Is the Game Over?

[Mattseymour]

True... Hadn't thought of that. Although I can see an argument for wanting to reorder the control surface but keep the f-mixer in order.... Still entirely academic for me as I don't that way.

[Jim]

These debates where we all generalize about what's right and wrong for any gig seem useless. A person will do what they know and use they gear they have. I am one of those guys that tries to figure out how I should work and then try to find the gear that does that. I regularly replace gear and software, read manuals and learn new stuff. Hauling heavy gear (consoles, FX racks) is my number one thing to eliminate.

I own and use a cool 24 channel SAC/saw system. When I need those tools I take it. It does things that low to medium priced systems can't do. The compactness and capability of this system cannot be overstated for me.

I own and use a DL1608. When the gig let's me, I use it. For me, the multi-touch on the iPad really works well. With no sub-groups, I often grab the 3 guitars or 4 vocals together. The user interface for Mackie's Master Fader application is very good for me. I find it fast, accurate and not at all toy-like. Access to EQ and FX is fast, large and really easy to use.

I am sold on the multi-touch virtual surface for gigging.

[Butch Bos]

I use multitouch all the time right now

Mouse in right hand and a single BCF in the left hand
Works for me

Last night had a band engineer say WTF when he saw my SAC rig He said he would rather use a LS9
Any way we used SAC and I mixed (with his help )
BUT by the end of the night he wanted all the info on SAC and was impressed

Butch

[PhaseShifter]

I own and use a DL1608. When the gig let's me, I use it. For me, the multi-touch on the iPad really works well. With no sub-groups, I often grab the 3 guitars or 4 vocals together. The user interface for Mackie's Master Fader application is very good for me. I find it fast, accurate and not at all toy-like. Access to EQ and FX is fast, large and really easy to use.

I am sold on the multi-touch virtual surface for gigging.

Most of the multi-touch tablet mixing apps have had some serious thought put into them in terms of optimizing for screen size and multi touch functionality.

As you said, they're not very toy-like as others would have us believe.

Being able to do simple multi touch things like a crossfade between 2 inputs or quickly muting/un-muting a set of channels is far from being an uncommon task.

[airickess]

Being able to do simple multi touch things like a crossfade between 2 inputs or quickly muting/un-muting a set of channels is far from being an uncommon task.

Crossfading between two inputs. What a concept.

[RBIngraham]

Hahaha....come on... don't get so pissed off....

Anyway, no Digidesign could fit in there where I was mixing this show.In this club we had only 1x1m space to squeez in the mixer. So we did used SAC and it was fun!Also, the company's, that we work with.... well, they have 2 Digidesign Profile's, Midas Legend 3000, Midas XL4 that was last used for Garry Moore , Midas Verona, Digico DS00, 2x Yamaha PM5D's , Yamaha PM4000, Soundcraft Vi6 and a Macky TT24 .So, we cold have picked any of thsese consoles to mix the show but, where would you put them?

I wasn't pissed off. I guess you're just missing the degree of sarcasm in my post. I put in as many smilies as I could... I thought that would express that I was just playing devil's advocate.

Although I will call BS when I see it.

[RandyHyde]

Saw this on prosoundweb:
http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php ... cseen.html



NAMM SHOW, ANAHEIM, CA, January 24, 2013 — Waves Audio (booth 6824) announces the new eMotion™ Mixer for SoundGrid® systems, with the introduction of the line’s first products, the eMotion LV1 for live sound front-of-house and monitor applications, and eMotion Studio, for recording, mixing and post production facilities. Designed to integrate seamlessly with Waves SoundGrid-compatible I/Os, eMotion is poised to revolutionize the world of mixing.
The eMotion Mixer engine is powered by low-latency Intel-based Waves SoundGrid DSP Servers. Features include low-latency Waves plugin processing on every channel; support for multiple mixers, I/O boxes and SoundGrid DSP servers over a single network; hardware scalability using standard network components; compatibility with standard control surfaces; Multi-Touch support; Windows and Mac compatibility; and preset sharing across consoles and platforms.
The LV1, the first product in the eMotion series, includes two new integrated plugins: EMO-D5 Dynamics Processor and EMO-Q4 Equalizer.
LV1 Software Mixer Product Features
64 input channels (mono/stereo)
32 stereo busses + return channels
L/R, center, mono main busses + master channels
8 DCA faders, 8 mute groups, 8 user-assignable function controls
Cue/SIP and talk-back
EMO-Q4 Equalizer: 4-band EQ with HP and LP per channel
EMO-D5 Dynamics Processor: Comp/Gate/Expander/DeEsser/Limiter/Leveler per channel
Up to 6 plug-ins per channel
Connect to multiple DAWs for recording and playback
Save and transmit sessions and snapshots from any DAW to eMotion
Connect and share SoundGrid I/O devices, drivers and applications
Up to 1000 Scenes/Snapshots
Up to 96 kHz sample rate
Automatic plugin delay compensation
Mackie HUI control surface support, including iPad HUI emulators
Visit www.waves.com and www.waveslive.com for more information.
randyhyde

Posts: 187
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:42 am

[ssrsound]

Yep... Saw the same thing. And waves already has the ecosystem and the cred to make it work. Peavey has stage ones to work with it, and the support Mackie HUI to have hardware surface control.

Plus, by separating the processor box from the control box, they can control their engine (which runs on their own chosen and supported hardware, running their own Linux build) and let people run the control GUI on whatever is popular at the moment ( windows, Mac and iPad to start)

Curious to see pricing. Knowing waves, I suspect the'll be going for the high end, and leaving the low end for the behringer of the world.

Bob's ideas are finally going to play out in the big leagues... It just won't be SAC doing it.

[RBIngraham]

True... Hadn't thought of that. Although I can see an argument for wanting to reorder the control surface but keep the f-mixer in order.... Still entirely academic for me as I don't that way.

And recalling a scene that rearranges channel strip order can be kind of sluggish in my experience. I would recommend against doing that in the middle of show. Or at least not doing it on a scene by scene basis in the middle of a theatre show. If it was a festival music show and you were doing it between acts, that's probably OK. It just didn't react fast enough when I tinkered with it once. Granted that was a while ago so maybe it's been changed since then, don't know.

[RBIngraham]

As far as the iPad apps go I don't think they are a toy. But they are not intended to be something you use to mix a show either. I doubt many users are leaving their console on the stage and mixing in the house with an iPad. That is not what they are there for. There are there so you can wander around the house and tweak things or go out on stage and tweak monitor mixes while standing out on stage and you don't have to use radios or hand signals or shout to a 2nd person at the console in order to adjust things. With the exception of the Mackie thing (which is more of an iPad accessory than an iPad controlled mixer really) I don't think anyone designed the apps to be used to mix the show.

Comparing a SAC remote to the iPad apps is comparing apples and oranges.

We have had the equivalent of SAC remotes for many years now with digital consoles. It is remote software running on a Mac or PC like Studio Manager. And granted I won't argue that I would want to mix a show with those software applications either. But that is more akin to what SAC remote is. And many consoles now are client server like sets up similar to SAC. So you can have multiple surfaces hooked up to the same I/O unit or some even have a network of I/O units you can drop any place you like with a "brain" somewhere doing the mixing. ILives and Digicos are both like this. Multiple surfaces allowed, multiple remote computers logged in, plus the iPad.

I do agree with Bob that I rarely feel myself wishing for knobs for all the channel strip functions. And although I wish the control surface support was more flexible and user customizable I've been fairly happy with my latest incarnation of control surfaces which is 3 BCF units at FOH and occasionally some BCR units for monitor or In Ear mixes, etc.. But I also fully realize that a lot of my comfort level with having no knobs for channel strip functions comes from the fact that I'm used to designing shows using Studio Manager for many years now and theatre shows generally have tech time to tweak things. So we are rarely going at EQ knobs and such fast and furiously. I've mixed and/or recorded a few concerts recently with SAC. And I didn't miss having knobs then either. Although I did wish I could bring some aux sends up and down via a fader. But I just duplicated the input channel, used the 2nd channel only as a send to the aux and then used a submaster (on a fader of it's own) as the master level that had the dry and effect mixed to it to ride the level during the show.

Like all things there are ways of working around some of the short comings. And as I've said many times I will take SAC over an LS9 almost any day. Even over an M7. But better devices will always come down in price and eventually that will probably change.

Lastly, why do manufacturers always seem to think that 8 DCAs is adequate? Idiots... if it's just software... give me 16, give me 24 or more for crying out loud. Then you don't have to dick around constantly changing their assignments and wishing you had 2 or 3 more during a show. Ugh!

[Mattseymour]

Must be missing something, I can't find any front end io to use soundgrid as a standalone mix environment, only interfaces to other consoles.

[Mattseymour]

Never mind. http://www.digigrid.net/

[RBIngraham]

Must be missing something, I can't find any front end io to use soundgrid as a standalone mix environment, only interfaces to other consoles.

I don't think you're missing anything. I doubt they exist yet. Either they will make their own or figure out a way to connect to some of the various digital snake solutions I would expect. But I couldn't find anything about this at all on their own web site. So they possiblly just have not put anything on their site yet either.

[ssrsound]

The original ProSoundWeb posting by Mike Pyle:
http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php ... 987.0.html

Shows a rack with a pair of Peavey SB3216 32x16 stage boxes with SoundGrid output and a Waves SoundGrid Server (basically their completely enclosed linux-based mix engine), plus two views of their GUI (which runs on your windows or macintosh box). So a full 64x32 system was being demoed, complete with any and all Waves plugins.

(the product is called eMotion, but I don't see anything about it other than a couple of press-release re-quotes and Mike's post). It seems like what they've figured out is they already have all the hard part of a live mixer done with their mix engine, so they just created a live-sound-like GUI to control it... and Peavey has provided the i/o.

[Mattseymour]

Interestingly Soundgrid seems to appear as an asio device so could end up being the perfect front end to sac...

[ssrsound]

From what I can tell, DigiGrid is their partnership with Digico to both promote the SoundGrid audio-over-ip technology as a standard, and for DigiCo to brand the environment and put out products for it. I believe they're doing a similar partnership with A&H. But both of those companies seem mostly interested in using it to enhance their hardware mixer environments.

Waves themselves seem to be doing the virtual mixing thing with their eMotion LV1

[ssrsound]

Interestingly Soundgrid seems to appear as an asio device so could end up being the perfect front end to sac...

Are you seeing a SoundGrid to PC interface someplace?

[Mattseymour]

It seems a native digigrid asio driver was around in late 2011. Without delving into the technicals it looks very like the Dante virtual sound card.

"The SoundGrid Driver is an ASIO and CoreAudio driver that allows you to record and play audio to and from your favorite DAW software. The driver streams audio via Ethernet through your local LAN port."

More here: http://www.waveslive.com/pdf/soundgrid-driver-v9.pdf

The digigrid site also references asio support.

However I'm sure it will all be jolly expensive. What's interesting is whether Waves offering pc based native virtual mixing takes off, and whether that makes people look again at what sac offers.

As far as I can see waves have written something that looks very like sac, but have been able to come up with a viable and proven audio over Ethernet protocol and have the industry influence to pursuade hardware manufacturers to build some i/o. Perhaps they got sick of trying to sell their products via console manufacturers and decided to get a piece of that pie for themselves.

That peavey box looks like exactly what many have wanted for sac...

[RandyHyde]

And sadly..after using SAC for 3 years...and fighting with this every time I use it, I have to agree. It is this...I / They / the Sound Provider all want to see a minimum of 1 channels worth of Input Att. / Dynamics / EQ and Aux control.

If that ONE thing was provided...there would be virtually no complaints from them.

Buy a Mackie C4 and I'll be happy to give you the software I wrote for it. It captures the wide mixer view quite well. Drawback - on the machine it's on you can't have other control surfaces. But if you put your BCF 2000 units on one SAC Remote and the C4 on another, you'll be in business.

I also have a BCR 2000 template if you don't need the scribble strips.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

[RandyHyde]

However I'm sure it will all be jolly expensive.

SAC isn't especially cheap if you build a good system from premium components. I've spent between $15,000 and $20,000 for my two SAC rigs over the years.

What's interesting is whether Waves offering pc based native virtual mixing takes off, and whether that makes people look again at what sac offers.

I remember the Apple ads in 1981 welcoming IBN to the personal computer field and how the executives thought this would make more people seriously consider Apple. Yeah, Bob will probably sell some more copies of SAC because it's cheaper; however, SAC could also become the Behringer of the LAW world. Also, look at SAW's history...

As far as I can see waves have written something that looks very like sac, but have been able to come up with a viable and proven audio over Ethernet protocol and have the industry influence to pursuade hardware manufacturers to build some i/o. Perhaps they got sick of trying to sell their products via console manufacturers and decided to get a piece of that pie for themselves.

That peavey box looks like exactly what many have wanted for sac...

I'm still interested to see how control surface support works. Also, what about monitors? But now the line about "SAC is your only option fgor LAWs" is about to go away.

From my perspective, competition is very good. As much as I'd like to see Bob produce a successful product that everyone buys, I'm more interested in making sure my needs are met. Between the new low-cost digital boards e.g., Soundcraft) and this Waves product, I thing things are going to get interesting in the market currently owned by SAC.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde