Radial Nuance Select

There’s more to designing a quality monitor controller than meets the eye — or the ear.

A lot of the equipment we review in these pages falls into the ‘nice, but not essential’ category. That new plug‑in or Eurorack module may be fun to play with and inspire creativity, but your studio isn’t going to grind to a halt without it. And if you boil things right down, there are relatively few items that are absolutely indispensable. Speakers and headphones, for sure; microphones, if you record audio; a computer and an audio interface.

The only reason that list doesn’t include monitor controllers, though, is that most audio interfaces already have some degree of monitor control built in. At a pinch, you can also implement it in software. However, as time goes by, I’ve become increasingly convinced that a good‑quality, standalone monitor controller is one of the most important investments you can make. In my experience, it’s the single piece of equipment that gets the most interaction from the engineer, and what it lacks in wow factor, it more than makes up for in sheer convenience.

I’ve become increasingly convinced that a good‑quality, standalone monitor controller is one of the most important investments you can make. In my experience, it’s the single piece of equipment that gets the most interaction from the engineer...

The fly in the ointment is that every engineer has different preferences about what they want from a monitor controller, and every studio has its own array of sources and speakers that need to be catered to. Consequently, it can be difficult to find a controller that precisely meets your needs. When you start looking at what’s on the market, you inevitably find that there’s nothing out there with the exact combination of features and I/O you want. Or, worse still, you hit upon something that looks ideal for your purposes, only to discover that it colours the sound in some insidious way.

That, apparently, was the experience of Radial Engineering’s design team — and unlike you or me, they had both the opportunity and the know‑how to do something about it. The result is Radial’s first monitor controller, the Nuance Select.

On The...