Review: TC Electronic Monitor Pilot
Could this be the round peg for your studio monitoring round hole?
20 December 2022
Review: Christopher Holder
So you run a DAW-centric studio setup — no mixing console, just your computer, an interface and some monitors. And you now want to add a pair of monitors, so you can A/B your mix between your mains and a pair of Auratone-style cubes for translation purposes.
You do your research and you’re looking at purchasing a monitor controller. Welcome to one of the most wildly diverse product categories in studio-land. At one end you may want to re-mortgage your house to purchase the Grace Audio Atmos-friendly controller (well over A$10k) while at the other end you can pay less than A$100 for a volume knob.
The Monitor Pilot is a ~A$250 product and could well be the round peg you need for your round monitoring hole.
ALL ANALOGUE
For starters, Monitor Pilot isn’t an audio interface. It’s an entirely analogue product. It can handle up to three L/R monitoring destinations and toggle between them with a passive switch.
A 2m lead connects the I/O with the volume knob and the switching unit. Pop the I/O box under your desk or somewhere you can run your headphones to, as that’s an option as well — the third monitor destination can be your cans.
The volume knob is big with smooth travel and provides high resolution level control. The I/O box has trim control (one per output) to level match your monitors. The underside of the knob is rubberised, so it stays put.
Music Tribe (Behringer) has put a TC Electronic badge on this product. It’s hard to know what a TC product typically is these days (before TC was purchased by Music Tribe, it was already trending towards mostly being a guitar technology brand), but it’s good to see the logo on my desktop.
TURN UP
If you’re accustomed to turning your speakers up and down with a mouse, or reaching for a small pot in your outboard rack, then Monitor Pilot will be a real treat. If you want to switch between monitors but don’t need USB ports, a mic preamp, a dim switch, talkback mic, mono sum button, multiple headphone jacks with independent level controls etc., then the Monitor Pilot is doubtlessly something worth investigating.
The only slight reservation I have is the choice of colour of the big knob. Left to my own devices, I’d go with black. Oh, and it might have been nice to have the inputs on combi jacks rather than exclusively on XLRs.
Monitor Pilot is a super-neat solution without a bunch of features superfluous to most production and mixing studios.
Why No Wireless Remote? I have been asking for something simple like this for a long time and have already bought 3 of these. Most of the other brand controllers are big chunky boxes with all the cables having to lay over your desk to the back of the controller which looks terrible. All the others have way too many functions and none are a neat fix. I run multiple studios and they all have multiple monitors to choose from. We have consoles for monitoring & talkback but they only have 2 speaker outputs, small and large. If you have 3 or 4 sets of monitors or multiple monitors in different positions of the control room you have no easy way to plug them in and switch between them. We have always had to make our own switching devices. This device is the easiest and cheapest answer to the problem. The only thing I’m wondering is why can’t they make a wireless version, every TV and other gadget has a remote, why not this? And why not 4 outputs rather than 3?