Icon P1 Nano has landed - £249

So doesn't look like it has programmable touch buttons - but more of just a touch screen that is split up. Unfortunate. They missed a trick by not using the Streamdeck-esque pressable buttons IMO. Touch screens don't give any tactile feedback - might as well use an iPad.

ALittleNightMusic said:

So doesn't look like it has programmable touch buttons - but more of just a touch screen that is split up. Unfortunate. They missed a trick by not using the Streamdeck-esque pressable buttons IMO. Touch screens don't give any tactile feedback - might as well use an iPad.

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This is also why I didn't went for the larger one V1. Same touchscreen. The use of an ipad has more benefits to me and this solution feels cheap for the price you have to pay (for the V1). Imagine when the screen gets smudgy from the finger prints and the light bleeds under the frame to the surrounding buttons. These little things would get me annoyed.

And it also forces me to always use their software. I learned my lesson the hard way to stay away of locked-in devices that doesn't use any standard protocol or built their vendor specific protocol over any standard like icon did.

Once support is dropped because they have to sell new stuff (Native instruments mk1, Yamaha 01X I'm looking at you too!), you have one ("hell of an" in case of the bigger brother) expensive paperweight which nobody wants.

Icon P1 Nano and Nano with D5 meter bridge combo are now available at BHPhoto. I pulled the trigger on the combo and it should be here in a few days. I've been missing my Alphatrack since the move to M1 so looking forward to this.

I've been playing with the Nano for a few days now. You can save $100 by ordering the Nano and D5 meters as a bundle for $359. The build quality is great, exceptional actually. Metal chassis, nice weight to it, just a solid build overall. It's smaller than I thought it would be, it's 8"x8"! It's a ton of control in a very small footprint.

Fader, knobs and jog wheel also feel great. The spongy buttons are nice too, not flopping around, solid. Backlighting changes depending on if the buttons are supported. So if the DAW doesn't have Trim, it won't light up. Pretty smart and a good way to do it.

The 16 key is an iPad feel, not buttons. I haven't used a stream deck so hard to say if that's better. I don't see this feel being a problem, it responds quickly and it's easy to switch between the layers. The iMap software is straightforward. You have to turn on the Nano, iMap software and THEN the Daw to be able to set the DAW selection buttons. I switch between Logic, PT and LIVE so I love this concept. Great that the layout can be tweaked for all three. The Nano uses HUI or MCU protocol and the iMap is really only used to set up the layout. You don't need the iMap software to be running after the initial setup, from what I can tell.

The fader is fast and relatively quiet. It's quieter than the Alphatrack was but not dead quiet. It has a little scratchy sound to the fader, nothing serious. I haven't figured out how to have the fader control cc Modulation but it says in the manual it can.

I can't comment too much on the Nano in use, I've barely scratched the surface of what it can do. It's a very deep piece of gear but not overly complex. Seems well thought out but it's going to take a bit to figure out the best way to implement it into my workflow. So far I love it. It's light years from where I was with the Alphatrack which I only used for the fader.

The Nektar CS12 should be also available soon, first part of Feb from what I've read. It has a much larger footprint and is using it's own proprietary software, which may or may not be better. I think it only works with Logic so far. It seems like these should be using Midi 2.0 but don't. I do think the iMap software is pretty simple and should be easy to keep updated when the OS changes. Not sure how the CS12 is going to create separate software for each DAW and keep them all current.

If you're looking for a controller, these seem like two good options at a reasonable price point.

Thanks for this. Good to hear the quality is up there.
In Logic does selecting a channel with the mouse make the nano update and follow the selection?

Oh wow, I can control 3 DAWs simultaneously! Helps a lot when I work in Studio One 2 and 3..

Honestly, they blew it by only putting one fader on it. If it had two, it would be something else than everyone else sells, and actually be worth considering.

pinki said:

[...] In Logic does selecting a channel with the mouse make the nano update and follow the selection?

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That is indeed the crucial question. I tried SSL's UF1, but it couldn't follow the track selection done by mouse on the screen in Nuendo without an additional plug-in on each channel (IIRC), that's why I didn't keep it.

GtrString said:

Oh wow, I can control 3 DAWs simultaneously! Helps a lot when I work in Studio One 2 and 3..

Honestly, they blew it by only putting one fader on it. If it had two, it would be something else than everyone else sells, and actually be worth considering.

Click to expand...

There's always this:

https://iconproaudio.com/product/p1-m/

danielh02 said:

There's always this:

https://iconproaudio.com/product/p1-m/

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Yeah, 1 or 8 faders, great choice!

Yes it follows in Logic exactly like what I want. There are also track up and down buttons and bank buttons but you don’t have to use them. There’s a Logic pref Fader Touch selects track. I didn’t have this on so that’s an additional option as well.

Yes I’d love to have a simple three flying fader unit with just the automation buttons and a pan knob. It’s not sexy but it’s all I wanted. No one makes it.

I’m glad the button grid isn’t actual buttons which always seem to get brittle and worn in the one spot you press all the time. Some haptic feel would have been nice but I’m sure that would be more expensive. It’s a crazy amount of high quality functions for the price, especially since you can get it for $299 list without the meter bridge, although I highly recommend getting the bundle. The meters really help for an additional $59. Not sure I’d add that later for the $159 price. The display shows the first letters and last few letters of the track name so I need to rethink my track naming, like CSS Va.

80 grid buttons that are ready to go is pretty great. Plus I think you could set this up to have a layer for articulation switching. The buttons can be whatever hot key you want to create. That’s not counting all the additional buttons too.

There’s a focus button so that whatever plugin knob you hover over automatically gets mapped to the jog wheel! That’s cool although in PT the jog wheel reaction wasn’t consistent. It acted like if I moved it slow it went to a different more precise mode. This just made it feel off overall and is something I’ll ask to be changed or add the option to disable that. Or maybe it’s just being jicky. I need to test it out with Logic too. But it’s a cool feature that avoids having to use Learn. Focus should also enable the fader fo be the controller and not just the jog wheel or maybe hit the flip button to get that. So there are some things I’ll definitely ask for.

Right now it feels like I’m in a new car and don’t know how to turn off the heated seats.

This looks to be something that could be really useful to me - I currently use a Maschine Jam in MIDI Mode as a CC input and button device.
Can someone confirm for me (if they are a Cubase user) that the device will focus on the actively selected track in the DAW as @pinki suggested for Logic?

Hywel said:

This looks to be something that could be really useful to me - I currently use a Maschine Jam in MIDI Mode as a CC input and button device.
Can someone confirm for me (if they are a Cubase user) that the device will focus on the actively selected track in the DAW as @pinki suggested for Logic?

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It uses the Mackie protocol so I imagine it will work as you’re wanting.

Guavadude said:

It uses the Mackie protocol so I imagine it will work as you’re wanting.

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One should think so, but it wasn't the case with its predecessor (?), the original Icon Platform Nano.

EDIT: ​

According to user reports in other forums, the P1 Nano does in fact NOT follow the mouse selection of tracks in Cubase/Nuendo unless the track is within the already selected bank of eight channels. Same problem as with SSL's UF1. :-/

@Hywel

Dietz said:

One should think so, but it wasn't the case with its predecessor (?), the original Icon Platform Nano.

EDIT: ​

According to user reports in other forums, the P1 Nano does in fact NOT follow the mouse selection of tracks in Cubase/Nuendo unless the track is within the already selected bank of eight channels. Same problem as with SSL's UF1. :-/

@Hywel

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Oh, that's a shame...

I don't need it, but looks nice.

I think these controllers not following track selection is in fact a limitation of the Mackie Control Protocol. At least in Cubase, I think maybe Logic has a way around it (?)

If anyone needs a decent little controller with multiple motorized faders for Cubase, I recommend the Behringer X-Touch Extender (or the regular X-Touch, if you really need all those buttons; I use Stream Deck and simply keyboard&mouse for those functions).

There is a custom Midi Remote script for the X-Touch range of products for Cubase, found on the Steinberg Forums (it's on github). With this script, the X-Touch (Extender) follows track selection in the Cubase project screen and Cubase mixer perfectly. You can also setup wich type of channels are visible on the X-Touch (Extender).
It's pretty great. This custom script actually makes the Extender very usable as a standalone device, since there's no way to go through channel banks on the Extender (unless you assigned it to the push encoders maybe).

Oh, by the way, the script also works for some Icon devices.
So if you ask kindly on the Steinberg Forums, the P1 Nano may be supported later as well and you'll have follow track selection working in Cubase.

As a Logic user the Nektar CS12 is definitely on my radar! Thanks for the thoughts on the Icon as it was also something I was looking at!

is it possible to enable track colors on the additional display on P1-nano ?

Gero Tono said:

is it possible to enable track colors on the additional display on P1-nano ?

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I don’t think so.