Ooh Ahh: Faderport 8 !

Nice. $500.00 less than Avid's Artist Mix. I wonder if Avid will find a way to not let it work with PT.

Two years ago I would have jumped on this.  But the Behringer X-Touch beat it to market, and that's what I have - so I'll offer a quick comparison.  Disclaimer: I love my X-Touch, it has changed not just the ergonomics of my workflow when I'm mixing, but more importantly the way I record as a one-man-band operation.

At $500, the Faderport8 weighs in at $100 less than the X-Touch.  Nonetheless, I'm going to say that the X-Touch is easily worth the extra C-note. There's not a lot of tech info on the site. but I'm going to estimate that the F8 measures 12" x 12" vs 18" x 12" for the X-T and that translates to a lot less hardwary stuff..

..like less buttonage, which means more holding down the Function button when using programmable features. E.g. Record enabling multiple tracks (not all) looks like it requires a lot of track selecting. There are 8 programmable buttons on the X-T, which come in real handy, E.g. enabling and disabling input monitoring - and erasing takes).  No need for the function step and I use these ALL the time.

The knob/scrub looks nowhere near as nice/comfortable/usable, and is horribly positioned.  Really, it looks to be almost worthless as a Scrub.

Only one Footswitch, no Midi I/O, no Ethernet, no USB Hub, and perhaps most glaring of all, no display.  Bars, Min/Sec, Frames, etc..

As far as I can tell, there's nothing the F8 has that the X-touch doesn't. One of my favorite buttons on the X-T is the "Enter" button.  It's incredibly handy to be able to hit the OK button remotely when messages pop up on the your monitor.  I can be sitting at my piano and record/punch in on different tracks at different measures/locations without leaving the bench and not having to touch a mouse.

On the software end of things, maybe ..(Maybe) it's a better match for PT, but I'm thinking there's absolutely no way it can compete with the way the X-T plays with Logic.

EDIT: ..and I just noticed the wall wart.  Ouch!

Conclusion: They're not even close. The F8 is certainly not worth $100 less than the X-T.

Will the faders work as midi CC controllers? Couldn't find that info, or they don't. I don't need any more HUI controllers after using Eucon. But I would like a nice midi controller....

AVID Artist

"but not every daw can use Eucon" - Eucon works in studio one, logic, pro tools, ableton, reason, reaper, Cubase and nuendo?

I've got two euphonix artist controls (for parts), I tried to replace the faceplate to match my avid ones and now the one that worked doesn't work right, even though it tests fine. very frustrating, because euphonix stuff isn't supported and they won't fix it for you any more. I still think it's the screen, which I'd love to replace if I could find one, hence having two "for parts" that I bought for 50 bucks.

My artist mix and artist transport though look really cool and do a lot. really handy when working with the console 1 as well. I'm glad they came out with the 8 bank, I really like leveling my busses on the artist mix.

They all want some of that pro tools pie, and after spending 1400 on eucon stuff, I'd be real dumb to leave for another daw without eucon support. unless I sell it off. and then I'd probably get this. The X-Touch I hear is noisy? my artist mix is non-issue there.

Both Euphonix and Avid have been very aversive at licensing out EUCON to other DAW companies for software use only! If only they would see the light of having an open control protocol for hardware as well ! They could lead the way but choose to ignore the rest of the world thinking they wouldn't sell as much.

Actually eucon is finicky as hell in several daws. Yes when it intergrates like in PT its sharp, but still its mostly just faders and pan. I'm actually selling my mix for an icon or xtouch.