What’s the best 3rd party panel for Resolve under $4000

[Laco Gaal]

what about waiting for the Tangent Element to support Davinci?
https://www.tangentdevices.co.uk/products_element.asp

the whole bundle is 3,495$

[Ola Haldor voll]

I’ve got the JL Cooper Eclipse – and I love it. I haven’t used either of the other panels (tested the Resolve panel at a demo – and it’s no doubt on the wish list!) but what I can say, compared to videos I’ve seen, using the Eclipse is more direct.

What I mean is, instead of clicking through endless menus (they probably have more options in total, what do I know) I can quickly click directly to the options I want.

There’s six rotary knobs at the top left of the panel. These hold things like lift, gain, saturation, hue, controls for windows and HSL selection. Instead of clicking through all these presets, I can click directly from one set of controls to another.

There’s also a set of rotary knobs to the top right. These are permanent and you can quickly select Versions, Scene, Still, Keyframe and Node.

You also have dedicated buttons for anything like each type of Window and window controls, highlight, track forward/backward, several types of nodes, save/play stills, save and load Memories, a button to bring up the Render panel++

I also like to have the numeric panel, so I can jump from one shot to another by typing numbers.

I’m not saying it’s the best panel out there, but it was the one I wanted because of the features. I seldom use the mouse for anything except setting up the project.

[Barrie Williams]

I have tangent and jlcooper.

I wasted money upgrading my jlcooper to run on DaVinci … After upgrading I found that the 3d controls are NOT MAPPED on the JLC.

So if you are doing any 3d work , you need the Tangent.

This is not the fault of tangent or JLC. Simply the mapping that DaVinci has implemented.

I flagged this up over half a year ago , and it has not been addressed so we have to presume it will remain like this.

Barrie

[Ola Haldor voll]

That’s a good and valid point. Absolutely. I have yet to do 3D, but by the time 3D is getting bigger over here, I’d probably have the big panel anyway.

[Ryan Holmes]

I have the Avid MC Color and love it. Controls feel tight and quality (not plastic like some of the other panels). It takes up less room than the other panels as well – which was good for my situation as my desk has limited real estate.

Drawbacks are there aren’t as many knobs and buttons as on the Tangent panel, so you may have to use an extra button or two on the MC Color to access the same feature that would be on the top level of a Tangent panel. Also, the MC Color works over IP, not USB. That can be a hangup for some people with limited switching ability.

For my needs and use I’ve really enjoyed the MC Color.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.com
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Eric Johnson]

I’ve used the Wave and currently use the Eclipse. I’ve had my hands on the MC Color, but never in the Software…

I have no 3D experiance so I didn’t notice it was missing form the Eclipse until it was brought up in a thread of mine.

Personally, the difference in cost was worth it to me. I really love the feel of the Eclipse compared to the Wave. The Wave, which is a great tool, was loud because of the enclosure which was not conducive to my environment.

But the big thing for me when I finally made my decision was how the 3 were mapped, I liked how many of the controls were not multiple buttons away. Some are, it’s only 7k vs 30k and has maybe a 1/3-1/2 the buttons/knobs the BMD panel does.

But if your budget is really less than $4k, then you really only have two options… Maybe a 3rd after/if the Element is supported. Unless you find a really great used price on the Eclipse…

[Mel Matsuoka]

The Tangent Wave definitely has more comprehensive mappings than the EclipseCX, so if that’s of primary importance to your workflow, then the Wave is your best bet for the price.

That said, after demoing the Wave hands on, I just couldn’t see myself being very happy with having to drill down into submenus just to get to frequently used functions. While it’s nice to have more mappings, if it takes me 4 button presses to get to a mapping, then it’s not much of a timesaver, and having to look down at the displays to see which menu you’re in kind of defeats the purpose of having a dedicated control-surface to begin with.

I chose to run with the JLCooper panel primarily for the more direct mappings of frequently used functions, as well as the overall build quality of the unit. The Wave definitely feels cheap, and as someone who tends to have a heavy hand on keyboards and buttons, I worry that the buttons will break after daily usage.

Ironically though, I do prefer the feel of the joyballs on the Wave panel MUCH more than the ones on the Eclipse. Tangent really knows how to make quality controls for panels, and after using the silky smooth trackball/rings on the Tangent CP200 panel set for so many years, the Eclipse ball/rings feel unnaturally tight and rough to me. I thought I’d get used to it, but after 6 months of near daily use, I still hate how the Eclipse feels under my hands. But if you don’t already have experience using a previous control-surface this probably wont matter to you at all.

That said, even though I like the “action” of the Wave panel better, I much prefer the ring-around-trackball layout of the Eclipse, rather than the trackball+rotary knob layout of the Wave. The ball/knob layout may be what old-school DaVinci colorists are used to, but it seems more ergonomically natural to me to have the rings around the trackballs, since you can easily control both offsets with minimal movements of just one hand.

So it should be obvious by now that your choice of 3rd party control surface will ultimately be a compromise in one regard or another. None of these sub-$10,000 panels will do everything you want, exactly the way you want (which is the whole justification for the price of the BMD Resolve Panel). You just have to decide which advantage matters to you most when using a panel, and choose the one that serves that need the best. For me, direct, logical mappings matter the most, because I generally work with a room full of clients looking over my shoulder, and I dont want to be slowing down the creative process by constantly looking down and drilling through menus. I wish I could have the tactile feel of my Tangent CP200 panels, but the amount of compromises that using the Tangent Wave would entail just wasn’t worth “cheaping out” for, in my mind.

[Christopher Adams]

I have used the MC Color and now have the wave. I am really looking at the Element and will wait till after NAB to see if BMD supports it. My guess is they will announce it then. BTW with the wave.. Less menu diving if you use the 2 button shortcut! Hit the up and down buttons at the same time and you can hit each menu section and jump right to it. I use that all the time.
CJ Adams

[Mike Most]

On the Wave, I like the fact that almost everything is mapped, even if it does take a few clicks to get to what you need (not many, if you go to the top menu first). I also like the convenience of having direct access to save and play a still, as well as direct access to start and end dynamics, and single button access to things like scrolling by shot and navigating the node tree. I don’t like the loud sounds every key click makes, I don’t like the rather flimsy feel of the panel, and most of all, I don’t like the resolution of any of the controls, which all seem much too coarse and imprecise for someone like me who’s used to high end professional panels with very high resolution controls. I also don’t like not having direct access to stored corrections without going to the computer keyboard. For those two issues (control resolution and storing and recalling corrections) I greatly prefer the MC Color. But I do find that the Wave generally has quicker access to functions and better contextual menu design. For instance, if I create a new node with a CPW, I’m already in the menu to adjust the power window. Not so with MC Color.

Bottom line: Neither of these panels are going to make you anywhere near as productive as you can be with the full DaVinci panels.

[Laco Gaal]

“, I just couldn’t see myself being very happy with having to drill down into submenus just to get to frequently used functions. ”

there’s a little trick, if you push the Menu Up, and Menu Down buttons together, a Menu selector pops up, and you can select any menu with one click.
So you don’t need to go down one by one.