Tangent Arc

foto

Tangent Arc

Not everyone has the luxury of a dedicated grading suite, but when you do, and you want a control surface that makes a statement to your clients, then Arc is the panel to choose. But Arc has more than impressive looks; it has the controls, features, and ergonomics to match, allowing your skills to shine through and for you to make your own statement.

Intuitive

Arc takes its name from the way the panel sections sweep round in an “arc” in front of you, putting its many controls at your fingertips. The two outer sections can be swapped over to suite your handedness. When it comes to having lots of controls, one of the problems can be “just what does each control do?” This isn’t the case with Arc; every programmable control is clearly labelled with its own display, so if the function of the control changes, so does its display label. And with every control having its own label you won’t be left searching around in a darkened suite for the one you want; the display guides you to it. When Arc is used with the Tangent Mapper* you can even customise the layout of the controls.

*see the Application Support tab to see if your application supports the Tangent Mapper.
Precision and quality
Made in three sections, each section is precision machined from a solid aluminium block, making for an incredibly strong, and unbelievably thin profile. All rotary controls and trackerballs have optical pickups, which means they are long-life and high precision.The buttons are ultra-reliable with a positive tactile response. The displays are crisp, high-contrast, high-resolution, easy to read, dimmable, white OLEDs. The tablet tray at the front can be swapped out to allow for “no tablet”, or to keep up to date with changing tablet technology*

*tablet not included.

Tray for Wacom Intuos Pro medium included, others options can be made to order.
Flexible support
Any application that supports the Tangent Mapper will already support the Arc panel. For some applications default control maps have been provided by the application manufacturer. Where no default control map is provided, it’s easy to make your own with the Mapper. Please check the Application Support tab for further details.

Availability
Please contact your software manufacturer for details of how to buy.

Features
  • Three sections: Grading, Navigation, Function
  • Each section precision machined from a solid aluminium block
  • Thin profile
  • Left and right sections can be swapped to suit handedness
  • Every programmable control is labelled with its own high contrast, high resolution, dimmable, OLED display
  • Individual control displays also provide value / feedback where appropriate
  • Each section has a large high contrast, high resolution, dimmable, OLED display at the back to provide mode / bank information
  • Large displays also provide application specific information when supported by application
Trackerballs and knobs
  • High resolution, long life trackerballs with optical laser pickups
  • Each ball has a third axis “ring” with smooth bearing
  • Rings precision machined from solid aluminium block giving perfectly weighted feel
  • High density 46mm diameter ball giving the precise feel of larger diameter ball
  • Balls retained by the rings, which can be removed for cleaning
  • High resolution, long life knobs with optical pickups
  • Each knob has a built-in “press to reset” switch
Single USB and single power cable
  • USB plug-and play (HID device therefore no drivers are required)
  • Single USB cable
  • Single power cable
  • Outer panels connect to Grading panel
Arc Grading panel
  • 4x Programmable trackerballs with 3rd axis ring
  • Individual reset buttons for ball and ring
  • 9x Programmable knobs with integral push button resets
  • 4x Programmable buttons
  • Every button and knob has its own display for soft labelling control
  • Rear display for bank/mode and application specific information
Arc Navigation panel
  • 1x Programmable trackerballs with 3rd axis ring
  • Individual reset buttons for ball and ring
  • 53x Programmable buttons
  • Every button has its own display for soft labelling control
  • Rear display for bank/mode and application specific information
Arc Function panel
  • 18x Programmable knobs with integral push button resets
  • 22x Programmable buttons
  • Every button and knob has its own display for soft labelling control
  • Rear display for bank/mode and application specific information

Tangent Arc cover in the custom made category

The Wave2 offers a comprehensive range of controls on a compact panel for a keen price.

Precise and portable

The Wave2 has been designed to offer maximum functionality for the minimum of desk space. This means it’s equally at home on a desk or on-set. The panel features crisp, easy to read, ice-white OLED displays to label many of the controls which will be used to operate multiple functions. The trackerballs and knobs both use non-contact, high resolution optical pickups for responsiveness and long life. As all controls are designed to be context-sensitive you’ll be able to keep your most needed controls at your fingertips. The Wave2 will increase your productivity, leaving you to get on with what you’re best at doing – being creative!

Widely supported

Most of our software partners have released versions of their applications which support the Wave2. The majority of these applications also support the Tangent Mapper* which means that you can even customise your control layouts.

*see the Application Support tab to see if your application supports the Tangent Mapper.

Element With a compact design you’d expect a compromise on ergonomics, features and controls. With the Element range, there is no compromise!Tk

Trackerball

Mf

Multifunction

Kb

Knob

Bt

Button

  • Overview
  • Specs
  • Panel Support
  • Application Support

With today’s multi-purposing work stations, where desk space is at a premium, having a fully featured panel that is compact, fully featured and stylish enough to match its surroundings is a must. But, you’d expect that having a compact design means having to compromise ergonomics, features and control size. With the Element range, there is no compromise! Despite their small desk foot print, each Element offers full size controls which are ergonomically laid out, and best of all, there’s lots of them!

Intuitive

When it comes to having lots of controls, one of the problems can be “just what does each control do?” This isn’t the case with Element; every programmable control is clearly labelled, so if the function of the control changes, so does its display label – no more having to refer back to reference notes or on screen help. When the Elements are used with the Tangent Mapper* you can even customise the layout of the controls.

*see the Application Support tab to see if your application supports the Tangent Mapper.

Function and style

Apart from the size, the first thing you will notice about Element is the stylish, ultra slim design. Quality comes in the form of a solid aluminium, precision laser cut case. But it doesn’t end there; all the internal components have been carefully chosen for reliability. All rotary controls and trackerballs have optical pickups, which means they are long-life and high precision.The buttons are ultra-reliable with a positive tactile response. The displays are crisp, high-contrast, high-resolution, easy to read, white OLEDs. When put side by side the panels magnetically lock together, keeping the layout neatly aligned.

Cost effective

You would have thought that all this comes with a high price tag – not so with Element! Each Element is competitively priced, and because it’s modular in design you can pick and choose which components you need, targeting your funds where they’re needed most. And if your budget allows it, you can even add more of the same panel type to build your ultimate control surface.

Extensive support

Most of our software partners have released versions of their applications which support the Element panels. Please check the Application Support tab for further details. If you intend to purchase only certain panels from the set, or if you intend you purchase more than one of any panel, then you should check that your software supports this option.

Ripple

Ripple is our entry level panel with a price-tag to match.

Designed for the occasional colourist, editor, and student, Ripple provides the essential 3 trackerballs that speed up primary grading. Its small desk foot-print means it will sit comfortably beside your keyboard and mouse, and it won’t get in the way when you’re not using it.

Reliability

You might think that we’ve cut corners with the components used on this entry level panel. Not so; all the internal components have been carefully chosen for reliability. The trackerballs and dials all have optical pickups, which means they are long-life and high precision.

Extensive Support

Most of our software partners have released versions of their applications which support the Element panels which means that they also support the Ripple. Some have even created custom, alternative mappings for the Ripple itself. Please check the Application Support tab for further details. When the Ripple is used with the Tangent Mapper* you can even customise the layout of the controls.

*see the Application Support tab to see if your application supports the Tangent Mapper.

Expansion

You can also use the Ripple with the other panels from the Element range, including the element-Vs tablet app, so you can easily expand its functionality.

Tangent Wave cover 

Element-Vs For a great introduction to Tangent Control Surfaces why not try out our Apps for iOS and Android.

Standalone or combine

You don’t need to own the real panels in order to use the app – it’s fully standalone. You can combine it with your real panels to expand your Element set, using it to replace panels in the range that you don’t have. Or, if you want to add another panel to your range, say for example you would like an additional Bt panel, then you can use the app to do just that*.

*This requires the host application to support the Tangent Mapper. See the Application Support tab to check if your application supports the Tangent Mapper.

Supports most tablets

There’s an iOS and Android version of the app covering most tablets – all generation iPads and any Android with 7″ screen size and above.

Multiple tablets

Create a totally “glass” control surface by using multiple tablets. As long as all your tablets are linked to the same Apple or Android account then you only need to buy one copy of the app*.

*Check with your Apple or Android user account that this is allowed.

Free version

element-Vs free (Android) and element-Vs sample (iOS) are the free version which allows you to try every feature of the app. The free version is fully featured so you get to use every aspect of the app, the only limitation being that you can only use it for a total of an hour in any day.

More uses

  • On-set grading.
  • Portable.
  • Training.
  • Sitting at the back of your suite with your client reviewing a grade.

Where to buy

Download both the free and full versions from either the Apple App Store or Android Play Store.

Wave The original affordable panel from Tangent.

Tangent Wave cover

The Wave offers a comprehensive range of controls on a single panel at an affordable price.

Ergonomic design

Stylish enough to look good in any grading suite and compact enough to be used for on-set grading, you’ll find all the controls you’d expect from a colour grading panel without compromising on the essential ergonomics. The wave features crisp, easy to read, ice-white OLED displays and custom trackerball units based on a non-contacting optical pickup.

Extensive support

Most of our software partners have released versions of their applications which support the Wave. When the Wave is used with the Tangent Mapper* you can even customise the layout of the controls.

*see the Application Support tab to see if your application supports the Tangent Mapper.

Tangent Wave cover

Custom made dust protection dust cover, dust covers

On the custom made product page

Tangent Arc Wave Wave2 Element Ripple Homepage

The Ripple or Elements Panels in Adobe Premiere

How to Decide

As I said in my last post, I highlyrecommend both panels. And I do mean that.

For some really quick small projects, the Ripple is all I need and is fast to use, and even with the Elements sitting there, I’ll just grab the Ripple & work. Also, the Ripple is very portable and easy to use on any system you find yourself sitting at … on the go, at home, wherever. The Elements … fantastic support of Premiere Pro, even into a number of editing features making me hope they include even more “mappable” editing functions in the future. And in SpeedGrade … oh my, that’s a sweet panel!

But for now, let’s talk the smaller one.

The Ripple, at around USD $350, is a lot easier on the budget, and is quite a capable tool. Left to right, you’ve got three sets of controls and in between the outer sets and the middle ones, a couple “extra” buttons. You’ll want to download the mapping control software from Tangent, and take the few minutes that’s required to master modifying this tool to extend your work in Lumetri … by a long ways. You will want to adjust the “granularity” control as at factory settings it’s way too fine, and takes for-EVER to see anything changed. And it’s very easy to adjust settings in the Tangent Hub mapping control software, using the sections to set the controls for each control panel tool in each Lumetri tab.

Details

The dials are always the “Z” control, the balls either as a “just a ball”, or by using the ability to set left-right (Tracker-ball X axis) and up-down (Tracker-ball Y axis) actions to separate controls, each ball can control two different Lumetri tools. It’s very easy and fast to create new mappings, to save named versions, and to switch from one to another.

The three sets of controls … a dial with two little buttons on either side and a wheel or ball … can be set for all sorts of things, depending on the Lumetri panel currently active. If you leave it on the ‘factory’ settings, where it’s set to run the Color Wheels section of the Lumetri panel “Edit” mode, it’s a fast way to adjust luma/chroma for your clips any time without even being in the Color workspace. Left dial is Shadow Luma (lightness) control, left ball is Shadow Chroma (color) … and to the right, you go to Mids and then Highlights pairings in the same manner. Ball movement totally matches the movement of the color shown in the Vectorscope making it incredibly intuitive to adjust color. In the Color Wheels tab of the Lumetri panel, you can watch the adjustments make the exact same corrections in the Wheels.

The two little buttons on either side of each dial reset one of that set’s controls … the left button resets all things done by the ball, the right one resets the controls set by the dial.

the button

The button in between the middle and right set of controls cycles you into the next Tab down on the Lumetri panel while activating that panel in the interface on-screen. And you also can easily and quickly use the button between the left and middle control sets (shown as “Select Alternative” in the mapping controller) while held down, as either a jog control (standard mapping) or with a re-mapping, to “bypass” the Lumetri panel to do a quick check comparing the clip at present versus before corrections. The mapping software is fast, easy to learn, and does a good job.

For instance, I’ve never found the Basic tab worth using while working with a mouse or pen-tablet. But with the Ripple, I’ve turned that entire tab into a fast and furious (besides intuitive!) place for basic “neutralization” of clips, the first step in grading. Here’s an image of the way I’ve mapped the Ripple controls for the Basic tab … you see there are three lines of text below each control set.

lines

The top line is what the dial above the red ball is set to control (that Z axis), the middle line is what the horizontal (“X axis”) motion of the red ball is set to control, and the bottom line what the vertical (“Y” axis) motion of the red ball will control. This is very easy to set … just click on a control, and step through the available options.

From left to right in the Ripple settings for the Lumetri Basic tab, I’ve got left dial set for Blacks, center dial for Exposure (a mush-up of “brightness/gamma” and exposure/contrast), and the right dial for Whites. This allows me to quickly set black point, white point, and basic “brightness” of a clip. I’ll be working two or three controls at the same time watching the Lumetri scopes while working.

The left ball is my “Contrast” control tool … mapped so that the Contrast slider is left-right motion, and the Saturation slider is up-down motion. I realize most people don’t think of “Saturation” as a contrast control, but it most definitely is! You have two forms of contrast: Luma (brightness) and Chroma. Both are set with one hand … easily, and quickly, intuitively.

The right ball I have set for shadow/highlight control, and it’s useful … mostly … though to my taste, the Shadow & Highlight sliders in the Lumetri panel both affect way too much of the image “scale”. Moving either affects the other only a little less than the section you expect to be adjusting, so you really do need to use these against each other.

personal setting

I have the middle ball set so that left-right motion sets color Temperature and up/down motion sets Tint. The motion here isn’t quite as “intuitive” as using the controls in “Color Wheel” mode, where movement of the balls precisely matches the direction of color change shown in the Vectorscope. However, I have mastered the use of this as it does become second-nature fairly soon.

mapping

With this mapping, I can blast through the first job with any clip … neutralizing it … in a very few seconds, often under 20 seconds! With the Wacom pen-tab & mouse, well … it’s a lot longer per clip to do the fine level I want.

One of the other big time-savers? With mouse or pen-tab you need to switch sections within Lumetri by hand, of course. Click after click. With the Ripple, see that button labeled “Next Mode” ? You just push that button and cycle to the next tab down.

As you get used to using it … you want to use it for everything you can! If you do your own color at all … it’s a total no-brainer to get. It will save you TIME. A lot of time! And give you better end results too.

presonalizations

Among other personalizations I’ve done … the standard HSL tab mapping for the Ripple involves only the  Colour wheel controls of that tab, things you do after you’ve set the key. But setting the key is the more time-consuming part … so I re-mapped so that when I tap the button into the HSL tab on the Ripple, each of the three control sets is for a particular section of the KEY! As shown here, left to right, left dial is Hue center, horizontal axis sets the Hue range, the vertical axis sets Hue fall-off. Middle set (dial/wheel) controls the Saturation key, and right set controls the Luminance part of the key.

But I didn’t lose the ability to control what happens to the keyed media … see the button labeled “Select Alternative Function”? Yep, I mapped the Color wheels controls of the HSL tab to be active with the Alternate mapping setting as shown in the image with the little box highlighted, showing those things controlled with the Alternate button. I have most of the controls I routinely use in the HSL tab on the Ripple, so I don’t even touch the keyboard or mouse! Slick & fast!

sizes

And another thing … that little black box of text highlighted in the Alternate mapping image? That can be set to pop up any time you use the Ripple, at three different sizes, anywhere on the screen you want to see it … and it’s your “HUD” … heads-up display. It tells you what each control of the Ripple will do in the tab currently active … and it only pops up when you touch a control, and goes away within a few seconds … unless, of course, you wanted it to stay visible … which you can. Or, when you’re really running with it, you can set it not to show.

There’s so much you can do with just the Ripple. However … the Elements panel … if you’re a one-man shop like me … will encourage you to get faster at editing so you can spend more time grading. Not because it’s slow, as it’s blindingly fast to use!  It’s just … way, way too much pleasure to work with. At around USD $3500, it takes a bit more justification. However … using it for just a couple weeks, this thing was so fast, so easy to learn, and enables such intuitive work with luma/chroma … it drastically changed my concept of how valuable this is for me as a budgeted cost item compared to not having one, and spending a lot more time.

And then … I realized how many editing functions can be mapped to the controls … and I am having to completely re-think my working process. And loving it!

sections

As you see here, the Elements panel has four sections (if you get them all, and I recommend that!) I’m left-handed, so this is reversed from what you will probably see on other workstations.

The left section has buttons for selecting the working panel in PrPro, out of the box set for Lumetri: Basic/Creative/Curves/Wheels/HSL/Vignette/Edit/; then Master Clip, and a couple of workspaces, the Color and Edit spaces, plus moving the ‘highlight’ or selection focus within PrPro to the Lumetri and Scopes panels.

All of those can of course be mapped however you want them.

setting

And that’s just the “A” settings … the lower left button of that section is the “A” or standard mapping, the lower right button is the “B” or Alternate mapping … so you’ve got double the controls available. So far, I’ve concentrated on using this for color work, but … and this is a HUGE “but” … there are many, many of the functions of standard editing that can be mapped across the controls of this panel.

Anyone taking a few minutes to start working with the editing sections, to set up the mapping for the way they work, will get a massive boost to their editing speed & confidence. But what about having to learn what everything is set for? That’s not a problem … see the little tabs that stick up from each section? Those backlit panels show what every control of that section will do in this mode at this time.

I’m only beginning to explore the potential uses for me within this panel … and totally boggled at the options. Wowza … this is an amazing editing tool! Compared to using keyboard shorts, which you have to work to memorize or print yourself a listing, this shows you where all your fav controls are. Learning the muscle memory is fast and better yet … when you decide to alter things, it’s also easy then to re-train your muscle memories.

tap buttons

The track balls and rings are very positive to the touch, and easy to set the speeds at which they react to movement. Currently I’ve got the right two panels with the spinning knobs on the outside, but as those are the controls I spin for most of the sliders within Lumetri, I’m thinking I’ll swap those two panels. Have the tap-buttons to the outside, and the spinning knobs right next to the three wheels. And yes, each of those sections has their own A/B buttons for packing in the control options, and all of those show up on the backlit heads-up tabs.

The Elements

panel of course does so much within SpeedGrade if you still ever use that app, besides working very nicely with BlackMagic’s Resolve color editing program. So … besides being an editors playground and speed-tool, it’s totally useful across a range of colorist/grading apps.

Now I’ve had the Elements for several months, it’s … wondrous. Still.

But without hesitation … if you do ANY color work in your video post-processing, or have thought of doing some color corrections within Premiere Pro, you should get one of these, or, seriously, both. Once you’re used to a surface in Lumetri, being able to travel and keep the Ripple with you is a huge benefit. The changes in Premiere Pro 2015.3 (and carried into CC2017) were that big, in what they allow … and encourage … in workflow and in capabilities.

And finding out how much of editing can be mapped to the Elements panel … and how easy it is to transport the Ripple and say, use it on a laptop … these are both marvelous production tools.

R. Neil Haugen