Audio post consoles: manufacturers targeting audio post are gearing up for the next wave of demands

Post, Feb, 2004 by David John Farinella

Whether it's more channels or faster processors, console companies are looking beyond the present and creating boards designed to stand the test of time. To that end, many manufacturers point out that ultimate flexibility and compatibility with digital audio workstations are becoming the norm, so they are incorporating both those requirements into the boards currently offered, as well as those in development. Also, many companies are sending a silent nod to independent post engineers by offering a host of expandable entry-level boards.

FAIRLIGHT

According to Fairlight CEO John Lancken, the company offers a full range of products that are mixing, recording and editing based. The key concept behind the DREAM family, Lancken reports, "is the ability to start with small scale mixing and move up into larger format mixing environments for motion pictures and television. We've designed the system to make it very simple for an operator to work in several formats - 4.1, 5.1, stereo - all at the same time."

The DREAM's flexibility was deemed indispensable once the company heard that post engineers were having difficulty working with multiple formats due to the rise of stereo, high definition and surround sound simulcasts. "Programs need to be prepared for multiple types of mixing formats, but the program makers have not allocated any extra time to the task at hand." Lancken explains. "So, we've developed a very comprehensive system called Bus Reduction, which enables an operator to configure a mix in say 5.1, but then very simply switch to stereo." Also, every channel that is an aux send, a channel path or bus can be any format from mono all the way up to 7.1.

Fairlight (www.fairlightau.com) is replacing the DREAM console with the DREAM Constellation, which was introduced at AES 2003. "We're seeing with more and more multiformat work a requirement for more channels, so we increased [the number of channels out of the QDC] to 144 channels and we're going to increase that to over 200 in the next few months," Lancken reports. "Our product has the whole integration between disc recording, editing and mixing. The other neat thing we showed at AES was the ability to move some audio in the editing environment and have the automation move along with the audio. It uses exactly the same user interface as we use in the editor. Now clips can be moved with the automation in place, so it can go down the timeline or whatever and there's no additional key strokes. You just do it as a normal edit."

At AES, Fairlight also introduced the Station Plus, which is an integrated mixer and editor. The Station Plus doubled the capacity of the year-old Station and can be configured with additional busses and live feeds with additional DSP cards in the QDC chassis and some changes to the user interface.

The company is also offering the new SoftMix mixing control application for PCs that makes a Fairlight Merlin and MFX3.48 DAW into a surround-capable mixing system. SoftMix supports Fairlight's Plug-Ins Manager 5 and removes the need for an external mixer. If a mixer is already in place, the software provides plug-in, routing and sub-mixing capabilities.

EUPHONIX

Dave Hansen, VP of product marketing at Euphonix (www.euphonix.com), says the company is working toward providing a solution for customers when it comes to digital audio workstation integration. "Our control surfaces, which have been used for mixing and things like that, are going to be able to directly control digital audio workstations," he explains. "The first one we've been working on is the Steinberg Nuendo and we've been showing this collaboration at trade shows for the last year. I think you're going to see that kind of product development from us over the year."

Euphonix has also developed the new EuCon control surface for all of their consoles that is a workstation control monitor complete with a jog wheel, buttons and a touch screen that enable plug-in controls and direct interface with the DAW. "Also, when you move the faders on the console, the faders on the screen move." Hansen adds. "So, [there's] control integration between the work surface and the editor or the workstation." In the next year, Hansen reports, Euphonix will offer software upgrades for automation and control surface enhancements.

These new upgrades are responding to trends that Euphonix has identified, the most urgently being the idea that DAWs are taking over for what tape, console automation or routing systems used to do. "People were spending tremendous amounts of money on these big infrastructures," he explains. "Nowadays what you'd do with a storage area network and some GigaEthernet switches and workstations tends to replace a lot of that stuff. So, where you used to have to make a dub of a tape or something, now you're sending a file. Or if somebody needed something to go up to video they'd have to print something on the audio tracks of a Digi Beta and walk it upstairs; now it's done on a workstation, posted on the network and picked up by the Avid room. So, that's where a lot of those heavy hardware infrastructures don't make much sense anymore in post."