One of the things that really impressed me last year when we went to the Musik Messe in Frankfurt was the Jazzmutant Dexter. It is a multi touch controller and I think it is the coolest and most intuitive DAW controller that exists at this moment. I have been itching to buy one for my new studio. I recently sold the Tascam US-2400 I use before and bought this one for the new studio. I'm also looking for something with real motorized faders next to it, but I haven't decided what yet. But since I'm currently tearing down my studio and I am limited in room for a while this is perfect for now. And off course it will get a nice spot in the new studio for sure :)
So what does this baby do? Well the first thing you see when you boot it up looks just like a regular mixer. You have 8 faders for channels and 1 for the main volume control. And since it is multi touch you can actually control multiple faders at the same time with multiple fingers. It is most accurate when you use your nails by the way. It is also very easy to mute and solo channels from this view and even arm recorded tracks. There is also a view that shows all channels grouped by 8 faders at a time and then you can select those to go on your screen.
Another cool view you can select from the main mixer screen is some sort of channel strip. Here you can instantly adjust EQ settings, also with multiple fingers you can control multiple points. You can't do that with a mouse :) There is also a XY controller that lets you set parameters on any of the FX plugins on you channel and a surround panner that is just too cool to be true. I could go on like this for hours, but I'll spare you that. Another nice thing is that is connects through Ethernet which allows you to even let it connect to multiple computers. And since I use a multi computer setup that is like a dream come true. If you are interested take a look at the Jazz Mutant website.
http://www.jazzmutant.com/. There are even some movies there. I'll try to make some of my own later as well. I only found on little problem. Integration with Sonar 7 works perfectly, but in Sonar 8 not everything seems to work. But I'm sure they will fix that. The last cool thing is that I installed a dual boot OS now with also the Jazzmutant Lemur software. This is a open platform that lets you design your own controllers. I already found a great midi syncable step sequencer :) Man this is really great. It is not cheap by the way but in my opinion worth every penny!
Last year when Cakewalk released the upgrade to Sonar 8 my Dexter unfortunately stopped working. Back then I E-mailed to Jazzmutant about this. They replied that they knew it didn't work, but could not say when it would be fixed. But weeks and months went by without an update. Then on the Musik Messe last year I visited their booth and they promised to look at it. Well last week (almost a year later) I mailed again when something was going to happen. Then I got a reply I didn't expect for anymore actually. I got a beta version to test. And what do you know it works :) I'm quite happy about this because it really is a cool gadget, but also a very useful tool.
If you don't know what it is you should really check it out. It is a multi touch controller that you can use as a DAW controller. It also works with Cubase and Logic by the way. Here you see the standard mixer view. Here you get 8 + 1 faders that you can all control simultaneous. Another nice thing is that this thing talks over ethernet with your DAW software. And it sees what software is active. I have two PC's in my studio and I can control both with this control surface without having to rewire anything. But I already have a control surface with real faders so why do I use this?
Well I especially love this view. On top in the red part is the equalizer controller. You can move four points simultaneous here to shape your EQ. That really beats the crap out of a mouse :) In the green part is a XY surface that you can easily asign to parameters of a VST effect in on your channel strip. You could use Resonance and Cutoff of a filter plugin for example. And on the lower right in the blue circle is a surround panner and on the far right you have all sends on the channel on a fader. Very useful for adding reverb or delay. And the great thing is when you set your channel to record you can record all movements you do with automation. I really love this and I'm very glad that I can use it again :) Now I just hope Jazzmutant will be a bit quicker on the next Sonar update.
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