Tag Archives: Digital Consoles

The POTH Commentaries – VCAs/DCAs

VCA/ DCA control is very handy, especially for “non-homogenous” routing situations.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Author’s Note: This article is the first in a short series that addresses concepts and happenings related to Pigs Over The Horizon, a Pink Floyd tribute starring Advent Horizon and Friends.


When you start working with more full-featured consoles, you’ll likely run across something you might not have seen before. It’s a control feature called the VCA, or sometimes DCA on digital desks. What is this strange creature? What is it good for?

First off: A VCA is a Voltage Controlled Amplifier. The “D” comes in as a way to say that the same concept is being applied in the digital realm. (In my opinion, a digital system has it much easier, because you don’t have to work with analog circuit logic and the complexities of components or circuit layouts that come with that whole business.) The whole notion rests squarely on how it’s possible to build gain stages that modify the applied change to an audio signal in proportion to a separately applied control signal. If you have a number of control signal generators available, and can choose which control signal to apply to other gain stages, then you end up with a number of VCA/ DCA assignments. Connect a fader to the control signal generator such that the control signal is modified by that fader, and you have a VCA that’s intuitive to manage.

The VCA/ DCA concept, then, is that of a control group. When you assign faders to a control group, you are directing the console to maintain the relative balance that you set amongst those faders, while also giving you an overall level control for all of those channels at once.

“Like routing all those channels through a bus?” you ask.

Yes and no. The magic of the VCA/ DCA is that you get bus-like level management, but your routing is unaffected. In other words, VCA/ DCA groups are control groups independent of audio signal considerations. This was a big deal for me with Pigs Over The Horizon, because of how we did the playback FX.

The playback FX were in surround. Two channels were routed up front (in mono, actually), with two more channels that were sent directly to surround left and surround right, respectively. Once the surround channels were “lined up” with respect to each other and the feeds to the front, I didn’t want to change that relationship – but I DID want to be able to ride the overall FX cue volume if I had to.

I couldn’t achieve what I wanted by busing the four FX channels together; They would all have ended up going to a single destination, with no way to separate them back out to get surround again. By assigning them to a DCA group, though, it was a cinch. The routing didn’t change at all, but my ability to grab one control and regulate the overall volume of the unchanged balance was established.

Of course, busing is still a very important tool. You need it whenever you DO want to get a bunch of sources to flow to a single destination. This might not just be for simple combining. You might want to process a whole bunch of channels with exactly the same EQ and compression, for example, and then send them off to the main output. If that’s not what you’re after, though, a VCA/ DCA group is a great choice. You don’t chew up a bus just for the simple task of grouped volume control, and if you change your mind on the routing later it’s not a big deal. Your grouped controls stay grouped, no matter where you send them, again, because of that “independence” factor. The VCA/ DCA has nothing to do with where signals are coming from or where they’re going – it only changes the gain applied.

I personally am not as heavy a user of VCA/ DCA groups as some other audio humans, but I see them as a handy tool that I may end up leveraging more in the future. I’m glad I know what they are, because they’re a great problem solver. If your console has them, I definitely recommend becoming familiar with their usage. The day may come when you need ’em!


Gig Log: Samba Fogo – Ouca (April 24 – 28, 2018)

Fire, dancing, and a swanky theater. Can you beat that?

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Job Type: Recurring, multi-day, single facility.

Venue: The Jeanne Wagner Theater at The Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, a high-dollar facility that is VERY classy. The stage is cavernously huge, with a full fly-system and a ceiling height to match. The new toy this year was an automated raise/ drop controller for the grand drape. I didn’t get to play with it, but it was cool just being around it.

Load-in: I got in the van to leave, and the danged thing wouldn’t start! Fortunately, my dad has one of those “tiny package, huge current” jumpstart kits, and that got me on the road. Once you get let into the facility, the load-in is actually pretty posh; These folks have big doors that a cargo van can definitely wiggle into. I got the gear indoors, then clambered back into the van to park it, and…click. Nothing. (I had, of course, swiped Dad’s jumpstarter, so I impressed the technical director and one of his assistants by giving myself a jolt and going on my way.) Even with all the drama, I managed to be early.

Load-out: I love the Rose Wagner, but I hate where they put it. Or maybe I hate where they put the things around it? They’re right behind a large, popular nightclub, and that means the back alley – which is already a bit tight – can get even more constricted with VIPs who park there. With Samba Fogo, the approaching end of the show run means that I start silently reciting things like the Serenity Prayer (sometimes with more or less cursing), readying myself to “just deal” with whatever situation crops up in the back. Of course, the last time around was pretty darn okay, as was this iteration, and I had plenty of help getting everything buttoned up and loaded. I’m pretty sure we actually set a record for the elapsed time to pack up and go back home this year. That’s even including my standard, 800-point turn to get the “cargo ship” turned around in the confines of the alley. I got help with that at the end too, which was very nice. Maybe it was only a 600-point turn this time. (Seriously, the van feels very unwieldy in downtown Salt Lake…)

What Went Well

  • It’s Samba Fogo!: Who wouldn’t want to work with high-energy Brazilian dance? There’s fire involved, such that the local authorities have to come out and approve the action. There’s a big ol’ drumline that can make a TON of noise without any help from electronic doodads. There are performers in the finale who (I think) are 7+ feet tall in heels and headdresses. Folks are happy to be there. It’s a complete package.
  • SC48 Automation: I have mixed feelings about the Avid SC48, but if I’m going to do snapshot automation it’s a great choice. The snapshot system is generally easy to understand, has crossfading available for many parameters, and also features a “scoping system” (defining what is or is not automated at any given point) which is both easy AND very flexible.
  • It’s A Snap(shot): I also have mixed feelings about snapshot automation, especially because my style of mixing lends itself to working on the fly. At the same time, snapshots allow the console to keep track of piece-to-piece changes for you, which is very helpful when you’re doing something like working blind: This year, a midstage curtain was closed for certain pieces, meaning I didn’t have visual cues as to what was being played or not. In such a situation, I say, “Let the console do the remembering.”
  • Hooray For The ACS: I don’t find the SC48 control surface to be all that great – mostly because I just don’t prefer physical surfaces anymore – but it does have a big, beautiful display called the ACS. The ACS puts a lot of power and information right in front of you, with an intuitive, mouse-driven interface that’s great for getting things done in a hurry. (I will admit to liking the fact that the physical surface is large and impressive-looking, but that only goes so far.)
  • Uncompression: Samba Fogo gets the whole prep-time thing absolutely right. We have a full-on tech day for sorting out audio and lighting issues, then another night for a dress rehearsal, and THEN we do the shows. We have time to pick at things and sort them out, instead of trying to just throw it all together at the last moment. I have a very soft spot for people who refrain from compressing a show schedule, because it makes my life so much happier – and helps me to do the best job possible.

What Could Have Been Better

  • I Miss MY Console: It might seem heretical to show partiality to a $2000 mixing desk versus a $30,000+ unit, but familiarity is a big deal. I’m unashamed to say that I definitely prefer an X32 to an SC48 when it comes to “features in common,” again, mostly because familiarity stops me from having to go hunting around for things. Oh, and honest-to-goodness remote capability is a big deal for me. Especially in a large facility, I really, really miss having stupid-easy remote control over the mixer. (Troubleshooting gets tiring when you have to run back and forth between the stage and booth.) And yes, the Avid runs plugins, but all I need them for is to engage functionality – like parametric output EQ – that an X32 simply has available as a built-in feature.
  • Did You Ask For Directions?: On our tech day, I wasted a whole bunch of time by not asking for help. I was 100% sure that I was running console outputs directly to the patchbay – but I wasn’t! I erroneously assumed that the snake I was running from was connected to the console…when it had nothing to do with the console at all. I would have been told that in 10 seconds if I had asked a house tech, but did I? Nope. I eventually yanked a couple of console outputs, jammed in a pair of short XLR cables, and then ran adapters to the bay. It was an incredibly roundabout way to do something that would have been easy if I just used the patch as intended. The upside is that I’ll probably remember that little misadventure forever, so it wasn’t a total loss. One of my strengths is that I WILL find a creative way to get things done. My weakness is sometimes going that route inappropriately.

Conclusion

Samba Fogo is a high-class gig that I lucked into, and I’m hoping to keep it.


Gig Log: Talia Keys And The Love Album Release (April 21, 2018)

Being part of the big party is pretty fun.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Job Type: One-off special.

Venue: The State Room, which is very arguably THE premiere Salt Lake City venue for “human scale” shows.

Load-in: Parked on the wrong side of the building, but I discovered the fact after I paid. Whoops! Not too much gear, though, so carrying it in through a fire door wasn’t a big deal.

Load-out: Moved the vehicle to the dock, and everything was so much easier!

What Went Well

  • Eating at the cool-kids’ table, metaphorically: A lot of people who would appear in a “Who’s Who Of Salt Lake City Live Music” were either playing the show or working the show. Most of them I had met, and it was excellent to be introduced to those I hadn’t. I may also have gotten on the State Room’s call list for crew. (Maybe.)
  • Eating at the cool-kids’ table, literally: Talia invited me to partake of the goodies in the green room, which is a very generous and classy thing for an artist to offer (especially when you’re ancillary crew and not a “must have this person for the show to happen”). I was overjoyed to discover an abundance of raspberries and blackberries, two of my favorite things in the world.
  • Collaborative environments: As I just said, I was an ancillary. I was there to multitrack the show for the sake of posterity and video, but if I hadn’t been there the actual gig would have gone on just fine. With that in mind, the courtesy and help I received from both the cast and crew (especially Adam, the A1) was stellar.
  • Well equipped venues are the best: I didn’t have to bring a split, because The State Room’s main stage box already has one. No muss, no fuss, no “figuring it out,” just plug, play, and go.
  • Hooray for digital: The aforementioned split went to my digital stagebox, which then had an AES50 line attached and run to the backstage area. This got me out of the way of everybody else – mostly, with one connection and one easily run cable.
  • This is a low pressure center: Not being directly part of the “live loop” meant that it was a very “chillaxed” evening for me. I got to just sit back, hit record, and dial up a quick mix for myself to enjoy the show. It was about as close as you can possibly get to being paid just for showing up.

What Could Have Been Better

  • I just remembered: We got part of the way through setting me in the upstage right corner before I remembered that I had brought my stagebox for the purpose of staying out of the way. Duh! Luckily we only lost a few minutes to that brain cramp.
  • Accidental displacement: I ended up in a back room that was supposed to have been the dressing room for the aerialist. She ended up having to share with some other folks, which wasn’t horrible but also not what was expected. Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that…

Conclusion

It was my very first time at The State Room, and I got to experience it in grand style at a killer show. I don’t think you can top that.


Console Questions

A few simple queries can get you going on just about any console.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Back when I was in school, we were introduced to “The Four Console Questions.” The idea behind the questions was that, if you walked up to a strange mixer, you could get answers to the questions and be able to get work done. Mixing desks come in many varieties, but there aren’t very many truly different ways to build them that make sense. In any case, all the basic concepts have to essentially stay the same. If a console can’t take some number “a” of audio inputs, and route those inputs to some number “o” of outputs, you don’t have a mixing console anyway.

With the growing commonality of digital mix systems, I feel that the essential “console questions” need some expansion and tweaking. As such, here’s my take on the material that was presented to me over a decade and a half (GEEZE!) ago.

1. Do I Know What I Want To Do?

You might say that this isn’t a console question at all, but in truth, it’s THE most important one. If you don’t know what you want to do with the console, then knowing a bunch of information about the console’s operation won’t help you one iota. The unfortunate reality is that many people try to engage in this whole exercise backwards; They don’t know what they want to accomplish, but they figure that learning the mixer’s whys and wherefores will help them figure it out.

Certainly, learning about a new feature that you haven’t had access to previously can lead you to new techniques. However, at a bedrock level, you have to have some preconceived notion of what you want to accomplish with the tool. Do you want to get a vocal into the FOH PA? Do you want to get three electric guitars, a kazoo, and a capybara playing Tibetan singing-bowls into 12 different monitor mixes?

You have to know your application.

2. How Do I Correctly Clock The Console?

For an analog console, the answer to this is always: “No clock is required.”

For a digital rig, though, it’s very important. I just recently befuddled myself for an agonizing minute with why a digital console wasn’t showing any input. Whoops! It was because I had set it to receive external clock from a master console a few weeks before, and hadn’t returned it to internal clocking now that it was on its own.

You need to know how to indicate to the console which clock source and sample rate is appropriate for the current situation.

3. How Do I Choose What Inputs Are Available To The Channels?

This is particularly important with consoles that support both on-board input and remote stageboxes. You will very likely have to pick and choose which of those options is available to an individual channel or group of channels. What you need to discover is how those selections are accomplished.

4. How Do I Connect A Particular Input To A Particular Channel?

You might think this was covered in the previous question, but it wasn’t. Your global input options aren’t the end of the story. Many consoles will let you do per-channel “soft-patching,” which is the connection of a certain available signal to a certain channel without having to change a physical connection. Whether on a remote stagebox or directly at the desk, input 1 may NOT necessarily be appearing on channel 1. You have to find out how those connections are chosen.

5. How Do I Insert Channel Processing?

In some situations, this means a physical insert connection that may be automatically enabled…or not. In other cases, this means the enabling and disabling of per-channel dynamics and/ or EQ, and maybe even other DSP processing available onboard in some way. You will need to know how that takes place, and with all the possible variations that might have to do with your particular application, it is CRITICAL that you know what you want to do.

6. How Do I Route A Channel To An Auxiliary, Mix Bus, Or The Main Bus?

Sometimes, this is dead-simple and “locked in.” You might have four auxiliaries and four submix buses implemented in hardware, such that they can only be auxiliary or mix buses, with the same knobs always pushing the same aux and a routing matrix with pan-based bus selection. On the other hand, you might have a pool of buses that can behave in various ways depending on global configuration, per-channel configuration, or both.

So, you’ll need to figure out what you’ve got, and how to connect a given channel to a given bus so that you get the results you want.

7. How Do I Insert Bus Processing?

This might be just like question 5, or wildly different. You will need to sort out which reality is currently in play.

8. How Do I Connect A Given Signal To A Physical Output?

Just because you have a signal running to a bus, there’s no guarantee that the bus is actually going to transfer signal to any other piece of equipment. Especially in the digital world, there may be another layer of patching to assign signals to either digital or analog outputs. Bus 1 might be on output 7, because six matrices might be connected to the first six outputs. Maybe output 16 is a pre-fader direct out from channel 4.

You’ll have to figure out where all that gets specified.


Obviously, there’s more to being a whiz at any particular console than eight basic questions. However, if you can get a given signal into the desk, through some processing, combined with other signals you want to combine, and then off to the next destination, you can at least make some real noise in the room.


No, Analog Isn’t Better

Analog gear does look cool, though.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Although the fight isn’t nearly so pitched as it once was, some folks might still ask: “Is analog better than digital?”

Analog audio gear does indeed have one major advantage over its number-crunching counterparts. Especially with the right lighting, it often looks a lot cooler on Instagram. Other than that, I’ll take digital over analog any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

Everyone’s got their own opinion, of course, and I can respect that. I believe that I can back mine up pretty convincingly.

“Back in the day,” you could make a case that analog sounded better. I maintain that this was because both analog and digital grunged up signals to about the same degree, but that digital grunge is generally perceived as being less pleasing. We’re in the 21st Century now, though, and those problems were fixed a good while back. Today’s digital is clear, hyper-accurate, and pristine, even with all manner of gain-changes piled on and low-level signals being passed. Along with that, digital gear is compact, lightweight, flexible, cheap, and feature rich.

Analog, on the other hand, is large, heavy, inflexible, expensive, and feature-limited. It also does not sound “better.”

What do I mean?

Let’s take the example of a modern, digital console, like an X32 Core. Such a console is the ultimate expression of digital’s strengths:

First of all, the setup is tiny. With six rack-spaces handy, you can have 32 X 16 I/O, plus a separate console for FOH and monitor world. Of course, the system has no control surface, so you’ll need a laptop or tablet to act as a “steering wheel.” Even so, the whole shebang could fit in the trunk of a small car. A similar analog setup would necessitate a good-sized SUV, truck, or van for transport.

This also factors into the lightweight aspect. I don’t know exactly how much the above system weighs, but I know it’s a LOT less than two, 32 input analog boards. Even with no other accoutrements, the old-school solution will put you into the 80-pound range at a minimum. Add in a traditional multicore and stagebox splitters, and…well…it’s a lot to carry.

The flexibility argument comes next. Although everything has a design limit, gear that runs on code can have updates applied easily. As long as any new functionality falls within what the hardware and basic software platform can manage, that new functionality can be added – through a simple software update – for as long as the manufacturer cares to work on the system. Front-end control is just as malleable, if not more. If it turns out that the software portion of the interface could do things better, an update gets written and that’s that. Equipment that operates on physical circuits either has no path for similar changes, or if it does, accomplishing the changes is a task that’s profoundly difficult in comparison.

Cost and feature-set dovetail into one another. At the very bare minimum, you can purchase the mixers for a dual-console analog system for about $2800. That’s not too bad in the grand scheme of things, until you realize that a similar investment in the digital world can also get you the stagebox and snake. Also, the digital system will have tons of processing muscle that the analog setup won’t be able to touch. Twelve monitor mixes, fully-configurable channel-per-channel dynamics, four-band parametric EQ, a sweepable filter, EQ and dynamics on every output, plus eight additional processing units? Good luck finding that in an integrated analog package. Such a thing doesn’t even exist as far as I know, and anything even remotely comparable won’t be found for less than tens of thousands of dollars.

So, what about my last point? That analog doesn’t actually sound better?

It doesn’t. No, really. It may sound different. You may like that it sounds different. I can’t argue with personal taste. The reality, though, is that the different sound (especially “warmth” or “fatness” or “depth”) is the product of the gear not passing a clean signal. Maybe the circuitry imparts a nice, low-frequency bump somewhere. Maybe it rolls off in the highs. Maybe there’s just a touch of even-harmonic distortion that creeps in at your preferred gain structure. That’s nifty, but in any objective sense it’s either a circuit that’s inflexibly pre-equalized or is forgiving when being run hard. That may be what some people want, but it’s not what I want, and I’m not going to label it as “better” when a pleasing result is precipitated by a design limitation. (Or only appears when the gain is set just-so.)

Analog isn’t dead, and it isn’t going to die. Our digital systems require well-designed analog stages on the input and output sides to function in real life. At the same time, there are good reasons to make as much of the signal chain digital as is possible. Digital sounds great, and holds too many practical advantages for it to lose out in an objective comparison.


The Unterminated Line

If nothing’s connected and there’s still a lot of noise, you might want to call the repair shop.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

“I thought we fixed the noise on the drum-brain inputs?” I mused aloud, as one of the channels in question hummed like hymenoptera in flight. I had come in to help with another rehearsal for the band called SALT, and I was perplexed. We had previously chased down a bit of noise that was due to a ground loop; Getting everything connected to a common earthing conductor seemed to have helped.

Yet here we were, channel two stubbornly buzzing away.

Another change to the power distribution scheme didn’t help.

Then, I disconnected the cables from the drum-brain. Suddenly – the noise continued, unchanged. Curious. I pulled the connections at the mixer side. Abruptly, nothing happened. Or rather, the noise continued to happen. Oh, dear.


When chasing unwanted noise, disconnecting things is one of your most powerful tools. As you move along a signal chain, you can break the connection at successive places. When you open the circuit and the noise stops, you know that the supplier of your spurious signal is upstream of the break.

Disconnecting the cable to the mixer input should have resulted in relative silence. An unterminated line, that is, an input that is NOT connected to upstream electronics, should be very quiet in this day and age. If something unexplained is driving a console input hard enough to show up on an input meter, yanking out the patch should yield a big drop in the visible and audible level. When that didn’t happen, logic dictated an uncomfortable reality:

1) The problem was still audible, and sounded the same.

3) The input meter was unchanged, continuing to show electrical activity.

4) Muting the input stopped the noise.

5) The problem was, therefore, post the signal cable and pre the channel mute.

In a digital console, this strongly indicates that something to do with the analog input has suffered some sort of failure. Maybe the jack’s internals weren’t quite up to spec. Maybe a solder joint was just good enough to make it through Quality Control, but then let go after some time passed.

In any case, we didn’t have a problem we could fix directly. Luckily, we had some spare channels at the other end of the input count, so we moved the drum-brain connections there. The result was a pair of inputs that were free of the annoying hum, which was nice.

But if you looked at the meter for channel two, there it still was: A surprisingly large amount of input on an unterminated line.


Console Envy

When it comes to sound quality, any console capable of doing the show will probably be fine.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

The Video

The Summary

Which console sounds best? The one with the features you need. If an inexpensive mixer has all the necessary features for your shows, spending more doesn’t have much of a point.


The Effervescent Joy Of Meeting A Knowledgeable Outsider

Some of the best folks to find are those who know the craft, but aren’t invested in your workflow.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Last week, I got to spend a few days with students from Broadview Entertainment Arts University. The Live Sound class needs some honest-to-goodness shows to work on, so Bruce (their actual professor) and myself worked out a bit of a mechanism: I put a couple of gigs together every quarter, BEAU provides the room, I bring the PA, and we spend three days getting our collective hands dirty with building the thing.

Last week was the first round. As usual, I spent too much time talking and we didn’t get as far as maybe we should have. I also made some hilarious blunders, because everything involved in putting on a live gig is a perishable skill, and I sometimes have sizable gaps between productions. (For several minutes, I couldn’t find the blasted aux-in remap selector for my X32, even though I was on the “Input” routing page and staring right at it. I also absent-mindedly walked off the drum riser while I was mid-sentence. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.)

Anyway.

We had a really solid group of students all around. One of the most solid students was Patrick. Patrick is a guy who’s coming at this whole live-sound thing with a background in telecom. Telecom, like audio for entertainment, is the sort of business where you have to manage and troubleshoot every possible species of signal-transfer problem imaginable. Telecom skills are also becoming increasingly relevant to audio because of our increased reliance on high-speed network infrastructure. When all your audio, control, and clock signaling gets jammed onto a Cat6, it’s important to have some sort of clue as to what’s going on. (I have just enough clues to make things work. Other people have many more clues.)

As the story ended up going, we had a problem with my digi-snake. We got everything plugged together, and…oh dear. The consoles were only seeing one stage box, instead of both cascaded together. I walked over to the deck and started puzzling through things. Did the cascade connection get partially yanked? No. Did the boxes simply need a reset? No. Had I crunched the cascade cable at some point? No. I was on the brink of declaring that we’d just have to muddle through with one box when Patrick got involved.

Had I tried running a signal directly to the second box? Well, actually I hadn’t, because I was used to thinking of the two boxes as a unit.

Click.

Oh, look! The second box illuminated its green light of digital-link happiness.

Had I tried plugging directly into the secondary connection on the first box? Well, actually I hadn’t.

Click.

No happy-light was to be found.

I considered all that very nifty, but still being invested in my way of doing things, I failed to immediately see the obvious. Patrick enlightened me.

“The B-jack on the top box is the problem. Just connect them in reverse order, and you’ll have both. You can always change them around in the rack later.”

Of course, he was exactly right, and he had saved the day. (I was really glad were working on the problem the night before the show, instead of with 30 minutes to spare.)

The point here is that Patrick’s skillset, while not directly related to what we were doing, was fully transferable. He didn’t know the exact system we were working on, but he had plenty of experience at troubleshooting data-interconnects in general. He also had a distinct advantage over me. He was looking at the problem with a set of totally fresh eyes. Not being locked into a particular set of assumptions about how the system was supposed to work as a whole, he could conceptualize the individual pieces as being modular rather than as a single, static, integrated solution. I was thinking inside the flightcase, while Patrick was thinking outside the flightcase about everything inside that same flightcase. There’s a difference.

The whole situation was the triumph of the knowledgeable outsider. A person with the skills to make your plan work, but who isn’t yet invested in your specific plan may be just what you need when the whole mess starts to act up. They might be able to take a piece of the whole, reconfigure it, and slot it back in while you’re still getting your mind turned around. It’s really quite impressive.


When The Control Surface Fails

You may have to reboot – or you might not want to.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Back in “the day,” we got wind of an exciting development: Consoles now existed that had a measure of independence between the actual audio processing and the control system. If the controls – the “surface” – had a problem, you could restart the surface without interrupting your show. Neat!

Of course, only the big boys and girls had access to this. I still have in my possession a pair of digital consoles that do not allow that kind of behavior. When they were newly built, the asking price per each was $3000. Nowadays, you can swipe a card for $450 and get the DSP part of a digital console equation that’s noticeably better.

These new, mini-consoles are designed to connect to a tablet or computer via a network, presenting a virtual surface through the external device. The convenient and fast way to do this is over WiFi, and it’s great when it’s really working…but it’s not so great when something goes amiss. (To be brutally frank, it’s another case of “It takes a pretty darn spendy wireless unit to be as good as a $5 cable.”) The console keeps charging along, passing audio without a hitch. You, on the other hand, are sitting there, somewhat alarmed that your display is freezing and lagging like a Tenderfoot Boy Scout on his first cold-weather hike.

So, what do you do?

Well, first, I would urge you to remember that disrupting a show or event is the last thing you want to do. Second, you need to keep in mind that some control is better than no control at all. Third, having no control at a critical moment will disrupt the show. (You see, Simba, we are all connected in the great circle of…mic cables…no…loading in and out…no, that’s not it…)

Anyway.

The point is that if you reboot your surface, or the WiFi module that communicates with it, you are no longer a “pilot in command.” Instead, you’re a pilot strapped to a jet that is going to do whatever it was last told to do, come hell or high water. That might be a good thing; A right thing. It might also be the wrong thing, or a thing that’s so horrifically bad that you want to hide your eyes and run for an exit. In whatever state you are, you are going to be stuck until the surface or network is back up. How long will that take? A few seconds? A minute? Several minutes?

You may not be able to be sure.

If the problem is degrading your control, but not completely preventing it, keep what control you have. Only reboot if you actually lose control, and that’s what you need to do to return to the driver’s seat. If it looks like you’ll soon be forced to let the system drive itself for a bit, try to use what influence you have left to make your mix stable and accommodating of coming changes. Open all channels that might need to be un-muted in the next while, and pull your output masters down a bit to guard against feedback.

Otherwise, just let the situation ride. Things might be clumsy and disconcerting, but you’ll be able to get through.

And have an alternative control connection available if at all possible. Like something that uses a $5 cable.


Why I’m Excited About The New X32-Edit

Alternative interfaces are best when they actually leverage the power of being alternative.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

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Even if you don’t use X32-Edit, the remote/ offline software for Behringer’s X32 series of consoles, I think you should keep reading. I say this because the point of this article is not to “dig deep” into the feature set of X32-Edit. Rather, I want to speak in (fairly) general terms about what console-remote software can get right, and not so right.

So, anyway…

I’m a publicly avowed fan of Behringer’s X18. I’m especially a fan of the control software, which I feel absolutely nailed what console control software should be. The ironic thing was that I felt the X18 application was markedly BETTER than the remote control/ offline editor for the X32 – and the X32 is the higher-tier product!

But why would that be?

Well, rather like the gentlemen of “Car Talk,” I have a theory – or, more correctly, a hypothesis. My guess is that the X18 software was better because it was free, from the very beginning, to act purely as a virtualized interface. The X32 series is solidly founded on consoles which have a real control surface, the only true exception being the X32 Core model. An X18 and its cousins, on the other hand, are built on the idea of having almost no physical controls at all.

With the X32, then, it was very easy for the software designers to choose to closely emulate the look and feel of the physical control surface. In the case of the X18, there was never any surface to copy – and the control implementation benefited greatly as a result. The software was always meant to be a connection to something abstract; DSP and digital console commands have no physical form that they are required to take. With this being the case, the presentation of the controls could be built to fully embrace the nature of a display device fundamentally decoupled from the console. The control layout can be rearranged to best leverage whatever screen size and geometry is available. Actions can be streamlined, contextualized, and made more powerful with the recognition that a user can apply multiple control gestures (click, long-click, double click, right-click, etc) on a single element. You can easily have a console overview that provides a ton of information, yet remains interactive.

The X18 software took great advantage of the above, which meant that I immediately recognized it as the way that X32-Edit SHOULD have worked. To be both clear and fair, the previous iterations of X32-Edit weren’t poor or unusable. What they were was “conflicted.” They sort of took advantage of what a large, decoupled view device could do for console usage, but they also often limited their behavior based on the limitations of the physical control surface’s display. Why make something less capable than it can be? In my mind, yes, there is a point in having familiarity – but getting powerful usage out of a console is more about understanding the concept of what you want to do than memorizing the button presses to do it.

Also, the old X32 remote implementation never showed as much overview as it could have with all the screen real-estate that was available, and it couldn’t really “flow” itself into different screen shapes and resolutions either. It had a basically fixed size and aspect-ratio, and if that didn’t take advantage of what was there…tough.

Thus, I am very, very happy with the new X32-Edit. It acts like a beefed-up version of the X18 application, taking all kinds of advantage of being a virtual window into the mixer. Everything seems to be more immediately accessible, and the display offers real customization in terms of what you’re looking at. The software isn’t trying to be a copy of the control surface; It’s trying to be a replacement for it.

And that has made X32-Edit into the software that it always should have been.