Digidesign Group Spill

One of the coolest new features Digidesign has implemented in the SC48 and will soon add to D-Show & Profile with the impending release of software 2.8.1 is Group Spill.

Here’s a short video tour of the feature.

VIDEOBLOG: Behind the Scenes at Hard Rock

Here’s a video I ran across on Mixonline.com that’s close to my heart. FOH mixer Nick Simons gives a tour of The Joint, the new 4,100-seat performance venue at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, which features an extensive d&b audiotechnik installation with remote monitoring of all functions, Digidesign D-Show Profile mixers and BSS London control of processing and zone control.

When we started out on the plan to revamp the audio system at Kensington Troy last summer, moving from the Yamaha PM1D to the Digidesign platform, a new PA, new microphones, etc. this is a profile of a similarly designed system. Worth the watch!

Digidesign SC48 Video Tour

In exploring Youtube yesterday, I ran across a really informative console tour of the new SC48 console from Digidesign that I have written about previously and we are considering for use at our portable campuses.  Check this out!

TL Space & Echoboy

Two plug-ins that are rocking my world these days.

Trillium Labs’ TL Space is the first TDM convolution reverb for Venue!  This innovative convolution TDM reverb plug-in reproduces natural rooms and classic reverbs from the largest concert hall to the densest plate reverb.  TL Space delivers the pristine sound of natural reverb spaces with the familiar controls used in high end hardware reverb units. By combining the sampled acoustics of real reverb spaces with advanced DSP algorithms, TL Space offers stunning realism with full control of reverb parameters in mono, stereo and surround formats.

TL Space includes a comprehensive library of high quality sampled reverb spaces and effects ideal for music and post applications. In addition, TL Space can easily import existing impulse responses in common convolution formats.

This delay came highly recommended from a few friends.  Really good stuff here!

Find an echo tone that fits your mix by choosing one of the 30 built-in echo styles modeled after a personal collection of vintage echos. One of the favorites is the warm sound of “Studio Tape”, modeled after a ATR-102 half-inch two-track machine. You’ll also get instant access to a whole range of classics, including EchoPlex, Space Echo, Memory Man, DM-2, and the TelRay oilcan delay. EchoBoy’s chorus even emulates the CE-2 chorus, considered a holy-grail of guitar chorus pedals. And yes, turn it up! EchoBoy is designed to be abused, just like real analog gear

No math needed to figure out delay times! Just dial in a musical note value and lock it to your song’s tempo with the flip of a switch. Fine-tune the echo rhythm with the Groove, Accent, and Feel controls.

Even though EchoBoy is easy to use, it’s also incredibly versatile. Switch to Dual Echo or Ping-Pong modes for powerful stereo echo effects. Or use Rhythm mode’s remarkably easy-to-use 16-tap rhythmic delay. Under the Style Tweak button you’ll find a 3-band parametric EQ with separate control over echo decay and tone. Choose the amount and type of analog saturation, dial in the amount of tape wobble, and even reverb-style diffusion control. There’s nothing anywhere that gives you this sort of control.

D-Show 2.8.1 Thoughts

Along with the release of the SC48 this week from Digidesign, I’m also excited to see version 2.8.1 of the D-Show software shipping soon. There are some welcome new features that I’m looking forward to!

1. VCA & Group Spill is something I think I will use all the time. I had a chance to play with this on the SC48 demo I saw a few weeks ago and since I like to layout my console fully utilizing the 4 fader banks, this is another very intuitive way to access things that might not be at immediate reach. This feature temporarily brings channels assigned to a VCA or group immediately to the top of the console. Double-tap the Select button for a given VCA or group and the contents “spill” across the console’s input faders from right to left. Super cool!
2. Copy and Paste Plug-In Settings. This one should have been there from the start on the desk. You could always get around it using the plug-in library, but this is a welcome addition!
3. Channel pan is now included in the snapshot crossfade. Previously the pans would snap which was less than ideal. I don’t scope pans very often but glad it will be a smoother transition.
4. Cue on Mains Fader. I have a set of monitors at FOH that I use quite often to cue things up, see what a player is adding to the mix at any given time, etc. We also don’t use our main fader for anything – the PA is fed off the matrixes pre of that fader so it is pretty well useless. 2.8.1 lets you assign that fader to control the monitor level (leaving the mains level unaffected). Now when I want to supplement what I’m hearing with my monitors or cue something up, I can use that fader instead of having to reach to the top of the desk to twist the monitor knob. Not a big thing but still cool.

I know that not everyone is happy with Digidesign’s policy of charging for software updates. This upgrade is $149 list. My take on this is that a significant drawing point to Digidesign is the fact that, as an audio console company, they update their consoles frequently. If paying a modest fee means that I see updates at least once a year with good, usable feature improvements, I’m more than willing to contribute. The alternative is what I experienced with Y*!@#$%A where some updates were free, but they were largely bug fixes or it was years between major feature updates. For what its worth, those are my $0.02.

I can’t wait to get my hands on 2.8.1 once it is released!

First Look: Digidesign SC48

Exciting news introduced yesterday, the Digidesign SC48! I had a chance to take a demo for a test drive a few weeks ago since we are going to be strongly considering replacing some M7CLs with this console. If you’ve missed the details, the SC48 is essentially a D-Show Mix Rack/Profile system without the rack; everything is built into the console. It’s insanely small – 16 channel faders and 8 master faders. 48 in, 16 out is the standard config although you can expand the outputs to 32. It includes two mix cards with the capacity for 20 plug-ins in the rack (rather than 100 in the full-blown D-Show systems). Included as standard is ECX laptop control of the system and a firewire connection (Protools 8 LE also comes with the console) for 18 channels of I/O to a laptop or desktop for recording. There’s even an included shelf that fits perfectly on the left side of the desk for the laptop to sit in close proximity to the control surface. Price point is in the neighborhood of a M7CL.

I’m excited about this console for a few reasons:

• To the best of my knowledge Digidesign is the first and only company to create a range of live mixing consoles based on the same software with interchangeable file standards. In our multi-campus model, this is HUGE. The new SC48 means engineers at Kensington would only have to learn one software and it would be consistent whether they are mixing at a portable campus on a 48×16 system or at one of our permanent locations with i/o that could easily exceed 96×32 or more. Also means that our guys can build preset libraries of their favorite settings and travel with them from room to room with perfect translation.
• It should be no surprise, since Digidesign is first and foremost a software company, but the D-Show platform is the most powerful, well thought out, and intuitive digital audio platform I’ve ever worked on. The snapshot automation system is the standard every other console should be patterned after and the native use of plug-ins takes mixing to an entirely different stratosphere.
• I love that the SC48 carries on the same small footprint of the Profile with 24 faders (16 input/8 output). I love mixing on the Profile so much because everything is directly in front of you and instantly available and the SC48 feels great for 48 inputs.
• A new feature in v2.8 of the software makes the 16 channel faders really useful. Digidesign has modeled a feature after the Midas “pop groups”…double tap the select on a VCA fader and up to 16 of the faders assigned to that VCA populate immediately to the left of the master section. Regardless of whichever bank the drum channels are on, doubletap the VCA and they pop up to the top bank and are available for immediate control. As I play with a potential channel layout for our campus scenario, this feature is huge!

There are a couple weaknesses in the initial release…

• Initially, there is no on-board accommodation for an external stage rack or digital snake. Analog only inputs into the SC48. If you want to use a digital snake (such as the Whirlwind E-Snake we use currently at several campuses), there is no way to integrate gain control of those external preamps into the console. BIG weakness. C’mon Digi!
• I’m sad that there is no PQ control on board. The SC48 is not the only system to be missing PQ – the Mix Rack system also has no provision for PQ. If you’ve been following my thoughts since we installed our Venue system last Summer, you know that I think PQ rocks! I understand in a package of the SC48′s size, some things have to be left out. I just wish there was an expansion option to add PQ control.

Overall, this console rocks! Kensington owns four Yamaha M7CLs but I can’t imagine that lasting for much longer. Changing from a PM1D to the D-Show was the single best decision I’ve made for audio at the Troy campus and I have a feeling we’ll be saying the same thing soon about the SC48. Yamaha consoles are reliable, steady workhorses and are certainly a capable tool. But Digidesign’s software puts them in an entirely different league. It is intuitive, so powerful, and now compatible among multiple levels of systems. The Venue becomes far more transparent than any other desk I’ve used, allowing the engineer to focus on mixing while the technology supports that task, rather than being a slave to the workflow of the software.

We have a demo coming in the next few weeks so a few of our campus engineers can spend some time on the SC48. I’ll let you know how that goes.