A/D and D thru matrix

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bop

New member
Joined
Nov 7, 2009
Messages
4
Hello there,

at the moment i'm trying to find a solution for a rather complex situation.
My core business is live sound and although i'm on the road a lot with bands, i also am a resident sound engineer at a venue based in Amsterdam,Netherlands.

Since we own a couple of Digidesign/Avid mixing consoles we have the option of feeding the PA processors digitally.
This is such a major improvement in contrary to analog that we are figuring out an option for doing this.
The big problem starts here..........bands/engineers bring in their own boards, which provide our PA processors with an analog signal.
So we will need an A/D converter to solve this problem.
Our system is setup of two flown line-arrays (left and right) two groundstacks (line-array,left and right) and a sub cluster.
Now we feed our PA with a left and right master and our sub on an auxiliary.
We want to have the option of controlling the flown arrays seperately as well, so we get 5 lines to our processors. Either the way we are going to use it via 3x AES/EBU or analog with 5 lines.
The processors we are using are XTA's which can handle both analog or digital inputs, but it's quite a hastle to switch them from analog to digital, and we don't want anyone to go into the processor to tweak around, we want to keep them locked. So digital feed is the only option.

There are 2 analog lines coming from Front of House that we want to use at all times. This way we can have a DJ play when we remove the boards during change-overs for example.

So we need a device that is capable of feeding our PA system digitally with analog and digital inputs.

Summary :
-output from device to processors is going to be 3x AES/EBU
-inputs are going to be 5x analog (Left-Right stack, Left-Right fly,Sub) 2x analog (Let's call these DJ-lines) and 3xAES/EBU (1LR,2LR,3SUB)

The configuration has to be that the Analog Lines and Dj-line inputs have to work simultaneously.
This also goes for the DJ-lines and the AES/EBU inputs.
It has to be switchable from analog to digital inputs.


BSS has a device called a Soundweb that can do such a thing, but in riders they are often mentioned as a no-go.
So is there something of a better quality that can live up to all of our wishes?
Hope you can help me out.

For the MODS, if this is in an inappropriate forum, don't hesitate to move it to the correct one.

check following schematic for explanation.

padevice.jpg

 
Assuming your going the DIY route (after all, that's what we do here, right? that's why your here, and not at gearsl*tz)
Run your mixer from a local clock, at 192kHz.
Run ADC's (PCM4204's) at 192kHz from that clock, and a bunch of SRC4392's for the AES/EBU to create all datastreams in phase, with the same data format.
From there, you'll need to mix. That's where things might become tough.
You'll need a DSP of some kind to do your mixing and a microprocessor to handle your user interface.
A nice project. However, to have any chance to complete it in less than a year - you'll need a small team of peeps to do it.


 
Rochey said:
A nice project. However, to have any chance to complete it in less than a year - you'll need a small team of peeps to do it.

ahem... yeah that's why it's not gonna be diy.... not coz we wanna, because we have to....

grtz,

thomas
 
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