Tonight, I bought my first control surface.  I won't say what model it is until later otherwise you might not read any further.

I've really missed having a mixing console for my audio work, so I got it for use with Sonar.  It took little time to set up and get working in Sonar so I did some rough mixes on several songs.  It was so much easier than doing the same thing with the mouse and keyboard.  Ugh.  I'm glad I won't have to do that again.

Once I was through running this thing through its paces in Sonar, I decided to see if I could get it to work in MC.  With a little experimenting (which also didn't take long), I found that if I set MC as if the Digi 002 was connected and if I set the control surface to its factory-loaded "scene" 4 (one of 4 sets of preset configurations which are user-programmable), this unit would control level with the faders and panning with the knobs in MC's Audio Mixer.  With data on what control messages are used by other functions on the Digi 002, I could program other functions on this controller.

Now, to the make and model of this unit.  I had written it off myself based on what I had read online about it.  It looked far too small and it was "far too inexpensive" to be any good from what I could tell.  When I looked at one up-close and operated the faders and knobs, I decided that it was much better than I had thought.  The faders are very smooth - about as smooth or smoother than those on the MCI recording/mixing console I used at the studio.  What I bought for about $60 is a Korg nanoKontrol.  Yep, I know that sounds like it's no good but for anyone who doesn't have $1000, $5000, $10000 or more for a Mackie or a Digidesign, this one is worth a look.  It has 9 control strips and transport controls.  The 9 strips have a fader, a knob and 2 buttons.  Multiple units can be connected (USB, powered by the bus) to add to the number of channels available.

And, no, this isn't supported by Avid.  This is just a tip from someone who's already taken a shot at doing things "on the cheap."

very interesting... thanks for that tip.

So You can control up to 9 audio channels, or daisy chain two nanokontrollers for 18 channels? Thank You for sharing this.

wow!! I have a mackie unit. I wonder if I can get avid to recognize it if I call it a digi002

I"m glad you've found the info helpful.  As long as you can send the messages that MC expects for various functions, it should work.  What I don't know is what all the messages are that the Digi 002 sends for the various functions.  If someone with a Digi 002 could hook it up to a sequencer and record the data as keys are pressed, faders are moved and knobs are turned, then we'd know how to set up other parameters on the nanoKontrol.  I doubt that the full MIDI specs are published on the Digidesign controllers but there might be something somewhere.  The same would apply to the Command8 if MC was set for that controller.  If you send the same message as either of those controllers, then MC should respond in the same way.

-update minutes later-

In the Control8 manual at Digidesign's site - under "Mapping" in the Stand-alone chapter - there are CC numbers given for a few functions.  If those CC numbers could be set in your controller, then MC should respond to them just as if a Control8 was attached.