Alpha Track availability

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:01 pm

grimepoch wrote:I will say, the display ABSOLUTELY makes up for it. I will NEVER use a control surface without display as it's a no brainer when determining what you have selected.

Man... I agree with you wholeheartedly on that one. I can't imagine "flying blind" without it.

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:02 pm

Good suggestion (on the patch change). And yep, that's what I meant by maybe it shouldn't. I am not sure what visibility MOTU gives of DP to the control surface.

I think if I had to pick, all I'd want is to keep the last selected track. So far, everything else I have used it for has been spot on.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:06 pm

Since I haven't used FaderPort I can't comment on fader feel, but I think the tradeoff is fine by me. Secondly, I can't comment on fader noise because... well heck... seems I always have music playing when the fader is moving. I can't hear it over that.

toofar · Post by **toofar** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:23 pm

James Steele wrote:... seems I always have music playing when the fader is moving. I can't hear it over that.

I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Bill

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:29 pm

Hehe, the noise doesn't bother me either. I mean, with the sound level I work at (note...guitar player first) it NEVER becomes louder than my guitar

(Because it goes to 11)

burn em · Post by **burn em** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:44 pm

Great to hear all the positive feed back. the flip function sounds damn cool for automating Aux sends. that's my biggy.

I have a Fader Port, which is better than not having one... the fader is very nice and responsive though. Interesting to hear the Alpha track's one is a little clunky. Anyone have both and can offer a comparison?

In reply to Grimepoch: The Fader Port also defaults to the first channel when none are selected in the sequence window. So I think this is a non- intentional DP thing.

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:13 pm

That may in fact be the case, and if so, I will then persue MOTU.

By the way, picked mine up at Guitar Center for $179. That is NOT bad.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:18 pm

grimepoch wrote:By the way, picked mine up at Guitar Center for $179. That is NOT bad.

You done good! I paid $189 for mine. Free shipping... no sales tax.

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:14 pm

I did have to pay tax though, so probably around the same (too lazy to figure out the numbers)

Dwetmaster · Post by **Dwetmaster** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:07 pm

Wondering if anyone can compare AT with a MCU. Besides of the price and the size, any functional advantage? I already own a MCU, and I don't see why I would sell it for an AlphaTrack.

It still looks nice though...

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:17 pm

Dwetmaster wrote:Wondering if anyone can compare AT with a MCU. Besides of the price and the size, any functional advantage? I already own a MCU, and I don't see why I would sell it for an AlphaTrack.

It still looks nice though...

Hmmm... I have no experience with the MCU. Looks cool though and I might want to go that route someday. The AlphaTrack is my first experience with a control surface... I admit it. Seems the one thing that I find really cool is the FLIP function that lets you use the fader instead of a rotary knob for effects sends, etc. But if the MCU has a "fine" setting on its rotary pots, then that may be no big deal either.

Resonant Alien · Post by **Resonant Alien** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:25 pm

Dwetmaster wrote:Wondering if anyone can compare AT with a MCU. Besides of the price and the size, any functional advantage? I already own a MCU, and I don't see why I would sell it for an AlphaTrack.

It still looks nice though...

I just sold my MCU and got an Alphatrack. One advantage of the AT is that you can have three encoders per track instead of just one on the MCU. Sure, on the MCU you can page through the encoder settings, but it's nice to be able to just grab the knob and go.

Another advantage of the AT (granted this has more to do with the DP driver than the actual control surface) is that on the MCU when you page tracks, it will also page tracks on DP's mixer window unless you have another window selected - this kind of sucked if you had all tracks showing in the mixer window and then paged - it would reduce the mixer window to only the 8 tracks showing on the MCU. With the AT, it doesn't do this.

The question for me was not so much any functional advantages of the AT over the MCU, but were there any disadvantages of the AT? I could not find any.

Being that there were no real disadvantages (none that I could see anyway), and being that I could sell the MCU for $700, pick up an AT for $200, pocket $500 and reclaim my deskspace in the process, it became a no brainer for me...YMMV.

As much as I liked the functionality of the MCU, the god awful size of the thing always chapped my tail a little, so it's really nice to have something smaller now.

Plus, fewer wires!! Instead of a power cable, wall wart and MIDI cable, just one little USB cable......

I wonder if you could hook it up to a wireless USB hub?????? Hmmm....

RA

aafarr2 · Post by **aafarr2** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:06 pm

I haven't seen it anywhere, but i may have overlooked it:

I am assuming the slider, knobs, and buttons are customizable? For instance, could I have the slider as MIDI CC 10 expression and the knobs MIDI CC 1 modulation?

Thanks!

Dwetmaster · Post by **Dwetmaster** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:23 pm

James Steele wrote: Seems the one thing that I find really cool is the FLIP function that lets you use the fader instead of a rotary knob for effects sends, etc. But if the MCU has a "fine" setting on its rotary pots, then that may be no big deal either.

The MCU has that exact same function on the touch of a "flip" button

ResonantAlien wrote:Another advantage of the AT (granted this has more to do with the DP driver than the actual control surface) is that on the MCU when you page tracks, it will also page tracks on DP's mixer window unless you have another window selected - this kind of sucked if you had all tracks showing in the mixer window and then paged - it would reduce the mixer window to only the 8 tracks showing on the MCU. With the AT, it doesn't do this.

That feature can be easily turned off in the MCU pref.menu. DP's Manual p.990

I guess it would a nice to have for me @ work but I don't think would be worth sell my beloved MCU.

I will definitely keep an eye on that thing though because it still look pretty cool.

P.S.
For those Interested, I was not trying to bitch on th AT and Brag on my MC...

aafarr2 · Post by **aafarr2** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:15 pm

aafarr2 wrote:I haven't seen it anywhere, but i may have overlooked it:

I am assuming the slider, knobs, and buttons are customizable? For instance, could I have the slider as MIDI CC 10 expression and the knobs MIDI CC 1 modulation?

Thanks!

Adding to this question, I noticed on Alpha Tracks' website that it has a driver for DP5. Does anyone know if it also works with DP 4.61?