Penny & Giles DC16

The DC16 is an assignable control surface ideal for use both with MIDI gear and software, and with digital audio systems such as Pro Tools. Mike Collins just loves being in control.

Penny & Giles are well known in professional audio circles as manufacturers of the good‑quality faders that you find in high‑end mixing consoles from Neve, SSL and others. Theirs is not a name you would particularly associate with hi‑tech MIDI products — but that's where you'd be wrong. Addressing the needs of the more well‑heeled MIDI programmer and project studio owner, the Penny & Giles DC16 is a MIDI controller that provides 16 'endless' belt‑driven faders with associated switches, a jog wheel, transport controls, and various other control buttons, most of which are user‑programmable to suit the equipment you want to control.

The endless‑belt faders can be programmed to handle any continuous MIDI controller function — or pitch‑bend, or aftertouch. They can also function as group master faders, control note velocity, or generate strings of MIDI data with their current value inserted in the the string. The key switches can be programmed to generate notes, program changes and strings, as well as functioning as switched MIDI controllers or mute switches for the associated belt, when this has been programmed as a continuous controller.

The DC16 is designed to be mounted flush in a desktop adjacent to your MIDI rig or computer‑based digital audio workstation (DAW), mixing desk and associated equipment. The rear panel features a socket to connect the external power supply, an on‑off switch and fuse‑holder, and two sets of MIDI ports for control data and merge data. Why a Merge input? Well, if you want to use the DC16's faders and switches to control the volumes and mutes for up to 16 MIDI channels, you connect the DC16 between your MIDI sequencer's output and the input to your MIDI rig, using the Merge In and Main Out sockets. Any MIDI data coming into the Merge input will simply be passed through to the Main output. And when you move a fader or press a button on the DC16, it will generate MIDI volume or mute data which will be merged with the incoming MIDI data and passed on to the main MIDI output socket.

If it makes sense to use an external controller with MIDI gear, it makes even more sense with a DAW. A mouse and a QWERTY keyboard were simply never intended to be used to control faders and switches on a mixing desk, so a dedicated controller featuring faders and switches is virtually a necessity for professional use with DAWs. The DC16 can now function as a workstation controller for various of the DAWs currently available — Digidesign's Pro Tools, Sonic Solutions' Sonic Studio, Soundscape, and others — and a second set of MIDI sockets, the Control ports, is provided for use with these systems. Penny & Giles can also supply custom overlays for the DC16, which provide legending specific to its operation with these systems. By the way, one thing to watch out for when buying is that the DC16 needs a different EPROM for use with Soundscape, so check with your dealer first.

Setting Up

I checked out the DC16 with my Pro Tools III PCI system using Pro Tools 4.01 software. I was using the custom Pro Tools overlay, so some of the function labelling I mention here comes from that. Configuring the DC16 to work with Pro Tools is very straightforward. First, you need to use OMS (which has become pretty much a standard requirement for MIDI on the Mac these days) to set up an Open Music System device for the DC16. Using the OMS Setup application, you make a new device for the DC16. In the dialogue box where you make your settings for this new device (see Figure 1), you check 'Is Controller' but leave the receives and sends for MTC, MIDI Beat Clock and MMC unchecked, as these make no sense for a MIDI controller. The DC16 only communicates using MIDI channel 16, so make sure that 'Receive Channel 16' is checked, choose a suitable icon, and don't forget to save your new setup — and that's OMS configured.

In Pro Tools, just choose Peripherals from the Setups menu to bring up the Peripherals dialogue (shown in Figure 2). In the MIDI Controllers section of this dialogue, use the Type pop‑up menu to select DC16, then choose the OMS source and destination for your MIDI controller. These should correspond to the input and output ports for your MIDI controller, which you've defined in your OMS Setup document. Once you close this dialogue box you'll be up and running, with the DC16 controlling your Pro Tools software. It couldn't get much simpler!

In Control

The DC16's continuous faders have LED displays incorporated within each belt to indicate the fader levels at all times, so working with the DC16 is very similar to working on a touch‑sensitive motorised‑fader control surface. Also, you can reliably punch into your automation data at any point in time, since you are always at your automation null point — which is not the case with the cheaper controllers from JL Cooper and others.

If it makes sense to use an external controller with MIDI gear, it makes even more sense with a DAW.

Above each fader there is a button which you can set up to control Solo, Mute, Memory Location set/recall, Track Selection or Track Record Arming in Pro Tools. You can also switch the DC16's belt faders to control pans or auxiliary send levels, using the two rows of buttons at the top right of the DC16's front panel; another button lets you switch the faders to controlling plug‑ins. And if you're worried that it could all get a little confusing, don't fret — a glance at the 2‑line LCD will always reveal exactly what the switches and belts are currently controlling.

One of the best ways of working with Pro Tools is to set up memory location points at the start of each section when you begin. Using the DC16, this can be done very conveniently — with the fader switches set up to recall Memory Locations, you just press the Option key, then hit the Memory Location button at the point you want to set. If you're setting up Memory Locations throughout the recording on the fly, with the audio playing back so you can hear the spot to insert your Memory Locations, it's a good idea to set the Preferences dialogue so that these Memory Locations are automatically named. Otherwise, you'll have to name your location and then hit the Return key each time, and often there won't be enough time to do this before the next point arrives where you want to insert a location.

The DC16 has buttons for the five standard transport control switches: Rewind, Fast Forward, Play, Stop and Record. With the DC16 set up for Pro Tools, with its overlay, there are also four 'modifier' keys (Option, Shift, Command and Control) like the ones on an Apple Mac. Holding down the Control switch while pressing the Record switch repeatedly cycles through the various recording modes: Loop Record, Destructive Record, and QuickPunch. I particularly liked the four special modes provided using the modifier keys: Shift‑Play gives you half‑speed playback, Shift‑Rewind returns you to zero, Shift‑Fast Forward gets you to the end, and Shift‑Stop gives you 'Abort Record Pass' — all useful stuff!

You also get a proper wheel to control scrub and shuttle, but you do have to learn the rules about how this works with Pro Tools. For instance, if you're using a multitrack edit group, Pro Tools will scrub or shuttle the topmost track pair in the edit group, but if you want to scrub or shuttle other tracks in the edit group, you must first disable the edit group, or use the Suspend Groups command, and then position the edit cursor over the track or track pair you wish to scrub, before entering Scrub/Shuttle mode. This can all get a little fiddly in practice, and at times I was left wondering why the Scrub feature didn't seem to be working — until I followed the rules!

Working With Pro Tools

So now you have the DC16's 16 belt‑faders controlling Pro Tools' Mix Window faders. To help keep you informed about the current status, Pro Tools shows which tracks are under remote control by outlining the channel strip's name in colour. But are 16 faders enough? I have a 16‑track Pro Tools system, but I often set up more than 16 channels in Pro Tools' mixer. So, for instance, I might have a guitar in the verse of a song on track 16, and want to use a different guitar in the choruses, which will need different level and EQ settings. No problem here! Pro Tools will let me create another mixing channel and assign this to the same recording/playback track from the hard disk as the previous guitar track. Because the verse guitar doesn't play in the choruses, you can record both parts to the same hard disk track, but play them back through separate mix channels.

By default, the DC16 will control the first 16 faders set up in the Pro Tools mixer. When you want to get to fader 17, the Bank switches enter the picture. If you simply want to move the whole bank of DC16 faders to the right (in other words, to control Pro Tools faders 2 to 17), just hold the Option key on the DC16 and hit the Bank > (Right) key. To get back again you hold Option and hit the Bank < (Left) key. If you hit the Bank keys without holding the Option key, you'll shift across 16 faders in one go — so hitting Bank Right will cause the DC16's faders to control Pro Tools faders 17‑28, and so on. You can also use the Bank keys to control the horizontal Zoom level in Pro Tools' Edit window, by using the Shift key: Shift‑Bank Left zooms in; Shift‑Bank Right zooms out. Got all that? Don't worry, it's dead easy when you do it.

Next to the Bank switches you'll find Page Left and Page Right buttons, whose function here is similar to what it is in TDM plug‑ins. They may also have more parameters to work with than the number of editing controls available on the DC16; in this case, Pro Tools divides the plug‑in's controls into 'pages' which move a single page width at a time when you hit the Page buttons. Holding the Option key while hitting the Page buttons will take you to the first or the last plug‑in control page. Again, by way of visual feedback, the plug‑in parameters that the DC16 is able to access in the current page will be highlighted blue; automatable plug‑in controls are shown in red in any Write Automation mode, and will turn green when in Auto Read.

The DC16 ia a proven product which works with all the popular DAWs right now.

All this works straightforwardly enough, but there are a couple of slight disadvantages to using the DC16 with plug‑ins — for instance, you have to use the mouse to switch the Master Bypass on or off on screen. Also, no distinction is made between continuous controls and switched controls that only have on or off states, so faders and knobs are used to switch controls on and off in plug‑ins, which can be a little disturbing at first.

Another thing you have to get used to is deciding what you'll control using the DC16 versus what you'll control using the mouse and keyboard. For example, using Pro Tools' Mix window, if you want to temporarily remove a fader from a mix group — so that you can alter its level without altering the level of all the faders in the group — you just hold down the Control key on the Mac keyboard while you move the fader. At first I tried holding the Mac keyboard's Control key while moving a DC16 fader — till I realised that you need to hold the DC16 Control key for this to work.

Conclusion

The DC16 is really aimed at high‑end installations, particularly in audio‑for‑video post‑production facilities, where it will be regarded as a relatively low‑priced unit to use with Pro Tools, Sonic Solutions, Soundscape and other popular systems, allowing the engineers to work with a more familiar user interface than the mouse and QWERTY keyboard.

Home users and project‑studio owners may regard the DC16 as a little pricey compared with the alternatives. For example, the JL Cooper CS10 is not as good, but costs a third of the price, while a Yamaha 03D at £3000 allows you to control Pro Tools' faders from its faders and only costs about £1300 more than the DC16 — and gives you a full‑blown digital mixer into the bargain. If you have a Yamaha 02R, new software should be available soon to let you control Pro Tools using the 02R's faders — and this will cost you just a couple of hundred pounds if you already have an 02R. If you're interested in vapourware, Mackie are about to release their long‑awaited Human User Interface for Pro Tools, which promises to be an excellent unit, and Digidesign themselves have been threatening to bring out a professional control surface themselves for the last few years — although the release date keeps receding and the price keeps going up! (It's currently rumoured to be priced upwards of £5000 and to have full flying‑fader emulation along with touch‑based automation.)

Still, the DC16 is a proven product which works with all the popular DAWs right now. It's a solid, well‑designed and versatile unit from a company with a strong background in making professional audio products, and the price is certainly reasonable for what you get. Having worked very successfully with the DC16 hooked up to my Pro Tools system for the last couple of weeks, I can certainly give it my personal vote of confidence.