Weekend Feedback: Euphonix or Tangent

[Robbie Carman]

Hey Stuart

Good to see you back on the boards – feels like its been a while

I’m a bit biased since I’m currently on the full Resolve Panel which is like heaven at your finger tips but we actually have both the wave and mc color with mc transport. So I can give a opinion on both.

WAVE – From a connectivity stand point the wave is awesome! One USB cable and your rocking. However if you have a central machine room (we do) where your computers are located you’ll have added expense of a USB extension box which can be a few hundred dollars (if going USB2) The mappings with Resolve are pretty good but there is still quite a bit of going thru pages and shift etc. As I’m sure you’ve read and others will probably mention the wave is a bit plastic feeling, with that said that is not my biggest complaint. I really just don’t like the joyballs separate from the lift,gamma, gain rings. Drives me crazy but that is really just a personal preference.

EUPHONIX – Fro connectivity MC Color and MC Transport are ethernet based (using the EUCON drivers). Its pretty straight forward to setup but you’ll have to go through a hub if you want to use both devices and then connect to only Ethernet Port 1 on the Mac Pro (pretty sure it 1 not 2). Depending on your setup this might be difficult to do – for example if you were on a SAN where your metadata network is on one Ethernet Port and your public network on another you might be out of luck – not sure about using a PCI based Ethernet card for connecting it. In my opinion the mappings for the Euphonix aren’t quite a good as the wave but for me the feel of the Euphonix with integrated joy balls and wheels is great. Seriously they feel “almost” as good as the big panel (just a lot smaller). With that said there is no where to rest your wrists like on the wave and the big panel, the balls will just fall out if you turn it over or are moving it around and there is not integrated transport section on the MC Color. We’ve not been able to get the MC Transport to work really with Resolve as far as transport controls go but we might be doing something wrong.

Anyway my two cents – both are pretty good panels but in my opinion lack the ergonomics and control of the big panel but hey what can you want when both are $1500 compared to 30k!

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

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[Jake Blackstone]

On MC Color either Ethernet port works fine. There is no hassle in installing it as well. Just plug it in in either port, select DHCP and you’re good to go, simple. No issues with the length of the cable as well. You can use it with multiple computers, unlike Wave. Much better built. Mapping is a joke, but Wave is not much better:-)

[Stuart Ferreyra]

Hey Robbie,

Thanks man. I am always around just not as actively replying as I used to; between running the business, working with clients, the phone calls, the meetings, the deadlines, etc, etc, I have no clue how I could be in the forum daily and hourly as I was. I am not working the 16hrs a day I used to anymore. That is not life. The cash is not worth not living. That aside…

I’ve thought about the Resolve panel. A LOT. And to be honest, I am not spending $30K on a panel. The industry is going through drastic changes and I don’t want to end up with an expensive discontinued tool in 2 or 3 years. I have learned my lessons. I won’t do it. When the dust settles I’ll give it another thought or maybe something else will be out 😉

I have had the Wave for over a year now. Coming from a set of Tangent CP-200s, the Wave felt like a cheap toy. I completely disliked it and put it aside as a back up panel. A while ago when we were putting together one of the Resolve systems, we took it out of the shadows and finally realized that it’s a tool made more for Resolve than Color. I dig it better than I did a year ago. The toy kind of feel still there though.

A friend of mine an I were testing a few Resolve tricks a couple of weeks ago and he brought his new Euphonix. I instantly loved the layout and the tight feel of the controls. The quality of the manufacturing is a lot better as well. Feels more professional than the Wave.

But I did notice that the banks layout in the Wave are more intuitive. On the other hand, the Euphonix controls and are way better. So it is a difficult decision. I think that if Avid rumors continue on their path for next NAB, the Euphonix will be the way to go; if not I hope Tangent comes up with a Wave 2.

If anyone has any comments about either product keep posting! 🙂
You guys go out and enjoy the weekend!
—–

Stuart Ferreyra
Professional Colorist, Finisher, Online Editor.
http://www.timecodemultimedia.com

TIMECODE MULTIMEDIA
– Professional, Affordable Post Production for Indies.
– ProTools 9 Sound Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
– Color Grading, Finishing and Mastering for TV and Film.
– DaVinci Resolve, Apple Color / SD, HD, SR, RED, ALEXA, DSLR.
– SD, HD, SR Deck Rentals + Edit and Finishing Suites Rentals.

[Mike Most]

If you have a SAN you can just put the MCColor on the public network and give it a unique subnet mask. Or you could just set it up for DHCP and any computer on the network running EuControl will find it. Being able to share the panel across multiple computers is one of the biggest advantages of Ethernet connectivity. It doesn’t matter which port it’s connected to as long as it’s on a network that port can see.

I too like the feel of the Euphonix controls, but I find that the responsiveness in Resolve leaves a lot to be desired. If I use Assimilate Scratch with the panel on the same computer, it almost feels like an analog control, things change as my fingers move and it’s all very interactive. In Resolve, there is both a bit of latency and a built in acceleration, so really fine changes are a bit frustrating in that I wind up having to overshoot where I want to be and pull back. I find exactly the same thing happening if I use a mouse to manipulate the on-screen widgets, so it’s the program itself that’s doing this. Having not used the DaVinci panels on a Mac based Resolve (I have on Linux Resolves and these problems basically don’t exist) I don’t know if it’s any better. Don’t get me wrong, I like the MCColor and I like Resolve, but I’m used to systems that don’t have latency and don’t have “sticky” controls, and the existence of those things is a real hindrance to geting things done efficiently.

[Robbie Carman]

[Stuart Ferreyra] “I’ve thought about the Resolve panel. A LOT. And to be honest, I am not spending $30K on a panel. The industry is going through drastic changes and I don’t want to end up with an expensive discontinued tool in 2 or 3 years. I have learned my lessons. I won’t do it. When the dust settles I’ll give it another thought or maybe something else will be out ;)”

I hear you man! It was a tough pill to swallow but thats also a reason we leased the panels we have to so at the end of 3 years we can return them and move on to the next thing or keep them if they’re still going strong. My rational was that there are still plenty of 2k panels out there being used and those have been work horses for nearly a decade. So I felt the panels are a little more ever green than say a monitor.

I will say I don’t regret getting the big panels one bit. From the ooooooh ahhhh factor with a new client in the suite to how much faster they allow me to work they’re worth every penny in my opinion.

I feel much like you do though but with decks. We need another SR deck and it kills me those things are 80k that purchase feels like me trading my kids college fund.

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion

Twitter
Blog

[Stuart Ferreyra]

Hey Robbie,

I hear you. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to have the panel, at this point in time because of its cost and the changes going on, it just doesn’t make much sense to us. Same scenario with the SR decks, that was a tough decision to make (selling an arm, a leg and the kidneys for it wasn’t easy, hahaha) but we figured there is a lot more ways to make a profit with the decks than other tools. By the way, if you ever need to rent an SR deck for a single week or longer let me know. I could ship one to you and definitely give you a great rate.

I don’t have any kids yet but I can imagine how stressful that can be; specially when you are not working for yourself anymore but for the family’s future. That’s gotta be tough.

I’ll do my best to stay more active in the forums and not so much behind the curtains. Let’s stay in touch 🙂

Stuart Ferreyra
Professional Colorist, Finisher, Online Editor.
http://www.timecodemultimedia.com

TIMECODE MULTIMEDIA
– Professional, Affordable Post Production for Indies.
– ProTools 9 Sound Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
– Color Grading, Finishing and Mastering for TV and Film.
– DaVinci Resolve, Apple Color / SD, HD, SR, RED, ALEXA, DSLR.
– SD, HD, SR Deck Rentals + Edit and Finishing Suites Rentals.

[Margus Voll]

LL Cooper could also be good option. Bit more $$$ but should be really solid panel.

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Illya Laney]

I second the JL Cooper. The panel is pretty solid and the track wheels are like butter.

twitter.com/illyalaney

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[Illya Laney]

What are the Avid rumors?

twitter.com/illyalaney

nextLAB Mobile
SpeedGrade DI
Resolve
da Vinci 8:8:8 Renaissance
Color
Truelight