Hey all, I am in the market for a control surface and was wondering if anyone has tried getting the console 1 fader to work well on Ardour Linux without requiring any of the softube plugins. I read on non-linux forums that the raw MIDI controls are very limited. Curious to know if anyone has tried it? Especially, if anyone knows if all the controls can be mapped, as well as if any of the display functionalities work. I have looked at other control surfaces, but console 1 fader looks the most pleasing to me.
If there isnt a way to make it work, I am also curious about the support of SSL UF8, specially without their SSL 360 software. Also happy to hear recommendations for other decent looking control surfaces with motorized faders, extra bonus points if the information on the screen can be configured.
Due to lack of resources on the topic, and the fact that it seems that getting a control surface that properly implements mackie control protocol, i ended up ordering both the SSL UF8 and the icon pro V1-M. Will report back my findings
Assuming you bought two units that are entirely different brands tells me you got both of these for testing and plan to return at least one of them. Using them together could be a logistical nightmare in some sense. I would guess the SSL might win out. The reviews I have read on the Icon have not been so great averaging 3 out of 5 stars. The SSL fairs much better. As we all know, reviews are sometimes not always accurate.
It will be interesting to hear your own reviews of these two devices. Looking forward to it.
Yes the two units are for trialing and using separately. I couldn’t find many resources on an exact compatibility metric, outside of the SSL generally being favored over the icon in non-Linux environments. But people also say the V1-M is more hackable, so it may work better. Excited to see how they fare.
@x42 thanks for the recommendation! I didn’t like the aesthetics of the faderports, and looking to find something modern. If neither of these work I might settle for a second hand faderport.
Had the SSL UF8 for an evening so far. It does not work at all. I originally thought that perhaps there was some setup needed via the SSL 360 software, or a firmware update, so I used my windows VM setup (pass-through USB host device, I have been doing that for years in case I had to configure my audio interface’s internal mixer, works pretty well). But none of that worked. When I exit out of the VM, SSL UF8 stops responding again. Doing more research it seems like the 360 software has to be running at all times for the device to function (it didn’t say that anywhere in the manual, but I found some forum posts over on the mixbus site).
However, I came across the GitHub - acklin83/Rea-Sixty: Reaper: Open-source SSL 360° replacement for the SSL UF8 and UC1 control surfaces · GitHub project (discussion here: validating your browser) and downloaded reaper for the first time. And it actually works natively on Linux without running any additional software. I didnt do a thorough feature to feature test since I am not familiar with how to use reaper, but I looked through the docs and wrote up a quick prototype using LLM for ardour and got a few things working (e.g. faders, track color, naming, mute, sel, solo, etc). But its pretty finicky so far (e.g. faders feel buggy on certain fast automation movements) and I havent spent enough time with the unit to know all the features that this implementation misses, and how much is my prototype code being incomplete and how much is the unit being finicky.
So right now, it doesn’t feel like I will be keeping the UF8. I am expecting to get the Icon V1-M in the mail today and see what the out of box experience look like on Linux+Ardour. I’ll also try doing a session on Ardour on my work macbook + 360 software just so I can compare the quality and workflow, and see if reverse-engineering the unit for an implementation on Ardour will be worth it.
(Yes I know Ardour doesnt allow LLM-generated code due to licensing reasons, but if I ever decide to contribute, I plan to rewrite the implementation in a more optimal way anyways)
I just returned one. Didn’t test it with Ardour, did with Mixing Station, and found a couple of things:
In Mackie Mode you still ‘lose’ two faders
In Generic MIDI mode you can’t map mode of the buttons on it, only the very basic ones part of the channel strip
Add on the fact there are no pots for pan etc. on the surface, it tries to do this ‘smart’ by using the pan button in the mackie mode, but didn’t work like was expected in my experience, it just wasn’t worth it.
And by the way, even the above is only true on Mac and Windows with their software running. I couldn’t get it running on iOS even though it would be detected as a class compliant MIDI device, it never sent any MIDI no matter what mode I set it to on a Mac before I moved it over. Never tested it on linux as a result.
As a result, I returned it. Just didn’t do what I needed. I agree physically it looks very nice, and felt nice, and 10 faders is a huge improvement over 8, but since it didn’t work like I needed it, the rest doesn’t matter.
I am curious, I got a Behringer Touch Compact for now to replace the Console 1 Fader I just sent back, but the iCon V1-M or P1-M is next on my list to replace that Behringer most likely, so curious as to your experience with it.