Jan 2003
Meeting Review
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Jan 2003 Meeting Review |
Three Large Format Live Digital Consoles
About forty members attended the January meeting at the Ryerson School of Image Arts, which featured the current state-of-the-art digital live sound consoles. Participating manufacturers included InnovaSon, Digico, and Yamaha.After a quick overview from all three exhibitors, attendees voluntarily divided in to three groups for half-hour demonstrations. All three consoles feature a control surface, with the "brain" and the I/O sections in nearby racks connected via digital umbilical cords. They all feature snapshot recall of all parameters, the ability to store multiple setups, and motorized faders.
The Yamaha PM1D is the culmination of over a decade of experience in the manufacture of digital consoles for the recording market. Yamaha received a lot of input from live sound engineers and rental houses across North America, and have produced a user-friendly board that is not difficult to operate for engineers familiar with large format analog consoles.
There are already at least 200 PM1D's in use worldwide, and user feedback indicates that the consoles are rugged and reliable. The console is the largest of the three, and is available with 48 or 96 inputs. A "Selected Input Channel" section allows adjustments to four-band parametric EQ, effects sends, a compressor and gate on each channel, and 24 mix busses. There is up to 250msec delay available on each input. Twenty-four graphic EQ's are available for output processing.
The PM1D is available with 48 or 96 inputs. A "Selected Input Channel" section allows adjustments to four-band parametric EQ, effects sends, a compressor and gate on each channel, and 24 mix busses. There is up to 250msec delay available on each input. Twenty-four graphic EQ's are available for output processing. Scenes can be stored to PCMCIA memory cards and can be edited offline on a PC. There are also libraries of presets for the EQ's, comps, gates and delays.
The innovaSon consoles take up a very small footprint which makes both roadies and concert hall owners happy. The Compact Live features 32 inputs, and the Grand Live has 48. Standard features include 5 band parametric EQ, up to 24 outputs, and dynamics on each channel. They are manufactured in France, and have become very popular with touring acts over the past few years, including Toronto's own Barenaked Ladies. The console is sold with a stage box which contains the mic preamps, using a fibre-optic snake to feed data to the control surface via the audio racks.
innovaSon supplied four consoles for last year's Juno Awards, which were used in both remote trucks for the broadcast mix, as well as at the FOH and monitor positions, greatly cutting down of the real estate formerly taken up by six large format analog boards. Given the large number of features, and the compact design, its relatively low price will ensure its success.
The Digico D5 is the "new kid on the block", but the console is based on the Soundtracs digital studio board, which has become the affordable alternative for recording studios wishing to purchase a fully equipped digital console without having to spend half a million dollars.
Though similar in features to the other two boards, the D5 has four touch sensitive video screens, which allows for monitoring different parameters without having to scroll through menus or turning knobs. This is a major problem with many other brands, as analog trained engineers like to have as much information in front of them as possible. The Digico is available in 56 and 96 input versions. A hot-swappable auto-switching redundant power supply gives the system a high degree of reliability. A miniature USB key allows quick interfacing with a PC.
For more details, visit http://www.digiconsoles.com, http://www.innovason.com, and http://www.yamaha.com/proaudio/.
Thanks to Ashley Clarke from Yamaha, Marc Vincent and Colin Bernard from Sennheiser, Canadian distributor for Innovason: and Dave Dysart from HHB, who distribute Digico. It was a most interesting and informative evening.
by: Doug McClement, Cub Reporter and long standing friend of the Executive Committee
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