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[Steve Macatee]

Oh man. Digi must have missed the standards committee meeting on what direction to place the USB port so the Rane watch displays upright. Darn. The watch comes with a short USB extender that could  make it easier to read the time upright; of course, who wants to carry it around.

You get what you pay for. Even in USB watches from China.
-Steve

[Andy Peters]

Steve Macatee wrote on Mon, 12 March 2007 20:48

Oh man. Digi must have missed the standards committee meeting on what direction to place the USB port so the Rane watch displays upright. Darn. The watch comes with a short USB extender that could  make it easier to read the time upright; of course, who wants to carry it around. You get what you pay for. Even in USB watches from China. -Steve

Turns out that there's actually a spec for this.  The USB logo on the Type A (computer end) plug on compliant cables will always be facing UP when inserted into the jack.

Now, that short USB extender cable?  Forbidden by the spec!

-a

[Sheldon Radford]

Hi Bink,

Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Mon, 12 March 2007 20:37

My workaround is to make FOH input 8 be my Key source and to route record bus to FOH output 8 (like a virtual 'Y' cable.) I then take a balanced analog audio cable and patch FOH 8 output into FOH 8 input. This takes the output bus and routes it to the Serato RS Gate key source. Is there a better way that stays within the engine? -Bink

Confirmed: output buses aren't available as sidechain (key source) inputs, so you've likely figured out the best approach. It's on our hit list to address this at some point - it's due to the way audio is shuttled around between the multiple DSPs that comprise the mix engine.

Sheldon Radford
Digidesign

[Steve Macatee]

Doh. The it looks like Rane missed that in the USB spec for the Chinese watch. Yeah, that's the ticket...

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Steve Macatee wrote on Mon, 12 March 2007 20:48

...Digi must have missed the standards committee meeting on what direction to place the USB port so the Rane watch displays upright. Darn.

The watch's hinged USB stick lives on the top of the watch near the '12'. If the thing was going to interface right side up on the Digi console, it would have to have the USB part near the '6' on the watch face.

Quote:

...The watch comes with a short USB extender that could  make it easier to read the time upright; of course, who wants to carry it around.

I've been carrying the extension ever since you gave me this excellent swag. Still got it.  

Thanks!

Quote:

...You get what you pay for. Even in USB watches from China. -Steve

Hey! It's a 1GB stick no matter which side it's on. Not bad for the price.  

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Okay, I'll run with it. Thanks, Sheldon!

Gig starts in 7 minutes... gotta get hoppin'.

-Bink

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

I'm really liking the Matrix section of the Profile. I use matrixes all the time for my speaker zones and in this capacity, it excels. Each of the eight matrixes can have a completely different set of 12 sources mixed in. For instance, you could have one matrix fed from six stereo subgroups (12 sources) and at the same time have another matrix blended from 12 Auxes. You can pull from any of your Auxes, Subgroups, Left, Right and Mono plus one more input of your choosing. In among your twelve choices of source, you can select any of eight special User Assign sources which can be pulled from any input, any unassigned Stage Rack jack, any unassigned FOH Rack jack, any EFX Return or any Pro Tools input. Mind bending!

Any source feeding a matrix can be toggled on or off for only that matrix output. For instance, I can have stereo playback sources live and hot to my main PA but toggled off for my Foyer speakers such that I can toggle them back on if the client wants tunes or prerecorded announcements outside the room at breaks. My preset level stays the same--this is the advantage to the on/off toggle. Toggling is accomplished by pushing down on the top of the level setting knob. Sweet.  

If you're an Aux fiend and you tend to run out of Auxes too quickly, you can create a matrix feed from any 8 inputs that will give you a sort of 17th aux send. Like maybe you want to send a blend of two or three kick drum mics plus some kick drum EFX returns to a throne shaker but you don't want to use up an Aux or a subgroup for this. The Profile gets it done.  

The alphanumeric display displays my assigned names for sources and sends. I typed 'Foyer' into Matrix 8 and 'VOG' into subgroup six so it's immediately clear which knob to turn if they want more "Voice Of God" in the Foyer.

Just like any other input or mix bus, the matrix buses each support four plug-ins inserted on them. All I inserted on each of my matrix zones is a parametric EQ--I have limiting and processing inside each speaker so I don't need that coming from the mix engine.

Available delay for each matrix is 500ms. Increments of 0.1ms.

Matrixes have a polarity switch which might be handy for subwoofers. You could use polarity and delay on a couple of matrixes to create a cardioid subwoofer setup.

Each matrix also has a Direct Out in case you needed to have the mix sent somewhere else. Pressing the Direct Out button flips the VGA monitor over to the Patchbay page where you are able to select which output jack your Direct Out goes to. A similar way to accomplish this would be to double-assign your matrix output bus to two or more Rack jacks. A virtual 'Y' cable.

Another day and a half left on my Road Test! I'm sure gonna miss this mixer when it goes back to Digidesign.     More than one guy on this crew has suggested that possession is nine-tenths of the law... but thoughts like that never entered my mind.      

-Bink

[Mac Kerr]

Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Wed, 14 March 2007 14:24

I'm really liking the Matrix section of the Profile. I use matrixes all the time for my speaker zones and in this capacity, it excels. Each of the eight matrixes can have a completely different set of 12 sources mixed in. For instance, you could have one matrix fed from six stereo subgroups (12 sources) and at the same time have another matrix blended from 12 Auxes. You can pull from any of your Auxes, Subgroups, Left, Right and Mono plus one more input of your choosing. In among your twelve choices of source, you can select any of eight special User Assign sources which can be pulled from any input, any unassigned Stage Rack jack, any unassigned FOH Rack jack, any EFX Return or any Pro Tools input. Mind bending!

Not to rain on your parade, or Digidesign's, but how is this different, or better, than a PM5D? The matrix sends on a 5D each have access to all of the 27 mix buses, plus an aux input. Why think about which 12 of the available buses you want in a matrix when they are all there?

Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Wed, 14 March 2007 14:24

Any source feeding a matrix can be toggled on or off for only that matrix output. For instance, I can have stereo playback sources live and hot to my main PA but toggled off for my Foyer speakers such that I can toggle them back on if the client wants tunes or prerecorded announcements outside the room at breaks. My preset level stays the same--this is the advantage to the on/off toggle. Toggling is accomplished by pushing down on the top of the level setting knob. Sweet.

This is not so easy on a 5D, but it is still doable. You can either make the change in the matrix screen, or set up scenes with the different assignments.

Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Wed, 14 March 2007 14:24

If you're an Aux fiend and you tend to run out of Auxes too quickly, you can create a matrix feed from any 8 inputs that will give you a sort of 17th aux send. Like maybe you want to send a blend of two or three kick drum mics plus some kick drum EFX returns to a throne shaker but you don't want to use up an Aux or a subgroup for this. The Profile gets it done.

You cannot do this on a 5D, but you can on an M7CL. On the M7 you can turn any unused matrix mixes into full auxes with access by all inputs not a small subset of inputs.

I don't mean to denigrate the Venue system, but these are pretty common features to many digital consoles. I am still looking forward to my first time behind the wheel of a Venue.

Mac

[Joe Breher]

Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Wed, 14 March 2007 12:24

I'm really liking the Matrix section of the Profile. ... For instance, you could have one matrix fed from six stereo subgroups (12 sources) and at the same time have another matrix blended from 12 Auxes. You can pull from any of your Auxes, Subgroups, Left, Right and Mono plus one more input of your choosing.

Are all these matrix inputs sample-synchronous?

For instance, picture using a matrix as a 'more me' feed. There is a blend of subs being fed to this matrix. One (or more) of those subs has some proportion of channel N (the 'more me' channel) in them. Now feed Channel N directly to the aux as well (thereby creating the 'more me'). Now, if processing latencies are different for the various paths channel N can take to the matrix, that signal will go all phasey in that matrix. OTOH, if steps are taken to ensure sample-synchronicity, the latencies for each path will all be matched to the longest path, thereby eliminating the phase comb filtering.

[Mac Kerr]

Joe Breher wrote on Wed, 14 March 2007 16:11

Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Wed, 14 March 2007 12:24 I'm really liking the Matrix section of the Profile. ... For instance, you could have one matrix fed from six stereo subgroups (12 sources) and at the same time have another matrix blended from 12 Auxes. You can pull from any of your Auxes, Subgroups, Left, Right and Mono plus one more input of your choosing. Are all these matrix inputs sample-synchronous? For instance, picture using a matrix as a 'more me' feed. There is a blend of subs being fed to this matrix. One (or more) of those subs has some proportion of channel N (the 'more me' channel) in them. Now feed Channel N directly to the aux as well (thereby creating the 'more me'). Now, if processing latencies are different for the various paths channel N can take to the matrix, that signal will go all phasey in that matrix. OTOH, if steps are taken to ensure sample-synchronicity, the latencies for each path will all be matched to the longest path, thereby eliminating the phase comb filtering.

I don't know which paths are synchronized, but this is a feature that seems to be unique to the Venue system. The various latencies are compensated for with Venue. With other systems it is important to be sure you do not double assign with different path lengths as this does cause comb filtering due to the different latency.

Mac