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tangent element or mc color?
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[Todd Hallam] “advice. “
Advice is free. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
Can’t comment on the MC Color or ethernet issues. I ran a set of Tangent-200s with Final Touch/Apple COLOR for a couple of years (For Sale-Cheap! if anyone wants them), prior to that a series of (small-d) daVinci proprietary panels, not the current incarnation. I own a Wave for out-of-office work, and a full set of Elements here at my studio.
You will definitely need to interface through a powered hub if you go for the USB – Elements, that is not optional.
Be mighty aware that all of these are extremely susceptible to static discharge problems, and it would not surprise me if we later find out that most of the system halts that we see are related to spike faults.
I get bouts of them in bad spells of extremely dry weather, which we experience here on the sub-arctic edge of the polar boreal forest. All I have to do is shift my cheeks on my leather chair and reach for the mouse – zap – done.I do miss the “heavy” balls of the original daVinci control panels. There is something about physical inertia/momentum that enhances the sculptural feel of moving the image values around. After 20 years of that man/machine connection, I cannot even remotely imagine the mouse/stylus approach — just seems chainsaw-crude. And I am not talking about numerical precision, I could not give a rat’s tuckus about number matching. (Except for that one job where the animated characters had target RGB values, which was a throwback to the golden age of cartoons).
My own criteria for making a decision between the two would be to examine the most common actions employed in setting up a correction and correlating that to the first-level access offered by the panels.
Not everyone does this, but most colorists need primary RGB, lift/gamma/gain balance “on top”, followed by secondary hue “trims”, and then window/vignetting. Not everyone dives straight into complex compositing with separation keys, travelling mattes, overlays, and parallel node operations, so if they are a layer down, or even prioritized under window menus… maybe that’s what would work for you.
So check the layout and which is going to be your better investment, if time=money, like Einstein proved.
jPo
“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.
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I agree. I have the complete Elements- all components. It’s great and well built.
Warren Eig
O 310-470-0905email: warren@babyboompictures.com
website: https://www.babyboompictures.comREEL: https://www.babyboompictures.com/BabyBoomPictures/Reels.html
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I got an Avid MCColor instead of an Elements mainly because Avid and Smoke supported it and not the Elements, specially the Baselight plugin, now I hear that Baselight plugin supports Elements, if Smoke start supporting it I may switch to an Element. But while I did have many connectivity problems such as the pannel getting randomly disconnected or by switching to another app, the new Euphonix update is nearly perfect.
Also, it seemed to me coming from a Waves that the MCColor has more functions mapped to it than the Waves, but it’s also harder to remember, too many modifiers. -
I have read elsewhere that it is adviseable to get the whole bundle instead of just the Tk. How often do you use the Kb and Bt panels? Seems like it would be just as easy (easier?) to tweak the interface controls for that no? You still have to grab the mouse to use curves, draw freehand masks or use the offset wheel and in my mind it would be way easier to use the mouse for sizing windows.
Todd Hallam
SideshowFX
http://www.sideshowfx.com -
The problem is I really dislike the menu cycle/select stuff.
I would probably use em more if I had dedicated knobs for everything, but so i am parked on Gain and mostly use them to dial in predefined nodes.
The TK on the other hand I use all the time to jump between keyframes, turn nodes and tres on and off and do the play,pause,jump stuff.
Also here I would like a second panel as A and B share the most important functions.
basically, as soon as you are in the element boat you will join the “free mapping” choir 🙂
And if they would that, there would be zero people buying the big one.A slice of color…
Resolve 10.1.0.021
Colorist / VFX / Aerial footage nerd
https://vimeo.com/saschahaber -
Constantly.
If you’re trying to spend as little as possible, you should be deciding between the MC Color and the Wave.. In my opinion it’s not really worth getting an incomplete set.
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[Todd Hallam] “How often do you use the Kb and Bt panels? “
All the time. Grabbing and playing stills, next-next-next keyframes, trimming luminance (far finer control than even the balls)… the beat goes on.
The older daVinci panels had a ballistic feature which made “Large” changes if you moved the balls fast, and really “fine” changes if you moved them slow… -After a while, the “on-the-fly” scaling becomes a muscle memory like throwing three-pointers from outside the key, and gets you inside the 20-second limit much much faster.
jPo
“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.
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FWIW, I have owned both the MC Color and the Elements. I had constant problems with the euphonics ethernet connection, despite repeated calls with support, physically replacing the unit, clean installs, the works. Same issues with both Resolve and Scratch. Similar issues at the one facility I freelance at the briefly had the MC Color.
Obviously some configurations of the MC Color work well and without issue. Others don’t. This is a real issue that I have personally seen in many installs.
Other than that my opinion is that the MC color is a great little panel, but the buttons are too small. The idea with a control surface is that you should be able to use it without looking at it. the buttons on the MC color are way too small targets to use easily without looking down, in my opinion.
I like the elements, although like everyone else, agree that the mapping is atrocious.
best-
Natp.s.
get the full set of elements not piecemeal. If you can’t afford it get the wave. -
I would gather some money and get elements.
Personally hate both the Wave and MC for different reasons.
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Margus
https://iconstudios.eu
https://vimeo.com/iconstudioseu/videosDaVinci 10, OSX 10.8.5
MacPro 5.1 2×2,93 24GB
GUI 4000 / GPU GTX 780
DL 4K
Eizo Color
Scope Box
Full Ligthspace CMS -
Thanks everyone for their comments and suggestions. I have ordered an Element. Looking forward to it!
Todd Hallam
SideshowFX
http://www.sideshowfx.com
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