Avid Teases a New Control Surface

There’s been a giant hole in the control surface market for the last 10 years, exemplified by Avid’s own product line: It offers 8-channel control surfaces that, while handy at times, aren’t a comprehensive solution by any means; 24-channel surfaces with a bunch of preamps that no one wants to pay for; and overpriced, $100,000 monsters with two billion knobs and cutting edge features such as six-character scribble strips.

What was missing all this time was a physical control surface, with a decent number of faders, that knows exactly what it is good at controlling (traditional mixer functions, not editing functions or most plug-ins). One that doesn’t have extraneous analog I/O or digital mixer capabilities (I’ll pick my own preamps, thanks). One that actually makes people mix faster and more efficiently (I can’t tell you how many studios I’ve worked in with a Control 24 that never gets touched—because the mouse is still faster).

And last but not least: LVXCP2 is a shameful way to label a track.

Well, after a decade, it looks like the wait might be over. Judging by the trend of some recent Euphonix-informed offerings (the S3L and S5 in particular) and the teaser video for the upcoming S6, it looks Avid may have finally decided to push the envelope and—dare we dream—address the various shortcomings of all previous offerings. Here’s hoping the hashtag they chose to promote the product is more than just hype.