For practical purposes, there are two industry-standard protocols that most control surfaces use to communicate with your DAW software: EUCON and MCU (Mackie Control Universal Protocol). The DAW you use can have a significant impact on how deep your control surface integration will be. And remember, you can always start with one unit of eight faders, and then expand to 16, 24, and so on. But, if you’re getting into complex mixes and intricate scores, you’re likely to benefit from having more faders within reach.
So, if you generally work with mixes that are only a handful of tracks, or if you just don’t have the desk space to spare, a compact, single-fader control surface may be a good option.
It’s also important to note that even if you start with just one bank of eight faders, you can usually combine multiple units to expand the number of faders available to you. The most popular control surfaces typically feature either a single motorized fader or a bank of eight-more expensive options can feature 16 or more faders in a single enclosure. The first decision you’ll need to make when choosing your control surface is how many faders you need. While most mainstream control surface solutions offer similar functionality, there are a few things you’ll want to consider before you make your purchase. Most modern control surfaces offer a few basic functions like motorized faders and transport controls, while some also include pan pots and the ability to control plugin parameters. If you don’t enjoy using your mouse to draw fader moves and find mixing in-the-box to be tedious, a good control surface may be the perfect solution. A control surface can be a game-changer for your studio mixing workflow.