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Sound On Sound's Mike Thornton (SOS, March 2008) comments:
“I’ve discovered that the Command 8 can do much more than merely control channel levels in Pro Tools.”
“When you hit one of the Console View Selectors on the left-hand side of the Command 8, the unit goes into Console View. This lets you see pan position, send assignments and plug-in assignments for all the channels the control surface has access to. When you adjust either the fader or the rotary encoder on a channel, the name is temporarily replaced in the display by the appropriate data value — for instance, the dB setting for the fader or the relative position of the pan control.”
“The third Command 8 View mode focuses all the unit’s display and controls on one single track, showing all the plug-in, pan, send and insert parameters horizontally across the display. The Access Virus Indigo plug-in provides an excellent example of how well plug-in adjustment works from the Command 8. When you load it up, you’re presented with 40 pages of parameters to go at, but the first page gives you the eight most commonly used from the plug-in’s Easy page. Now the great thing is that if you have the plug-in window open as you navigate around the pages on the Command 8, the different pages of the plug-in window open and show which parameters are assigned; for example, page 12 of 40 on the Command 8 opens the Filter/Env page on the plug-in, and you can see the parameters that are currently assigned. If you then use the Command 8’s Flip function, you bring the plug-in parameters down onto the touch-sensitive faders, and once you have enabled automation on the plug-in (don’t forget the neat shortcut of holding down all three modifier keys and clicking on a parameter to automate that parameter, without having to open the plug-in’s automation window), you can now easily record the automation changes of any of your chosen parameters.”
“One of the neat features of the Command 8 is the way you can control what appears on the Pro Tools screen. For example, the three buttons grouped together above the Transport section enable you to switch between the Edit, Mix and Plug-in windows. The Plug-in button is especially useful: for example, once you have selected a plug-in via Console or Channel View, pressing the Plug-in Window button will open the window for that plug-in on the screen, which is helpful as you navigate through the different parameters.”