Master control

Citation : Mike Senior: "the Master Control does manage to cram an awful lot of features into one unit. However, as is often the case with all-in-one products, it manages to make many of these features feel a little half-baked in one way or another. The interfacing, for example, boasts a lot of I/O, but has only two slightly compromised preamps and no instrument input; the control surface has nice long faders and a spacious control layout, but then you have weird cursor keys and some rotary-control parameter-access frustrations; the hardware-controlled cue mixing is great, but you only get one mix for all those inputs; and the monitoring is a neat addition as long as you don’t use the Talkback button. All of that said, however, I couldn’t find any real show-stopping nasties, and the unit itself seemed robust and reliable during the review period, so (niggles notwithstanding) this whole package must still demand serious consideration on grounds of bang for buck."

Citation : Firewire Audio & MIDI interface, simultaneously capable of 26 inputs and six outputs.
24-bit digital recording and playback at sampling rates up to 192kHz. (Elevated rates can reduce audio and MIDI I/O count and disable talkback.)
Compatible with Mac OS 10.4 and above, Windows XP SP2 and Vista.
Balanced analogue inputs: two mic/line inputs on combi jack/XLRs with phantom power and accompanying insert points; and six line inputs on TRS jacks.
Balanced analogue outputs: six line outputs on TRS jacks.
Metering: Signal/Clip LED per analogue input channel; five-segment LED bargraph for main stereo output.
Headphone outputs: two with independent signal feeds and volume controls.
Digital inputs: two ADAT multi-channel optical connectors and one stereo coaxial S/PDIF connector.
Digital outputs: none.
Other I/O: footswitch input, MIDI In and Out.
Hardware DAW controls: nine 100mm touch-sensitive motorised faders; 10 endless rotary encoders; Select, Record, Solo and Mute switches per channel, plus a further two banks of eight assignable buttons; Zoom, Scrub, and transport controls with jog/scrub wheel.
Other features: switched talkback mic; three-way speaker/output switching; Direct Monitor low-latency cue-monitoring; 2x16-character LCD with accompanying data dial.