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There’s not much I miss about working in tape suites: the endless cueing and searching and reel changing, the fact that you needed a computer edit suite to do something as simple as to slide a shot, and of course the clunkiness and vulnerability of mechanisms, heads and belts which would inevitably wear out through use.
What I do miss is an audio mixer and a jog shuttle controller. Rubber banding in a Timeline is nowhere near as quick as the hands-on approach and jog shuttle controllers always provided a tactile interface between operator and machine. Well now you can have your cake and eat it too.
The MCS-3800 by JLCooper is a beautifully built unit which would slot perfectly into any high-end edit suite or television station. Featuring a jog shuttle controller in the centre of the device, an audio mixer to one side and 8 banks of 12 programmable buttons, this provides a total of 96 individual keys which tasks can be assigned to.
Looks the business.
It’s been said before that initial impressions are based on looks and then the worth is proved by what’s under the surface. On the looks front the MCS-3800 is a very attractive piece of kit. In an age where one can edit an entire production on little more than a laptop there is a need to distinguish between a £1000 a day edit suite and a low-cost edit work station which anyone can buy.
There is no doubt that the MCS-3800 stands out as a quality piece of equipment, certainly creating the impression of an edit suite which means business. The unit is well-built and solid. The sense of quality is thereas one runs one’s fingers over the surface; the rubberised ring around the jog shuttle; the finish on the faders.
So it looks great - what we really care about is functionality.
First-Class Jog ShuttleController
At first I thought the job shuttle controller was a letdown. It didn’t seems fluid and I had problems getting it to perform right. I worked for years in tape suites and have been used to throwing a jog shuttle controller from side-toside, spooling forward, spooling backward, hammering the machine to do what I need. The JLCooper jog shuttle didn’t seem responsive. So I slowed down my approach.
I soon realised that the jog-shuttle is very accurate and very sensitive, providing the absolute control which one needs. The problem I had initially encountered was down to my technique. I was inadvertently catching the inner wheel as I turned the outer wheel and this in-turn stopped the shuttle action from performing correctly. As soon as I turned the shuttle only with with the outer-ring it performed perfectly.
I’ve worked in Sony edit suites, Ampex Ace suites, I’ve done front panel editing in Betacam suites, and can truly say that the shuttle control on the MCS-3800 is a joy to use, something I certainly cannot say about some of the tape suites I have worked in. Frame-by-frame control is achieved by turning the inner wheel - nice, sensitive and responsive; forwardor backward motion is achieved by turning the outer wheel which incrementally steps up the shuttle speed or slows it down.
One can alter the characteristics of the job-shuttle in the software control panel though it worked perfectly the way it was set so I left it at the default. I was impressed that the response through USB was as good as it was. I did purchase an external shuttle for Final Cut Pro some years ago, which was connected through USB, and it failed to perform. In the end I ditched it. The JLCooper controller suffers none of this. It works as it should.
Hands-on Sound Faders
The faders are motorised. Once Final Cut Pro is launched the faders spring to life indicating that the command station and Final Cut see each other. I’ve never been a fan of rubber-banding in the Timeline. I grew up in tape suites and like the handson feel of faders. Even the audio mixer in Final Cut Pro only allows one to mix, at best, two faders at a
time if they are linked as stereo pairs. What one needs is an external control surface.
The control surface in the MCS-3800 provides exactly what one needs to mix multi-audio tracks in real-time. The 8 separate faders, like everything else about this unit, feel just right and give that user/machine interface which is missing from an edit suite which is strictly keyboard and mouse based. However, don’t be deceived, this is not just about what feels right, having hands-on faders will certainly improve your ability to create a seamless sound mix.
In my opinion, faders when mixing sound are essential. And the integration with Final Cut Pro is first-class. Simply open up the audio mixer in Final Cut and make sure the green button at the top of the audio mixer interface is active. If you wish, switch on keyframe overlays and the fades will then be plotted visually as keyframes once you press the stop button.
You can then play back your mix and make changes at any time by grabbing the motorised faders which follow every rise and fall of your recorded mix. The fact that you can mix several tracks in real-time will speed up ones workflow and produce the best mix possible. For me this is the killer feature. One can also pan the stereo separation on each of the tracks using knobs - just the way it should be.
Programmable Keys
Those used to working with keyboard shortcuts in Final Cut Pro will appreciate the benefit of simply pressing a single button to achieve a result. That is what the programmable banks of keys on the MCS-3800 are designed to do and they do this is in a logical, easy to program way.
By accessing the software control panel for the MCS-3800 one is provided with a list of Final Cut Pro functions. It is as simple as pressing the bank one wishes to access and then pressing a hot-key which one wants to program. Choose the function from the list, choose add and the operation is complete. Once you know what you are doing it literally takes seconds.
If you want to program a function in Final Cut Pro which isn’t included in the list then one can assign the task manually by selecting the keyboard shortcut as it works in Final Cut Pro, naming the function and then choosing the key on the MCS-3800 which you wish to perform the task.
With a total of 13 buttons which work over 8 banks one would be hard-pressed to be less than satisfied. One could easily be weaned away from the keyboard with this piece of equipment in the edit suite.
Bonus Features
In addition to the Job/Shuttle controller, Sound Surface faders and programmable keys the unit also has several other nice features.
As you play video from your Timeline matching Timecode follows on the digital readout - looks just like the Timecode display on any tape machine produced over the last two decades.
Play, stop, forward and backward keys are built into the unit, so that the illusion of interacting like a tape machine is complete. Curiously the Stop button didn’t Stop playback, however, the Play button served to stop/start so this point is of no real consequence.
A keypad is supplied which allows one to key in Timecode points or add/subtract durations to edits - I have to admit this is something which I didn’t get my head around - however, this could likely be me and not the unit. I was given a basic run-through of most of the functions when I received the device and beyond this I didn’t look once at the manual and found my way through each of the functions by intuition.
The unit was rock-solid, never once failing or causing the slightest problem over a period of 2 weeks of testing. It worked every time.
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