Frankensurface
The sound reinforcement console biz has finally lumbered into the digital age full bore. With sales of the PM5D at over 1000 units, entries by Digidesign, Loud/Mackie/EAW, Allen and Heath and the established players the large scale pioneer PM1D and Digico line there is now a fairly wide choice in every level of the market, though some have yet to ship. Undoubtedly there will be more. I’d hate to be a console product dev guy right now that was in the middle of a large frame analog design without having at least a strategy for dealing with the digital market.
As us graybeards retire, die off or lose our gigs to younger, better, cheaper mixers the change over from analog console to surface will start accelerating compared to the last couple of years. Some of the apprehension was and still is well justified. Audio quality, reliability (and redundancy) and suitability to purpose are indeed primary factors not only for surfaces but for traditional consoles. Some of my peers though, guys I respect and have worked with for years are starting to use some pretty lame excuses when it comes to implementing surfaces. I’m all for letting people chose the toolset, but let’s make sure we’re basing our choices on facts and with an open mind. A result of this apprehension by some have led to the current crop of surfaces being designed with an eye toward the past largely to placate those that have latched onto the yesteryear of gear and aren’t willing or capable of either changing or adapting to different work habits.
Over the last week or so I started thinking about how often I was using surfaces these days compared to traditional consoles. For the last year and a half or so, about half of the touring dates I’ve done where we have carried production or had the ability to fully spec down the piece I’ve been able to use a surface. I would have used them more except that the current market makes an XL4 or H3k less expensive to rent than a PM1D or D5 and the bean counters have nixed the idea. There have also been a couple of availability issues where we wanted to rent them, they just weren’t in those markets. On perhaps a quarter of the pick up dates I’ve done I’ve been given a digital option. To be fair, many of those gigs have been with B and C level regionals that haven’t been willing or able to make the investment in new technology primarily because the margins and client base won’t allow for it.
While there are a bunch of usable offerings in the surface market, no one has yet hit a true homerun, the be all and end all of surfaces. It will probably never happen, but if I could pick and choose what I think are the best features from surfaces either shipping or recently announced. Obviously, you couldn’t just plug the parts together. Besides figuring out how to integrate it and hit the price point is what you guys with those high dollar, cushy manufacturer gigs are supposed to do. Pretty much all of my wish list is available on one or more surfaces, though there isn’t one with all these features.
First and foremost is audio quality. Using what I like to call the XL4 Standard I’d give the nod to the Digico D5 as it sounds most to me like an XL4. It’s got warmth and depth, though not quite the equalizers of the XL4. That’s one area where all the surface dudes need to work. The equalizers. They’re good, but they could be better. In terms of failover, I’d take the hot spare PM1D engine topology and pair that with the D5 mirror/failover topology and for good measure implement the faders and mutes active on a dead surface concept from the Digidesign Venue. Dual, autosensing PSUs on every piece of gear, modular so I could hot swap what it was running or easily replace toasted supplies. Every function of the surface, controllable from a PC either mirroring the mode of the surface, or with the ability to use the PC control separate so the entire state of the surface interface is not changed when using the PC, only the particular parameters changed. I’d also want a granular access scheme where I could lock different parameters and set various levels of users. I’d also like two independent cueing facilities with the ability to route any or all inputs or outputs to either both, or only a single cue ouput.
In terms of interface, I’m a layer and bank guy. I don’t need to see all 60 or so handles, just 16 to 24 inputs at a time with a master section flexible enough for me to route outputs and control groups of inputs. I don’t even need to see an input channel unless I need to manipulate it and for me it’s easier to do that in layers and banks and three banks of eight layers works well for me. Layers are one of the things some of the newer users don’t like. It’s like when Neo makes his first jump. At first not being able to see all of the inputs will seem strange, but as you get used to it you’ll find that it’s a mental security blanket and little else. When I do need to manipulate the controls, something like the big knob that the Loud boys came up with would be awesome. A soft encoder that mimics the function of the feature it currently represents is an excellent idea. So much so that every multifunction encoder on the surface should behave in that fashion. And let’s get the taper on the encoders to follow their analog counterparts. If the rotation of a control is 270 degrees for full effect, the encoder shouldn’t have to be turned three or four full revolutions to match that. I’m a big fan of touchscreens. I think the visual representation of the function or device with a bank of encoders below or beside the screen works well. Highlighting the desired control and manipulating it with the “big knob” is also required. It needs to have completely flexible and independent I/O. It can come up as 1-48 as in the snake, or soft patched to whatever you want, on a per scene basis.
Speaking of scenes, the scene/preset scheme needs to have the flexibility to load just a single band input list for a festival, to completely reflash the surface or clear everything back to a pre determined starting point. I need to be able to lock it so visiting band guy doesn’t blitz my festival settings while trying to load his band settings. I need granularity in my library configs, but not to the point of offering settings based on the instrument. I’m being paid a great deal of money to equalize the bass drum or compress the vocal. If I can’t dial up basic settings of my own, I have no business doing what I do. I need to store them, not get training wheels on using them.
In due time I think we’ll start seeing many of these in the same surface, though it’s going to take some time for the manufacturers and more resistant users to get on board.
November 1st, 2005 at 7:31 am
Those are all good points. I think there also needs to be flexibility in connecting to the outside world. I think the mic pre in the surface metaphore’s time has passed. I don’t care whether the mix engine is in the surface, or backstage, but I don’t want to have to run heavy copper cable. Yamaha finally went to an outside company to develope a fiber system for the PM1D, I hope they don’t take as long to address that issue on the rest of the line. Digico, Digidesign, EAW, and A&H all seem to get the importance of digital signal transmission.
As we want more and more features, the operation of these surfaces gets more and more complex. A simple way to protect settings while allowing others to load will be a tough nut to crack, I think.
I continue to be amazed when people balk at using layers. I find it a much easier way to navigate a large board than dragging my finger along the tape lable to find the channel 4′ away. In comparing the new Yamaha M7 console against the DM2k that it is supposed to supplant in the live market, I’ll stick with the DM2k. If they could have just added DCA’s to the 2k it would be a much nicer console. It offers so much more than the M7, just not DCAs.
The one point I disagree with is the touchscreen. I have yet to find a usable touchscreen interface. I know you like the D5,and I don’t, but the M7 has the same problems. The screen is too small with too much information on it. This forces the touch area to be too small, and too easy to miss. Backing out through the screen you hit in error does not speed up the process. We’ll see when the EAW console comes out if the larger screen, with less information density solves the problem.
At AES I had a demo of the DD Venue that conviced me I did not want to use it. It is a shame that AES is so sales oriented that all they want to show you is all the flash and trash. A week after AES I had a 2 hour private demo that showed the board off much more favorably. There are a lot of really nice features there. The scene programming is not up to a PM1D, but the Venue competes with the PM5D, where it’s capabilities are very competitive.
I’m all for more digital control surfaces.
Mac
November 3rd, 2005 at 4:16 pm
I think Dave is quite right that we aren’t there yet. I’ve stated before that there’s a feature that I would like on a surface, almost like a DAW with unlimited bands of PEQ on each input. But others may not see it this way.
Mac, I’d really have to disagree with you on the DM2k thing. I haven’t found the DM2k to be all that. I find the lack of a HPF, mute groups (the 2k version on there don’t count), and DCAs. I really can’t wait to see and use the M7CL because I really hated not having all the faders available at once on the 2k. This has really bitten me on corporate shows, needing to access lavs, podiums and playback on different layers all at once. Maybe I could have set something better up with groups, or DCAs if they were available, but alas no.
Is there a way of working on that console that makes it more manageable? Mac, I know you like to use vertical pairing to fit more inputs ala stereo playback onto one layer.
-Mikey P
November 8th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Milkey, when I had to have access to multiple handles that lived on different layers of the DM2k I would use the and entire layer as a “group controller”. Basically all of my inputs resided on the first two layers of the desk. The most often grabbed channels were fader grouped together with a dummy channel per group on the last layer. A kind of homebrew DCA layer. Obviously there are limitations here, but once the mix was flowing and nothing needed a lot of tweaking I was able to stay on the last layer and hit my cues for the rest of the night.
Christian
November 10th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
MikeyP, there are 24 faders on one layer, what did you have that made you put stuff you needed at the same time on different layers. In 24 faders of a DM2000 you can put 5 stereo playbacks (3 VTR, Instant Replay, Laptop) 2 lecterns with primary and BU mic on each, 2 stereo computer feeds for PowerPoint sound, and 15 RF mics. This could all be routed to matrixes via groups. If there is a band, up to 24 channels of it can go on layer 3 routed to the matrix via the stereo bus, with a mute group including the stereo bus, giving you a handle on the top layer for level and muting. Utility stuff like all the SM announce mics can go on layer 4 where you don’t need to go much.
There are 34 corporate inputs on the top layer, 24 band inputs on layer 3, and 2 or 3 inputs on layer 4 for a total of about 60 channels. How much more did you need?
Mac