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Author Topic: Midas Pro X announcement  (Read 16491 times)

Joao Santos

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #10 on: March 12, 2014, 08:14:58 AM »

This means that XL8 will be phase out?
Or the XL8 can use the new Neutron DSP and make it more powerful.

The XL8 surface is amazing it will be great to use with the new Neutron DSP.  :D
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Thomas Lamb

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #11 on: March 12, 2014, 08:57:02 AM »

Looks interesting!

Personally, I'm really not a fan of the Pro1/2/3/6/9/X surfaces (although the output section of the Pro X is an improvement). I also feel like if you wan't to put out an SD7 competitor (although for a lot of reasons, it isn't really...) then you need more than 29 faders on offer, especially when only 16 of them can be for inputs, and stereo things take 2 faders. On a large format desk, I also want full EQ control. I don't want to scroll through bands like I'm on an LS9.

That being said, sonically I love the Midas products, and they have a great feature set, so I'm interested to see where this goes and what the uptake is in the industry. You'd think that given the price point, there will be a lot of XL8s for sale, and every Pro9 (and probably half the Pro6s) will be upgraded to ProX asap.

One of the the interesting things with this product though is that it highlights a downside with the AES50 system when it comes to availability of all those I/O points. Let me explain:

I'm of the opinion that the industry will head further toward modularity. Soon we won't run a 12 pair to the RF rack, we'll have an I/O box in the rack, and it will just sit on our audio 'backbone'. Midas now have a very comprehensive range of boxes to help you get closer to this goal. And the 15X range are very reasonably priced.
However, you have 8 AES50 connections on the Neutron. Thats theoretically 192 in + 192 out. However, its actually impossible to connect that many channels unless you use all DL451s with 8in+8out jack cards. Any other rack combination ends up with a bunch of inaccessible AES50 'paths'
If you use 16x8 DL153 racks, and cable them all redundantly, then you can only get 64 in and 32 out into the engine...
If you use mic splitters, you could say have 3 of them cabled redundantly for 72 inputs, but you'd need the last 2 for some outputs, otherwise you'd have none...
etc...

Equally, at the console end, you only have 3 AES50 ports. So lets say you got a bunch of 431 mic splits, didn't do redundant cabling, and so got yourself 6 splits (144 in). You can't do a virtual soundcheck at FOH, because the most you can get into a recorder is 72ch via the AES50.

So....

I'm excited about Neutron, but I think its capabilities won't be fully realised until you can use the I/O in a better way.


I think there may be something we haven't seen yet. They make mention of a DL231 which gives you 2 independent malignant gain control (presumably adding to the DL431 concept) it says with 6 you get 144io so 24/24 units.
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bigTlamb

"If you suck on a functional analog desk, you'll really suck on a complex digital desk...." Dick Rees

John durisko

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #12 on: March 12, 2014, 09:15:59 AM »

Looks interesting!

Personally, I'm really not a fan of the Pro1/2/3/6/9/X surfaces (although the output section of the Pro X is an improvement). I also feel like if you wan't to put out an SD7 competitor (although for a lot of reasons, it isn't really...) then you need more than 29 faders on offer, especially when only 16 of them can be for inputs, and stereo things take 2 faders. On a large format desk, I also want full EQ control. I don't want to scroll through bands like I'm on an LS9.

That being said, sonically I love the Midas products, and they have a great feature set, so I'm interested to see where this goes and what the uptake is in the industry. You'd think that given the price point, there will be a lot of XL8s for sale, and every Pro9 (and probably half the Pro6s) will be upgraded to ProX asap.

One of the the interesting things with this product though is that it highlights a downside with the AES50 system when it comes to availability of all those I/O points. Let me explain:

I'm of the opinion that the industry will head further toward modularity. Soon we won't run a 12 pair to the RF rack, we'll have an I/O box in the rack, and it will just sit on our audio 'backbone'. Midas now have a very comprehensive range of boxes to help you get closer to this goal. And the 15X range are very reasonably priced.
However, you have 8 AES50 connections on the Neutron. Thats theoretically 192 in + 192 out. However, its actually impossible to connect that many channels unless you use all DL451s with 8in+8out jack cards. Any other rack combination ends up with a bunch of inaccessible AES50 'paths'
If you use 16x8 DL153 racks, and cable them all redundantly, then you can only get 64 in and 32 out into the engine...
If you use mic splitters, you could say have 3 of them cabled redundantly for 72 inputs, but you'd need the last 2 for some outputs, otherwise you'd have none...
etc...

Equally, at the console end, you only have 3 AES50 ports. So lets say you got a bunch of 431 mic splits, didn't do redundant cabling, and so got yourself 6 splits (144 in). You can't do a virtual soundcheck at FOH, because the most you can get into a recorder is 72ch via the AES50.

So....

I'm excited about Neutron, but I think its capabilities won't be fully realised until you can use the I/O in a better way.

AES50 by spec is 24x24 @96k. So with 8 ports on the DSP rack that is 192x192 of routing. The console will mix 168 inputs, this allows for 1? redundant port! I can't stand the fact that there is still only 16 input faders. Where I work, we have a Pro9. I don't find myself using the area above the faders for direct access to eq, dynamics... Why didn't Midas make that another 16 input faders. The Pro9 at 80 inputs is tough enough to bounce around with very few faders let alone doubling the count. I can't tell from the pictures I have seen but it does look like they included the "EXTEND" like found on the PRO2.

As for the Mic Splitter DL431, There is a smaller version DL231, 2-AES50 independent outputs and only 1 analog set of 24.
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Chris Johnson [UK]

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #13 on: March 12, 2014, 09:45:51 AM »


I think there may be something we haven't seen yet. They make mention of a DL231 which gives you 2 independent malignant gain control (presumably adding to the DL431 concept) it says with 6 you get 144io so 24/24 units.

Sure, but that is without redundant cabling of those units... Thats my point.

With an SD7, I can get 1392 optical I/O plus 5 Madi ports to hit the console WITH redundancy.

With AES50, I can get 192 In with the right racks, sure. But no cabling redundancy at all. And no way to record those inputs via direct outs
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Lefteris Neokosmidis

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #14 on: March 15, 2014, 02:36:19 PM »

AES50 by spec is 24x24 @96k. So with 8 ports on the DSP rack that is 192x192 of routing. The console will mix 168 inputs, this allows for 1? redundant port! I can't stand the fact that there is still only 16 input faders. Where I work, we have a Pro9. I don't find myself using the area above the faders for direct access to eq, dynamics... Why didn't Midas make that another 16 input faders. The Pro9 at 80 inputs is tough enough to bounce around with very few faders let alone doubling the count. I can't tell from the pictures I have seen but it does look like they included the "EXTEND" like found on the PRO2.

As for the Mic Splitter DL431, There is a smaller version DL231, 2-AES50 independent outputs and only 1 analog set of 24.
When the console is gonna be on production there will be a new 10 AES50 ports' card and 2 new card with MADI/DANT/Ethersound/Cobramet card installed besides the NEUTRON DSP cards.
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John durisko

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #15 on: March 15, 2014, 04:57:52 PM »

That makes a little more sense


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Chase McKnight

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2014, 06:52:53 PM »

Why didn't Midas make that another 16 input faders. The Pro9 at 80 inputs is tough enough to bounce around with very few faders let alone doubling the count. I can't tell from the pictures I have seen but it does look like they included the "EXTEND" like found on the PRO2.

Dear All,

Please note that the PRO X console has included the Extend button, allowing all 26 faders to be used to navigate the inputs. 

Hope this helps!

Best,
Chase McKnight
Specialist, Channel Marketing
MUSIC Group
MIDAS
« Last Edit: March 18, 2014, 06:55:34 PM by Chase McKnight »
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Let's keep in touch,

Chase McKnight
Specialist, Community
Music
Midas

Haniel Trisna

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #17 on: March 20, 2014, 12:43:52 AM »

I have several questions for Chase or anyone at Midas about this console.

I'm very interested in putting one of these consoles for studio mixing. The only concern I have, is ProTools HD only has HD Madi interface, not AES50. With the DNS9650 what signal degradation will I encounter when sending 96 kHz Madi tracks to the console being that it's getting SRCd?

Can / Should I clock the console to my PT Rig's master word clock?

The 42K price includes no IO ? I need no analog IO, just Madi connectivity.

Dear All,

Please note that the PRO X console has included the Extend button, allowing all 26 faders to be used to navigate the inputs. 

Hope this helps!

Best,
Chase McKnight
Specialist, Channel Marketing
MUSIC Group
MIDAS
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Haniel Trisna
Mixermaster Audio Engineering
Houston, TX
www.mixermaster.com

Chris Johnson [UK]

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #18 on: March 20, 2014, 07:44:08 AM »

I also have a related question which is:

Is it currently, or will it ever be possible, to control the routing of AES audio sources on the Neutron engine without the surface connected?

This is of particular interest to those of us looking at broadcast solutions...
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Chase McKnight

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Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #19 on: March 21, 2014, 11:52:04 AM »

With the DNS9650 what signal degradation will I encounter when sending 96 kHz Madi tracks to the console being that it's getting SRCd?

Can / Should I clock the console to my PT Rig's master word clock?

The 42K price includes no IO ? I need no analog IO, just Madi connectivity.

Dear Haniel,

The DN9650 (or DN9652) will not degrade your sound.  In your proposed scenario, its purpose is to solely convert one digital protocol to another.  The sample rate and bit depth remain the same between the protocols. 

You can certainly clock the console to your PT rig's master clock or vice versa.  My suggestion would be to try both and listen to what sounds best!

The PRO X desk currently has a MSRP of $41,999 and includes the control surface and NEUTRON DSP engine. 

Is it currently, or will it ever be possible, to control the routing of AES audio sources on the Neutron engine without the surface connected?

Dear Chris,

What are you trying to accomplish? The NEUTRON DSP engine does all the processing (EQ, dynamics, summing, etc) and is seamlessly integrated into the control surface.


Best,
Chase McKnight
Specialist, Channel Marketing
MUSIC Group
MIDAS
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Let's keep in touch,

Chase McKnight
Specialist, Community
Music
Midas

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Midas Pro X announcement
« Reply #19 on: March 21, 2014, 11:52:04 AM »


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