As you may or may not know, Euphonix makes high end control surfaces and analog consoles, and their Eucon protocol provides a much higher resolution along with features beyond Midi or the mackie protocol.
The poster was kind enough to give me permission to repost his entire post and renderings here on Ableton's forum.
Makes for some interesting reading.
The original thread can be found here:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end ... -pics.html
We need Eucon support so we can use the Euphonix Artist Series too!
Building a poor's man Euphonix System 5-MC (w/Pics)
...or an Euphonix/Apogee/Logic Tale.
Here is a colleague of mine's story. After deciding on opening this year his own room for good, he started to assemble all the pieces together for the facility. Being a seasoned PTHD (and ProControl) user, he configured the PTHD he'd like to build the main studio around, basically an HD3 system with two 192 interfaces and one of the newer control surfaces.
At this side of the pond, where Digidesign stuff is sold essentially at list prices, an HD3 with 2x 192s and a new C24 controller runs for almost €30k. Unfortunately, the C24 wasn't apparently cutting it for him with its consumer-type electronics, usability and layout issues and specially due to its lack of Custom Faders, Custom Groups, etc. So the only option left was Digi's D-Command 24 Bundle, at around €46,000. Also, as he's aiming for a client-impressing studio, the thought the Argosy Mirage was quite mandatory. Now the whole thing would set him up close to €52k, excluding the MacPro, screen and all HD plugins, which would bring the final amount up to almost €60k.
As great as that setup is (and mind you, it truly is), this guy couldn't stop thinking €60k was just too much money these days, giving the current state of ever-shrinking budgets, just for a piece of equipment with a typical lifespan of around 5 years. So he started to look out there for possible alternatives: "gosh, I only want an HD3 type of DAW... with professional converters and a proper, user customizable control surface..."
Anyhow, later on one day after a thoughtful demo session on a 8-core MacPro by an amazing Logic teacher and guru, he thought that might be a possible way to go. Combined with Apogee Symphony, Logic has finally become 'PTHD-like' to many people. After all and unlike in the USA, Nuendo and Logic are quite widespread over here (Germany/EU), so such a setup along with PTLE for compatibility could be what the doctor ordered, he thought.
Now the problem was pairing all that with an advanced control surface, as the only player seemed to be Euphonix with their very expensive, but very desirable MC and System 5-MC lines (here one with a 24" TFT):
..Just until NAMM 2008, when Euphonix released a new member of its EuCon family. Did all the pieces finally come together?
Now, the new Euphonix units are apparently not yet finished and still need its bugs to be ironed out in the coming months, just like the latest release (8) of LogicStudio might, but the combined rig seemed worth of study.
So following the Euphonix's System 5-MC philosophy and architecture, he had the idea of this custom configuration:
Essentially, a bunch of the new Euphonix Artists into a custom frame to build a professional looking "recreation" of the System 5-MC, including room for a 30" TFT plus 12U rackspaces. This should be paired with Logic Studio along with an Apogee Symphony system. The whole package (5 Euphonix controllers, Apogee AD16+DA16 converters and Symphony cards and Logic) costs only €12k, which is noticeable less than the €46k of his originally considered Digidesign's D-Command 24 bundle. Actually, it is €34k less (!), for a very similar package, with the Euphonix-Logic-Apogee rig having the advantage of being compatible and operative with all DAWs (plus Soundtrack, FCP...etc) in up to two workstations, all simultaneously.
And this is what this guy is now trying to find out, whether if each of its components work as promised and the whole thing is properly integrated, fits together as a unity and it's finally ready for primetime use.
He might eventually add a cheap (new or s/h) HD1 card instead of PTLE as a safety net to this rig, as PTHD is certainly a tried and tested platform.
(Note: Im helping him designing the "Control Surface Console", which is what this thread is about).
