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

Post, Feb, 2004 by David John Farinella

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AMS NEVE

Without elaborating on specific products. AMS Neve (www.ams-neve.com) product manager Mike Reddick reports that 2004 is going to be a big for the company. "Many of our development threads, which have been in the pipeline, will come to fruition with some very exciting products."

Over the past year. Reddick stays, AMS Neve has been hearing from audio post professionals on a number of fronts. "What's high on people's priorities right now are events-based automation and re-conforming to EDL change lists," he reports. "People want to have the flexibility to mix completely within the virtual domain, which places more and more demand on signal processing. As a manufacturer of both an editor and mixer, we are offering a comprehensive level of integration for all levels of post production."

As for trends, Reddick sees a call for a more integrated edit/mix functionality "with the ability to get at any element of the project at any stage of the process and add, remove, or change even at the final mix stage."

SOUNDTRACS

Soundtracs (www.digiconsoles.com) continues to offer a number of consoles that post professionals turn to for ease of use. The DPC-II and D4, says Soundtracs product manager James Gordon, are for facilities looking for a more traditional console with 160 channels and up to 124 busses. The DS-3 and DS-00, he adds, "are for studios that want the console to look different, but still have all the ease of operation and automation."

The DS-00, which was introduced at NAB, is a fully-modular desk. According to Gordon, "There will be some new software for the console as well as a new hardware film panel coming up," he says. "That new software will expand the monitoring section to make it more suited to film mixing."

The company, Gordon explains, has seen that "people are now looking for a console that can be built around their room. They want and need the console to be part of the suite design, incorporating screens, switching and, of course, the PlayStation," he explains with a laugh. "This was the main thinking behind the DS-00, along with keeping it at a price point that meant the facility could still make a profit."

SOLID STATE LOGIC

SSL's (www.solid-state-logic.com) latest post offering, which was introduced at NAB '03, is the C200 console. LA's Fox Television purchased six of the boards to be used for the net's on-air promotion department. "They have quite an intensive department," says SSL director of product marketing Niall Feldman. "They do something like 400 spots a week that they upload to satellites for announcing what is coming on later in the evening or the next morning for Fox TV." The C200s will get put to the test, considering Fox's time demands. "There's a lot of work and they have to make quite a lot of changes to what they do," he explains. Fox will be using the C200s with Fairlight editors.

"Basically the things that make the C200 great for post production are that it's a very easy to use control surface, it's entirely digital and it works at all sample frequencies up to 96k," Feldman explains, "and it's fully 5.1 capable console as well."