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

Post, Feb, 2004 by David John Farinella

YAMAHA

Yamaha's new DM1000 is an off-shoot of the company's popular DM2000 console. "The DM1000 has a lot of the same capabilities as the DM2000, it's just scaled down for footprint," Yamaha commercial audio systems product manager Marc Lopez explains. "One of the biggest things on it is the surround sound capability in such a small board. It supports LCRS panning, 5.1 and 6.1, plus a built-in surround monitor for all of that. It has surround sound effects built-in and it supports up to 48 channels of mixing. It has eight mixing busses, plus a stereo master bus, eight auxiliary sends and four built-in effects processor that can be patched as inserts or as aux sends. A compressor and a gate on each input channel, plus a four-band parametric EQ. Each of the outputs has a compressor and a four-band parametric as well. And all of this fits into a 19-inch rack space console." A meter bridge, which can be used to monitor input channels and outputs, can be purchased separately. Additionally, the DM1000 supports Yamaha's Mini-YGDAI card slot system.

In 2004, Yamaha (www.yamahaproaudio.com) will be announcing a new version of the DM1000 that will open the console up to a number of add-on effects (plug-ins) and a version two for the DM2000. "We have a bunch of new modeled effects--tube compressors, solid state compressors and some vintage EQs. Specifically for surround sound we have a couple of unique surround sound add-on effects for post production," he says. "One of them is a room panner where we can actually position a person into a room and the direction they are facing. So, for recording ADR, if someone is walking around and turning around and facing the walls, our panner will actually simulate that exact sound of someone walking around in the room and what the voice characteristic sounds like when he's turning around or facing the camera or not facing the camera. We call it the Early Reflection Room Simulator and in the ISSP Effect Package there is an auto Doppler effect and another unique effect, which we call Field Rotation, that allows you to take a 5.1 or 6.1 field and rotate that entire field in a surround field."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

MACKIE

Mackie (www.mackie.com) has built a reputation for affordable yet accessory-packed consoles, ranging from the 1202-VLZ Pro to the 1402-VLZ Pro to the 1604-VLZ Pro and the 1642-VLZ Pro. One of the company's newest products is the dXb digital production console, which was introduced at AES '03 and will be available in the second quarter of 2004. The dXb is a 96k/ 192k capable board that features a 72X72 I/O matrix as well as two 15-inch integrated touch screens to view levels, routing, dynamics processing, surround panning and effect. This product also has internal DSP, automation, control surface functionality and FireWire I/O option cards to facilitate computer interfaces. The dXb is being developed with Sanewave, Inc., which assisted with Mackie's Digital 8-bus board.

The Mackie Control Universal offers a control surface for Emagic Logic Audio, Pro Tools, Cubase, Digital Performer, Nuendo and Sonar. The product features 100mm Penny Giles optical touch fader, a full-sized backlit LCD, V-Pots for adjusting effects and plugins and shortcut navigation for all major software. The Control Universal is also expandable with Mackie Control Extenders.