Nektar Panorama P1

I have kept my eye on Nektar Panorama products for a while and once I realized that it finally offers full integration with Reaper (which is my main DAW) I took the plunge and bought it.

I was initially a bit annoyed that any more detailed information and manuals are not publicly available from Nektar's website - you need to register your product and set up an account first. But once this was done I downloaded the drivers + instructions and enabled it in the Reaper.

There was a bit of a learning curve involved, but not as much as I had expected which is a big plus! The integration with Reaper is amazing - once the drivers are installed and the control surface is enabled everything "just works".

I use it mainly to navigate within my projects and to tweak the effects / instruments. I haven't really used it for mixing yet. But I can already say that this piece of hardware is the biggest workflow enabler in my home studio! And once you learn the basics of Panorama it is quite easy to find/access additional features without coming back to the manual.

Even though I love it and I can't work without it any more I still have a couple of small complaints:

First, it is all made of plastic and doesn't feel very sturdy. But as long as it sits safely on my desk I'm not bothered too much.

Secondly, Panorama has no ON/OFF switch. When my computer goes into sleep mode it is still powered on and I have to unplug the USB cable to switch it off.

All in all, it's been the best addition to my home studio in recent years and for the price you will not find a better controller/control surface on the market that offers such an amount of deep integration with the most popular DAWs out there.

It starts after some trouble with software installation.
But it has many problems. First it does not have any deeper integration the old cc121. On the channel strip it can handle the same functions. Nothing at all about the new channel strip functions that steinberg has added the last 4-5 years. 4 band EQ, not pre-gain, high-cut, low-cut, compressor, gate, saturation or limiter. And it makes cubase unstable. And if you have other controllers they don't work that well. If you have a multichannel controller like mackie you can not select all channels. You can only pick the first in the channel set. This is not a problem with cc121.

Hardware seems to be OK. Knobs and buttons feels OK, drawbars are more on cheep feel. Casing is very plastic but OK for the price range.

Too bad that this did not work. The idea is great but the implementation really sucks. Im not a REASON user so this is all in context of cubase.

I have been looking for something like this for a very long time! -As a long time Cubase user I have been frustrated by the lack of feel when adjusting EQ, VSTis etc. Theres something not as instant or usable as twiddling knobs - The P1 handles this in a very elegant fashion. EQ is now 'twidlleable' to your hearts content and is so much easier to adjust in realtime, The VSTis, especially the synths are far more versatile than their small feature set would indicate when you can tweak and hear the effect straight away.The bright sharp colour screen is very useful and provides excellent feedback on the state of the active controls. Having the illuminated, dedicated transport buttons is great and almost worth the price on its own! As a Reason user this device also transforms some of the more inaccessible functions on Maelstrom and Thor open and reactive. I've created more new sounds from these since I bought the P1 than in the many years previously that I owned Reason!

Because of its versatility the P1 takes some getting used to - some of the functions involve the use of function and tab keys but these become 2nd nature after a while. The manuals online take you through various learning processes (although the font is a little small and I cant see a way to conveniently print them out) and it is definitely essential to go through them all - unlike many devices there is a lot you may miss without them!

Build quality is excellent - the knobs and faders feel great and as the finish it sooo black and shiny they have thoughtfully including a cleaning cloth!

All in all a great device and as other programs are added it can only get better!