knowing it, the faders were probably going all over the place. I'd bet the average guitar solo goes up in down (although slightly) 30 or 40 times on average. Each note has a certain place it needs to sit in the mix and automation lets you get those notes in the perfect spot. Sometimes you want to draw attention to something and really emphasize it. Anyway, you can read the article if you really want to know all about it.

Now, I get excited just thinking about the ways that automation has improved my mixes while using a mouse. Using a fader is a totally different thing. In this case, using a fader is kind of it's own performance. It adds a certain randomness to the entire process where you may find those “happy accidents”. There is debate on this one. I say I can draw anything I want and therefore achieve exactly what I envision in my head. Others say that this is bologna and that using your hands is always the best way. Of course, if using your hand can't achieve your creative vision, then it's no good. I don't know. You'll have to figure this one out yourself. Just keep in mind that many of the old timers have been using a console since Vietnam and are very set in their ways when it comes to mixing a record.

My generation (the first generation of computer only recording dudes) may end up having a different opinion altogether.

Using Left Brain vs Right Brain – When using a DAW Controller, there is no doubt that you use a different side of your brain. After mixing for 6 years almost every day with a mouse, I've learned to flip the mouse well aggressively when adjusting levels on a volume fader. The idea is this will “challenge” the mix. If yanking the fader of a guitar down 6dB still doesn't sound too bad, I was probably way too loud before. Basically, I've developed my own miniature workaround for finding levels that work in a song.

Of course, this is kind of done automatically with a DAW Controller. While I could very easily see a person adjusting levels 1dB at a time with a mouse, most people aren't going to take this approach with faders. It's too easy to pull the fader all the way down and then push it way too loud.

With this method, you can “challenge” the mix pretty easily with either a mouse of a fader. However, the fader is more naturally adept to this.

Pumping Music To Faders – I hear this is a really fun one. The idea is you take a track and pump it to the fader. The end result? You have tracks that bounce to the music. This is supposed to be an awesome trick, but I must admit that I've never tried it, unfortunately. To do this with a mouse by hand would be ridiculously meticulous to the point that it may not be worth the trouble.

This is just one example of possibilities that are opened up with a fader that may not be so feasible when mixing with a mouse.

Conclusion

I think that DAW control surfaces are great little tools, but I don't think they are exactly required. I think there are some benefits to using real faders when getting levels, but I think a person can work around them. In the end, I think a mix would sound pretty much the same regardless if I used a mouse or a DAW Controller because I have a vision of exactly what I want to do after listening to the rough tracks the first time. If you don't have a vision for a mix, I can't see faders helping anyway.

Faders do allow you to do some cool tricks that wouldn't otherwise be reasonable with a mouse. These are usually cool bonus tricks that probably could help a lot of tunes but aren't going to make any life changing impacts on you. (Then again, maybe using your hands will change your entire approach to mixing...what do I know?)

I think there are legitimate reasons to use a DAW Controller, but I think these reasons are null and void unless you are recording damn good musicians, damn good song, and have a damn good monitoring system.