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Trade shows like NAMM are all built around the factor of WOW. Every booth, every vendor, every manufacturer subscribes to the same philosophy and everything done here is to induce the WOW reaction from people on the floor. It is usually done with intricate booth set-ups, loud music, bright lights, occasional celebrity appearances, and of course the ever-popular booth girls.

However, every once in a while you stumble across a booth that needs none of that, because the product itself is enough to draw out that all powerful, jaw drop reaction. Case in point at this years NAMM, the Euphonix MC Artist Series. With a booth that isn’t even on the showroom floor, (it’s almost hidden in its mezzanine location) you would think that visitors would be few and far between. But the dimly lit, uncharacteristically quite booth has seen a constant flow of people all eager to put there hands on the new products.

The Artist Series consists on the MC Mix and MC Control, two intuitive control surfaces for software on the Mac and PC. Now the important thing to note about that sentence is the use of the word “software.” Not DAW control, not Pro Tool or Logic, but software in general. They showed me interaction with Logic, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack, ProTools, even Safari! Using their proprietary EuCon protocol, the control surfaces connect to any computer with an Ethernet port and automatically sets itself up to control whatever program you have open. A beautiful set of OLED screens across the top of the mix unit updates automatically to display what parameters you are currently controlling with little or sometimes no setup depending on the program. The protocol finds the parameters and maps them out for you.

Motorized faders jump up and down to recalled layouts and setups. Rotary encoders are assignable to everything from basic pan and send amount all the way up to virtual instrument parameter control and back again at the touch of a button. Literally every moment of the demo was an “Oh and check this out…” moment. And if all of that weren’t enough, the MC Control also boasts a huge touch screen controller area that is full of pre-mapped control and fully customizable soft buttons!

Now, if you are anything like me, you are already thinking to yourself, “$$$$$!” but then that is the best part. You get complete control over all your software, the touch screen, and motorized faders, all packaged in a beautifully designed unit, and not for the big price tag that you immediately expect. The Mix unit carries an street price of less than a grand! The MC control, less than $1500! The only thing that comes close to this kind of seamless integration that I know of would be the Digi 003 and even nearly double the price tag, it still doesn’t control Pro Tool to the extent that the MC Mix and MC Control drive every piece of supported software you can throw at it.

Congratulations Euphonix, you guys have seriously shown me the WOW.