command 8 is it worth it

[Meseratibeats]

Hello everyone I am thinking about picking up a command 8 today from Guitar center as soon as they open, Can anyone telll me in their honest opinion is it worth it ,One of my main reasons for the interest in it, is because over the 3 years of mixing with a mouse has caused my wrist to become
stiff and painful . I picked up the yamaha 01x hoping to get at least a little bit of control in
protools and not to be stuck with just digidesign products. However I should of learned yamaha dont
make the best manuals and always try to supplement it with a dvd that still lacks basic information.
At this stage I dont mind becoming a digi slave as long as the command 8 can eleviate the stress
that my wrist has endured.
Questions ??
Can the command 8 be used to mix pluggins such as parametric e.q's
how much control do you have over the pluggins ?
can you write automation from the command 8 also can it be done from the console or do I have to
use the mouse first ?
Is the lack of a jog wheel self defeating ?
does the command 8 has any control over waves pluggins or bomb factory ?
I would like to thank everyone for feedbaack in advance .

[kcurry]

If you want to eliminate the use of a mouse, then the Command|8 won't do it for you. You can use the Command|8 to adjust plug-in parameters, but you cannot instantiate a plug-in on a track using the Command|8. You still have to use a mouse for that. One you instantiate the plug-in, you have complete control over the plug-in with the Command|8, but it takes some getting used to if you are used to using a mouse. You can use the Command|8 to automate, but you have to set up what to automate and change automation modes by using the mouse first. I find that using the Command|8 to do the first automation pass and then refining it with the mouse works best for me. One of the strong points of PT is being able to fine-tune the automation with the mouse IMHO. I don't find the lack of a jog wheel to be a huge problem, but it would have been a nice feature to have. A trackpad would have been nice as well. Command|8 can control all of my plug-ins, but I don't have any Waves plugs. The biggest thing on the plug-in control is that the plug-in creator needs to have created abbreviated names for their controls, so that Command|8 can display them. Otherwise, the names of the plug-in parameters might not be distiguishable from one another. One problem I have with the Command|8 are the abbreviated names of the plug-in parameters. You really have to learn these, as they are not at all obvious. You get stuff like "EnHPF", which stands for Enable High Pass Filter. Kind of cryptic.

Basically, if you want to eliminate the use of a mouse and keyboard, Command|8 isn't for you. If you want a control surface that supplements the mouse and keyboard, then the Command|8 might be for you.

[kcurry]

Just to clarify, I'm just doing stereo audio recording/mixing. If you are doing post-production, the lack of a jog wheel is probably a serious problem...

[Cammo2009]

On the other hand, I do post production with a Mackie Hui and never actually use the jog wheel.

[kcurry]

Ah, well. There you go. I had assumed that if you were dealing with large sessions of material 1 hour or more, a jog wheel would be a great timesaver. Just goes to show that you have to look at any software or hardware and consider how it integrates into your particular workflow. There are no all-purpose answers. Sorry!

[Joel Kanning]

On the other hand, if you really need a jog/shuttle wheel, look into getting a Contour ShuttlePro or ShuttleXpress, and you're good to go!

[David Hunter]

On the other hand, if you really need a jog/shuttle wheel, look into getting a Contour ShuttlePro or ShuttleXpress, and you're good to go!



I love the ShuttlePro except for one thing, while you can shuttle/scrub audio, you cannot jog/scrub audio. To me, for precise sound fx spotting/editing, that feature was something I needed and had with a HUI, but lost with the ShuttlePro. Otherwise, the jog/shuttle/buttons are much more ergonomic and tape-like than the HUI.