Hey Jonas
Thanks SO much for the kind and considered reply! You've made me want to pull the trigger on this, and I think I will join you in the club!
I completely agree with you around the aspiration - I actually feel pretty comfortable with mouse and keyboard and have a quick workflow and use a number of shortcuts which feels pretty good. It's just that if there's a way to make it better/faster, why wouldn't I explore that? I like the idea of being able to use both hands in concert, and I guess the having hardware buttons for a number of the main functions is going to a bit (but not vastly) quicker than locating on the screen...
Could I please trouble you with a couple of questions? Curious to know whether I can select any track in CbB and whether the controller then seamlessly follows - so I can be confident that the changes I'm making are actually the correct ones in the DAW? I guess this would be the minimum standard for anyone right? Do you feel that you can trust the hardware, and you're not making inadvertent errors? Is the navigation quick/easy/intuitive? Hopefully even faster than without the hardware?
In terms of writing automation, does this work as expected? At the moment I'm all about adding pairs of nodes with the mouse, raising/lowering, listening back and adjusting. I guess that with hardware automation there's always going to be a little bit of a lag, eg "I can't hear vocal, I lift the fader". Would you take the resulting envelope and shift it forward in the timeline a few miliseconds, so that it acts more like a 'look-ahead' if that makes sense? Or is this over-thinking it!!? haha.
The other thing I was worrying about was whether the fader is noisy (apparently a concern with more budget units) and also whether the layout of the transport buttons is ergonomic - looks from the picture like the jog wheel is slightly in the way?
REALLY appreciate any insights you can share right now. I will try to pay this forward when I get my unit and happy to help you with anything I can, come the time
Thanks again and warm wishes, Bill Hester
