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[Bennett Prescott]

I haven't seen the board yet, just heard what the specs are likely to be. The "killer features" don't appeal to me, and while I can understand how they could be very appealing to the Lounge crowd, they're far from industry-rearranging.

[Jake Scudder]

Grant Conklin wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 13:33

Jake Scudder wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 12:24 Todd Shumansky wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 11:47 BFD. While speculative posts like this do little more than stir the pot I must say this IS  a big fucking deal to many of us who are currently busting the seams of existing technology. Channel counts are only the beginning. Workflow and streamlined hardware are more and more important as production schedules shrink and load in/out schedules for tours are becoming nearly impossible. Really?  Well clearly, I don't work in your world, but maybe if PEOPLE are making your job that difficult, technology is not the solution.  A faster bullet will be invented, and PEOPLE will expect that much more of you.   Thanks, Grant

Without people we don't have shows so of course it is ulimately "people driven". This industry is also driven by the bottom line much more than any of us like and it will be the PEOPLE who can come in on time and at budget while still maintaining high technical and artistic standards that survive to make a living.

[Andrew Broughton]

Jon Martin wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 03:33

Not Yamaha.

But there will be a new Yamaha console coming.

If I may Rant for a moment...
Personally, I really want to see a system with 8-channel I/O boxes containing all the processing for those channels, networked together with a user-configurable control surface. (Preferably a console-sized touchscreen and a pile of faders)

Put the boxes out like subsnakes, then use a cabling system that uses 2 cables for ring redundancy, with power supplied on the same cable. If you want more channels, add boxes. You don't run out of DSP because each box has all the DSP needed for each channel. Add FX engine boxes, add control surfaces. Mske it as big or small as you need for the task at hand. LCS is a step in the right direction, but they are WAY too much dough.

Heres your flame bait everyone: STOP MAKING DIGITAL CONSOLES THAT LOOK and WORK LIKE ANALOG CONSOLES!

I want functionality and features that CANNOT be done on analog! Make them completely user-configurable.

Anyway, I look forward to the future, and hopefully some companies are more forward-thinking.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Andrew Broughton wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 18:10

If I may Rant for a moment... Personally, I really want to see a system with 8-channel I/O boxes containing all the processing for those channels, networked together with a user-configurable control surface. (Preferably a console-sized touchscreen and a pile of faders) Put the boxes out like subsnakes, then use a cabling system that uses 2 cables for ring redundancy, with power supplied on the same cable. If you want more channels, add boxes. You don't run out of DSP because each box has all the DSP needed for each channel. Add FX engine boxes, add control surfaces. Mske it as big or small as you need for the task at hand. LCS is a step in the right direction, but they are WAY too much dough. Heres your flame bait everyone: STOP MAKING DIGITAL CONSOLES THAT LOOK and WORK LIKE ANALOG CONSOLES! I want functionality and features that CANNOT be done on analog! Make them completely user-configurable. Anyway, I look forward to the future, and hopefully some companies are more forward-thinking.

Welcome to the chicken/egg conundrum of product development.

Contrary to your wishes, this is not a "field of dreams...  build it and they will come" situation.. make it too far afield from the expected norm and people will be afraid to risk real money on it.

I have been hypothesizing that all consoles will go away eventually, but my predictions have been more than little premature. I am already talking way past your distributed processing snake+smarts. Why not put the smarts into the wireless mic handle and network them all together wirelessly? Lots of reasons why not, mostly technology limitations.

As long as we're talking smack, how about a game boy glove connected to some virtual reality glasses, so you can squeeze the drummer's head, or twist unlimited virtual knobs if you desire old school....

A more realistic evolution is smart snake heads (like you propose), with a separate control surface.. But danger in breaking it up, is that you can lose market share of one or the other,.

I predict the future will be different, and evolution will continue at a modest pace.

It will take some paradigm shifts and/or massive cost deltas to speed up evolution. rearranging the parts into multiple boxes, don't really do either.

JR

[Tim McCulloch]

Andrew Broughton wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 18:10

Jon Martin wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 03:33 Not Yamaha.   But there will be a new Yamaha console coming. If I may Rant for a moment... Personally, I really want to see a system with 8-channel I/O boxes containing all the processing for those channels, networked together with a user-configurable control surface. (Preferably a console-sized touchscreen and a pile of faders) Put the boxes out like subsnakes, then use a cabling system that uses 2 cables for ring redundancy, with power supplied on the same cable. If you want more channels, add boxes. You don't run out of DSP because each box has all the DSP needed for each channel. Add FX engine boxes, add control surfaces. Mske it as big or small as you need for the task at hand. LCS is a step in the right direction, but they are WAY too much dough. Heres your flame bait everyone: STOP MAKING DIGITAL CONSOLES THAT LOOK and WORK LIKE ANALOG CONSOLES! I want functionality and features that CANNOT be done on analog! Make them completely user-configurable. Anyway, I look forward to the future, and hopefully some companies are more forward-thinking.

Hi Andrew-

Today's pseudo-analog surface will eventually be seen as a transitional design to migrate legacy users to new things.

I like the chained modular approach, and think it has promise.  We have some of the capability now, but with a lack of definitive standards for implementation and a live market that isn't ready to adopt without those standards.

Should be fun to see what's coming in the next 10-20 years.

Have fun, good luck.

Tim Mc

[Justice C. Bigler]

Andrew Broughton wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 18:10

You don't run out of DSP because each box has all the DSP needed for each channel.

Maybe I'm showing my naivete here, but are there currently digital consoles on the market that run out of DSP when you scale up the channel count? And if so, which ones?

[Craig Montgomery]

Andrew Broughton wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 16:10

Jon Martin wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 03:33 Not Yamaha.   But there will be a new Yamaha console coming. If I may Rant for a moment... Personally, I really want to see a system with 8-channel I/O boxes containing all the processing for those channels, networked together with a user-configurable control surface. (Preferably a console-sized touchscreen and a pile of faders) Put the boxes out like subsnakes, then use a cabling system that uses 2 cables for ring redundancy, with power supplied on the same cable. If you want more channels, add boxes. You don't run out of DSP because each box has all the DSP needed for each channel. Add FX engine boxes, add control surfaces. Mske it as big or small as you need for the task at hand. LCS is a step in the right direction, but they are WAY too much dough. Heres your flame bait everyone: STOP MAKING DIGITAL CONSOLES THAT LOOK and WORK LIKE ANALOG CONSOLES! I want functionality and features that CANNOT be done on analog! Make them completely user-configurable. Anyway, I look forward to the future, and hopefully some companies are more forward-thinking.

It's not hard to imagine Yamaha doing something very much like this to replace the 1D.

[Andrew Broughton]

Justice C. Bigler wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 20:12

Maybe I'm showing my naivete here, but are there currently digital consoles on the market that run out of DSP when you scale up the channel count? And if so, which ones?

Many consoles limit how much can be done. Digico limits how many types of processing can be done on each channel, as does DigiDesign. Yamaha limits it by only having a fixed number of functions. They make sure that it's not possible to run out of DSP. But what if I want more than 8 effects? What if I want to insert a dynamic eq on every channel?
All consoles have their limitations. I'd like to see something much more expandable. No limits.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Andrew Broughton wrote on Sun, 06 December 2009 01:25

Many consoles limit how much can be done. Digico limits how many types of processing can be done on each channel, as does DigiDesign. Yamaha limits it by only having a fixed number of functions. They make sure that it's not possible to run out of DSP. But what if I want more than 8 effects? What if I want to insert a dynamic eq on every channel? All consoles have their limitations. I'd like to see something much more expandable. No limits.

While DSP is getting cheaper, it isn't memory cheap yet...

There is efficiency in spreading a resource across multiple channels that most likely won't all need a unique reverb on every input, etc. Of course in blocks of 8 you can share and have flexibility to configure all kinds of applications, from minimum configuration 8 ch system to 80, and get somewhat better utilization efficiency than 1 processor per channel.

Another benefit to extra processing power distributed across a system is the ability to shift resources around if there is a failure. (Note: This assumes pretty sophisticated software and we aren't even doing proper distributed systems yet AFAIK).

JR

[Eytan Gidron]

Bennett Prescott wrote on Sat, 05 December 2009 23:22

Trip, I know which mixer you're talking about, I'm not sure it's going to be more than a toy. That manufacturer already has a good board, as far as I can tell they're trying to build a cheap gimmick.

Bennett,

When you say "toy" do you mean a mixer in the LS9 league or even lesser than that?

[ProSoundWeb Community]