I am trying to avoid open shuffling if possible. I have looked at the Tilt and the Bluff Pass during my search, and regularly use the Bluff Pass for various effects. I have not looked into the royal road to card magic but I will look into it.
It might help to explain what I am trying to do. The effect I am attempting to create is that the spectator picks a number "x" at the beginning of the trick and whether they would like to work with from the top of the deck or the bottom of the deck. They then freely choose a card. The card is "fairly" placed in the center of the deck, but then appears at the location they named (Example, they choose five as their number and the two of spades. Without shuffling the two of spades appears at the fifth position in the deck).
Currently I can control the selected card (without shuffling) to: the bottom, up to 8th or so from the bottom, the top, and the second from top.