Much better than advertised
By John
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2022-12-22
After a few weeks of using the Tangent Wave2 Panel, I was pleasantly surprised by how much it has helped my workflow with Capture One and Adobe Premier Pro. My primary business is corporate and advertising work split 50-50 between photo and video projects.
When adjusting, I am just looking at the image and using the controls on the Tangent Wave2, which gives me more exact control and speeds things up. Before you move your mouse, go to the menu, and click the setting, and often would be hard to fine-tune your moves. It may not seem like a lot of time with the mouse, but once you get used to the Tangent Wave 2, you will not look back.
The overall size and build quality are good, and it does not take up too much desk space and is easy to move. I considered the Tangent Element, but it was too big for my desk could get by with the Wave2.
My only criticism is that Tangent poorly communicates how it works and the benefits to the end users. They need to show real-world examples and people using their products.
Let's face it we spend thousands on camera gear but spend over half our time in front of the computer. That's why anything that can speed up our work and improve our results is a winner.
Faster grading! Worth the money (but not a penny more).
By Roger L.
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-06-12
Background: I use my Wave 2 exclusively with Premiere Pro. (It can interface to products like Lightroom, but I haven't tried that.) I'm a part-time videographer (~300-800 hr/yr), doing all the work myself: shooting, editing, production. And I have a day job. The off-hours editing time demands were killing me. So I've been looking for ways to work smarter/faster, but not cheaper-looking. The Wave helps.
It's about the same size as a keyboard. This makes working on it comfortable, but it needs space. When I'm not editing, I stow mine on an in-reach shelf, to recover my desk space. My keyboard sits on a pull-out tray under my desk. Together, these give me two
tiers. I edit with keyboard + Wave simultaneously. This works best for me. Mostly, my hands stay on the Wave, but ~10% of the time, I hop back to the keyboard for stuff that I haven't yet tried to map to the Wave.
All Wave buttons, dials, and trackballs are reassignable, via an interface program that you download from the manufacturer. Reassignments can be made at root level, or at window level. Window-level assignments change when your active window changes. That's handy. Root level assignments are constant no matter the active window.
The remapping interface doesn't give you every PrP function, but it's respectably close to it. In principle, you should be able to map almost everything in PrP to a button, dial, or ball of the Wave, and never or almost never touch your keyboard. But for starters, I've only programmed my high-use functions (4 or 5 dozen). This reduced the set-up time, but still sped up my editing a lot.
One thing I wish I could map to the Wave, but haven't found out how yet, is user-created workspaces. You can assign PrP's default workspaces to keyboard hot keys, then program any Wave button to that hot key. But PrP does not let you put user-created workspaces onto hot keys, so they can't be set to Wave buttons. This is too bad, since every PrP update resets the default workspaces, so I long ago created my own workspaces that would survive unmolested by these constant Adobe updates. But I hop between workspaces very frequently, and that means I can't go Wave-only -- must mouse frequently to switch workspaces.
There is a brief muscle memory learning curve, while you get used to the Wave, like with ANY change (think: new keyboard, with some buttons moved). But I got used to it pretty quickly. Until you memorize your assignments, the Wave's built-in monochrome LCD (that titles the function of most reassignable bits) helps you keep things straight.
I find the Wave's physical interface much faster to edit on than using a keyboard and mouse alone. Mousing is my most hated, slowest computer interface, no matter the software. So getting my hands off the mouse was a big pay-off. But even just moving common keyboard shortcuts to the Wave sped me up too, because hitting a single Wave button is easier than the mini contortion act of typing, say, ctrl-alt-shift-X.
Some users complain that the trackballs are not captured -- that is, if you carry your Wave around like a laptop, then you'd better secure the balls first, or they'll spill out and roll away. I don't carry mine out of my office, so I don't mind the ball's design. They stay in securely through all the use I give them.
I use the Wave most heavily for grading. When working with PrP color wheels, I always found mousing quite twitchy. Small mouse movements made too big a change in on-screen color. The Wave trackballs are the opposite: I have to move them more than I expect, maybe even more than I would truly prefer. But I'll definitely take the Wave over a mouse. I can overspin a track ball on the Wave easier than I can super-fine motor control a mouse. (My mouse is the Logitech MX Master 3.) Maybe there's a Wave setting to change this responsiveness?? Don't know.
The build quality feels good. The touch interface feels well-made. Every HMI has its own touch character (think: 1980/90s chocolate bar keyboard vs. modern laptop keyboard), and the Wave does too. Different but no complaints.
After several months of use, I only had one time when it seemed a little buggy: I opened PrP, but Wave acted as if I hadn't. Pretty soon I rebooted, and the problem went away, never to return (so far). Not sure if it had anything to do with the Wave.
I almost knocked a star off for the Wave's price, which is quite steep. But it's a niche device, and well made. There are two ways the price could have been lower. (1) If they had the same sales volume as a typical cellphone. That isn't happening. There is just too small of a user market. (2) If they made a garbage product. But, thankfully, they didn't. Still, the Wave is priced at the upper end of what I would ever consider paying, so let's hope they keep rational on this.
Who should buy this: anyone who does a lot of grading, and a fairly large amount of editing, but possible not a full time colorist of editor. For them, the Tangent Elements Panels kit probably makes more sense.
Who should not buy this: the hobbyist videographer who is just learning their nonlinear editing software of choice. Get that under your belt first, then decide if you have a lot of time to recover by speeding certain tasks.
Wonderful addition to Video editing software
By Ronald
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-09-30
While this device can be used with several different video editing platforms, my primary use is with DaVinci Resolve Studio 17, with which it is deeply integrated. Color correction is a breeze, as are many other editing functions. My only complaint rests with the jog/shuttle wheel. Its movements are too coarse, but perhaps I have overlooked some available, in-software adjustment. Otherwise it is great.
credit card.‡