Brief Summary
With Eucon you can access deep control of Pro Tools. The Avid Control App is free, runs on hardware you probably already own and makes Pro Tools faster, easier to use and just better. Here are some of the reasons you might be missing out if you're not using it.
Going Deeper
It’s well understood that to get deep control of Pro Tools from a control surface you need to use Eucon. The S1 and the Avid Dock are wonderful products and not inaccessibly priced but you don’t have to buy a surface to experience just how deep the control offered by Eucon is. The lowest price of entry into Eucon is zero - if you use the Avid Control App.
If you use Pro Tools and haven’t tried the app, or if you tried it and didn’t engage with it it’s definitely worth checking out. I’ve had conversations with people along the lines of “I don’t like controlling faders from a touch screen”. I get that, neither do I. However there is so much that the Avid control app can do beyond the mixer view. In this article we highlight a few reasons you might consider dusting off you tablet.
Setup
The setup process isn’t complicated but there are a few elements to it:
Install Eucontrol, the installer is available in your Avid Account.
Install the free Avid Control App from the App Store or Google Play.
Your tablet and computer need to be on the same WiFi network, unless you are using an adapter to connect your tablet over ethernet.
Start both Eucontrol and Avid Control and in Eucontrol Settings - Surfaces add the tablet from Available Surfaces to My Surfaces. If you get a message like the one below you need to update your app or your version of Eucon.
Enable Eucon in Pro Tools which used to be done in Settings - Peripherals by checking Ethernet Controllers. Since 2022.12 there is a Eucon Button available in the Toolbar in the Pro Tools UI.
Once you’re all set up you’ll see the Avid Control App with its Mixer page (pictured below). Control of faders and knobs via a touch screen is divisive. Some people don’t mind using them, the success of the Slate Raven is testament to that, but many people don’t get on with the lack of tactile feedback, myself included. Even if you fall into the latter camp, the mixer page can still be useful as, because tablets support multi-touch it is the only way you can change two independent values at the same time without a hardware control surface. I have an S1 and 90% of the reason I have one is for fader control. However, if you’re away from the studio it’s a useful method for balancing a pair of faders against each other and for on the road automation it’s far better than a trackpad.
Attention!
One of the best things about the 2 way communication between Avid Control and Pro Tools is track Attention. Attention is analogous to selecting a track in Pro Tools and although there are preferences to refine what happens when you Attention a track in the Eucon General Preferences, the default behaviour is intuitive. Attention a track in the App and it comes into view in Pro Tools and vice versa. Which leads me to our first reason to use the App.
Session Navigation Using Tracks View
This is the single biggest reason why if you don’t already use the Avid Control App you owe it to yourself to try it. The second Tab of the Control App is Tracks View and this give you access to one of the most useful features of the Master Touch Module on an S6 control surface.
All the tracks in your session are displayed as square tiles in this view, with the track name and colour, a level meter, automation mode indicator and a grid of four squares showing mute, solo, input monitor and record arm status. The bank of five buttons at the bottom of this view allow you to set what happens when you tap a track tile. Select is the most useful. It attentions the track, bringing it into view in Pro Tools. If you are someone who previously has used small track heights in the Edit window to allow you to see more of your tracks in one screen, this might change that as it means you can quickly navigate your tracks while using a larger track height. Setting the mode to solo is useful for quickly auditioning groups of tracks while setting up a mix in record arm can really speed up tracking.
A nice refinement of this page is Display Breaks On Track Color. This displays the track tiles on a new horizontal row each time the track colour changes. Depending on how you use colour in your sessions this might be useful as it visually breaks up the session into groups of tiles making for even more intuitive navigation.
This page is the main reason I use the Avid Control App, but there are more.
Viewing And Editing Channel Parameters In Channel View
The Channel View is a view which I’ve always thought only really makes sense if you use it with an Avid Dock. When the tablet is placed on the Dock you see how the graphical controls up each side of this page correspond with the hardware encoders up each side allowing tactile control of parameters. However there are a couple of things to know which make this page more useful using just the touch screen. The first is that by tapping the Att. Strip button in the bottom right folds out a single fader controlling the attentioned track. This, combined with the row of track tiles at the top of the Channel page makes it easy to jump from track to track, viewing and tweaking parameters as you go.
The Pan page of Channel View credits a specific mention if you work in surround or immersive formats as being able to drag the dot around the panner while also controlling another parameter such as height isn’t something which can be done with a mouse.
Frustratingly for a touch screen interface, while you can display EQ curves, you can’t control them from the curve, you have to use the controls to the each side.
Monitor Control Regardless Of Hardware
The availability of transport controls separate from the keyboard are essential as, if you are going to use the app as a supplementary way to control Pro Tools, you do have to come away from the familiar keyboard and mouse. However another function the Control App can fulfil is as a rudimentary monitor controller. If you are lucky enough to have hardware which integrates with Eucon’s monitoring page you can access some comprehensive features but no matter what hardware you are using with Pro Tools you can use the Monitoring page for Volume Cut and Dim.
The way you do it is to right-click on any Master Fader in your Pro Tools Session and select EUCON Monitor. This Master Fader will now be controlled by the Main slider and the Cut and Dim switches in the Monitoring view in Avid Control.
Soft Keys
Lastly soft keys, which are where the real power of the App lies. Users with a qualifying subscription can use SoundFlow, which overlaps with this functionality but goes far deeper, but for freely accessible control of Euconised functions the Control App soft keys are probably all you need.
The issue for the new user is that there are just so many of them! 150 pages of soft keys. To try to peruse them all would be a mistake. The point of a soft key is it gives timesaving access to something you use a lot. Touch screens might be divisive when using on screen faders and knobs but tapped buttons are something touchscreens are much better at.
Starting on Page 1 you’ll quickly understand how it works. The purple buttons with the cutoff corners are shortcuts to other pages. Every window has the Home shortcut at the bottom right. Navigating deeper in to the pages you can quickly get back to where you came from using these.
We think best way to use these keys is to set up bespoke pages of soft keys displaying your most needed keys. It’s straightforward enough and its the quickest way to get the most value out of the app straight away. If it takes you longer to find the soft key than it would take you to just perform the action in Pro Tools you’re probably not going to keep going with the app. You can set up user pages in the soft keys page but to get started we’d recommend you customise the soft keys at the bottom of the of the app which can be displayed instead of the transport controls. The process is identical to setting up custom pages of softkeys but you can access them from any View in the app.
In the video below, brought to you with the support of Avid, Julian demonstrates all of these features.
If you have Pro Tools and a tablet or phone you can access Eucon. It’s straightforward, powerful and easy. If you’re a user share you tips and let us know how you use it.
A Word About This Article
As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comment