The Ultimate Analogue Desk

[johnR]

Digital offers incredible flexibility, but we need to lose the hard control surface to mine that capability fully.  It will happen someday.

Hardware controls won't disappear from live mixing desks anytime soon. FOH engineers spend a lot of time with hands on controls while watching the stage. It's hard to ride a fader on a touchscreen without looking at it.

 

[lolo-m]

My vision of the Ultimate control surface for both studio and live would be :
- A minimum of 24 physical faders + 8 or 10 faders for VCA or Sub-Groups
- 2 complete channels (including aux sends, compressor, gate) with motorized pots. Motorized pots are really interresting for their "analog" response as you can know just touching it what is the setting and they have an end... Sometimes it's really interresting  .
- On each fader 2 "Sel" buttons, one on the top of the other, to be able to select one channel on the 1srt set of pots, and another on the other without pain.
- A screen between the 2 channels (maybe switchable to be the DAW screen)

Just some quick thoughts.

 

[Andy Peters]

I keep thinking of that scene from 'Minority Report' when he's on the futuristic holographic computer screen...

Complete topic swerve here, but how come the great SF writers and movie directors could come up with wildly-fantastic visions of the future that included all sorts of nifty technology (a lot of which is actually become reality), but they could never dream of a display that didn't look like a tube television screen or a human interface that wasn't a desk full of buttons and knobs?

-a

 

[sodderboy]

Michael, much of your dream is already in the Duality.  I am trying to get them to bag the dumb meter bridges and make them simple screens that can display anything.

The Duality meter screens are a perfect example of 20th century thinking designing with 21st century technology.  They have programmed a fixed environment on an infinite medium.  You should be able to switch to studio cams or a football game on them.
Mike

 

[0dbfs]

I'll bet these guys would provide an SDK to integrate their control scheme so that this machine can control an analog rack mount console:

http://www.smartav.net/product/smart-console/consoles/mix-24/

Best,
j

 

[SNG]

I'll bet these guys would provide an SDK to integrate their control scheme so that this machine can control an analog rack mount console:

http://www.smartav.net/product/smart-console/consoles/mix-24/

Best,
j

It look to me more a spaceship controller from StarTrek or StarWars, put Data or Chewbacca behind the controls and lets go beyond...

Dont like all these futuristic designs and so called 'new-tech' solutions.... call me also old school but I want have a visual overview of my recording session anytime and the ability to change some settings immediately without to have assign, flip or select.... I am currently in the middle of building my own custom designed 3.5 meter long console with 48 analog channels... it is ergonomic designed for my requirements...

 

[blue_luke]

OK guys, let<s get down to the business of <operating> such a beast.
Let's split the requirements and start doing real design work.

As a parting salvo,I will submit the following paradigm.
I would base the interface on the Mackie Universal PRO.
Not because it is the best, but it is a well known basis.
Let's state what we like about it, and what we dislike.
For a premise, one control per function in a 72 input console is preposterous, irrelevant and overkill.
But what do we need!?
I, for one, can not accept menus and sub menus type of control.
But a 72 strips console has to be humanly manageable!!
not even considering the cost factor here!

My first proposition here is to have a 'generic' channel control, where each 'strip' would have its dedicated control. Now whether the channel is mono, stereo or 5.1, one control affect all linked channels.
That obviously will not solve the problem of level metering.

I do not pretend to have all, or any answer here. But I think it's about time we cut the crap and get down to the business of putting our heads together and start to get things and ideas and facts on paper.
I personnally will undertake the design of the mic pre-amp.
I have some bold ideas on this matter and I will shortly submit schematics, PCB layouts and all on this matter,
To the point where it will become a subject of its own.
Come on guys, let's get down to it, contribute, even if it is only constructive criticism, and drop the 'can't be done'.... and the 'not worth doing" mindset.

Having said that, where are you Gettestudio ?
We have not heard from you in the past while.
We know right now you are in tour, but if you want support from the community, the very least, is to acknowledge that you are still alive and kicking, and also still interested in the project.
I hope you realize you have one heck of a design team willing to help here!!
And if you feel that my comments are a bit on the 'stinging' side, you're darn right!!
I want to see this thing taking shape and becoming a reality!!

Sorry for the harsh tone, but realy, get down to it! I will help you the best I can, but I want to see results

Luc

 

[Beankyu]

Thanks a lot for ur sharing.
very helpful.

 

[Skylar]

I could very well be wrong, but here's something to keep in mind:

The Mackie protocol requires 1 MIDI input per 8 faders+8 encoders (or 1 MIDI input per 32 encoders), which means you would need 9 MIDI inputs to cover 72 faders and 72 encoders.
The Control Universal Pro was designed for 24 faders max.
According to their website, you CAN expand beyond that though...you just have to have enough MIDI-IN, and your DAW has to be able to handle all of those inputs & must support the Mackie protocol.

Now, let's think about encoder control...it sounds like you would want more than one encoder per channel.
If you wanted, say, even 4 more encoders per channels, that's another 9 MIDI channels.

I *think* this is how the Mackie control works, but again, I could be wrong.

If I'm right, I think the Mackie protocol is going to cause a lot of headaches, and a better solution would be a different (or proprietary) protocol.

 

[tmuikku]

I found loosely related video of a control surface. Seems to work fine in DJ context at least.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWiLR-GW8rs

 

[JohnRoberts]

I would be interested in some default standard control protocol. I wouldn't mind thinking about some digitally controlled analog circuitry but coming up with the control interface is too much work.

What about protools or garage band... can these be used to control external boxes?

jR

 

[grantlack]

I would be interested in some default standard control protocol. I wouldn't mind thinking about some digitally controlled analog circuitry but coming up with the control interface is too much work.

What about protools or garage band... can these be used to control external boxes?

jR

short answer- should be doable. (?)  now i'll ramble for a long while before i get back to it.

i've been steadily lurking this discussion for awhile, and here's where my $.02 - 3% inflation + .05% APY has taken me:

HARDWARE
if this is going to be done in anyone's lifetime and/or to anyone's satisfaction, imho two things need to happen on the hardware side: remote digital control of on/off and rotary/fade (same deal, just linear vs. polar) encoding.  what else is there, really?  if these two operations can be made to play nice with the analog world (we want buttons, not zippers!) then design of eq/comp/pre/etc is trivial and up to the end user.  probably more importantly, it allows for retrofitting into existing equipment and designs.  parameters could be as static or dynamic as one's desire or budget wished.  everyone i'm sure wants gain control, but an FOH guy probably isn't going to sweat engaging P48 manually in setup and would rather not risk an accidental remote shutoff.  maybe you only want to tweak your comp ratio and not the attack/release?  just a matter of picking your degree of rotary poison.

SOFTWARE
the other side of the coin.  john's question gets to the heart of another big end user compromise, which is that of control surface vs. daw screen.  some want a tangible surface, some can do without... so how about everybody has their cake and eats it too?  there's a hell of a lot more available for porting vst to rta or au than vice versa, so that would be the logical starting point to offer broad functionality.  vst's are already quite readily controlled via mackie protocol (assuming the daw itself works w/ mackie), so if one were to write a vst to control our generalized "digitally controlled analog circuitry" then it could be operated via surface or daw. 
control surface tangent: for the live guys, autotouch isn't vital off the bat because... well... there isn't exactly a second take- so that makes life cheap, go for the b$@)#*@hringer surfaces.  for studio use, maybe pony up for mcu and potentially xt units (which will inevitably be way cheaper than homebrews anyhow) if you are opposed to swapping fader banks.  i know personally that i have 2 xt's... disconnected.  i thought that many faders would help my workflow, but i find that it's more efficient for me to just bank things coherently.  i've only got so many fingers and so broad of a visual field for my brain to control accurately to a few dB.

insofar as vst structure, it could be set up like a database.  have numbers assigned to the digital pushbuttons and rotaries.  pushbuttons as simple check boxes and rotary functions selectable from a radio button list w/ further user-defined parameters (example steps: [1] from list of .pre .comp .eq, select eq radio button [2] define # of bands controlled [3a] label first band "low mid" [3b] define rotary encoder number [3c] define the low and high freqs, then the vst would divide that band by the # of steps available and tell you where you're sitting at.  log vs. linear scaling is arithmetic and could be an additional definition. [4] repeat step 3 for pre-defined # of bands.)  these could all be saved as presets for, say, "1084" and one could swap gear in and out as they so pleased. from a code rat's point of view, the tiered structure such as this would allow for quick revision in the event that we left out important and/or gear specific parameters.

WHEW!  i think that's about where i should stop on this tangent for now so that i can receive some interjection and probable chastisement over the feasibility of all that...  thoughts?

EDIT:  one place i could see a generalized rotary getting messy is with gear that prefers gain scaling via custom switch vs. pots, but if it's not able to be retrofitted one could always fix preamp gain and attenuate on the back end, along with an input pad to kill saturation issues.

 

[blue_luke]

thread dead?  ???

 

[naths101]

thread dead?  ???

i reckon...
you still out there joel? haven't heard a peep out of you for months

 

[grantlack]

i must not have showered that day...  i've been playing around with this in my spare time though.
an arduino mega, trimpots, and some cheap micro servos are waiting for me on the bench once i finally find the time.

 

[horvitz]

Interesting.  I just ordered some arduino stuff myself to give it a look.  Should be here next week sometime.  What are you using for trimpots?

 

[grantlack]

Interesting.  I just ordered some arduino stuff myself to give it a look.  Should be here next week sometime.  What are you using for trimpots?

well i've got a few approaches in the oven.  one involves relay-based switching to a completely different set of pots that have their shafts fused to servo shafts, another is externally fitted controls.  the nice thing about the first solution would be a more permanent approach, as it would require a little tinkering under the hood of the gear- but once it was in it would be quick to swap between analog or digital control mechanisms.  external fitments would be tougher (read:ANNOYING) to engage and disengage, not to mention calibrating and recalibrating.  with the first approach, i've just got your usual, run-of-the-mill bourns trimpots.  to get the value and trim style you want, the stop point and speed curve are to be set in software.  the only reason we care about log pots is so they're easier for *us* to adjust... replace our crappy fine motor skills with the machinated variety, and you're really cooking with gas.

 

[horvitz]

Good thoughts.  Basically the same thing as a motorized fader, eh?  Plain ol' fader with a servo strapped to it.  Will you be able to get feedback as to the current position so you can fiddle with the knob and then store the current state?

For me at least, first project it to get through the arduino stuff since I've never used it before.  I plan on stuffing it in my summing box, which has all its channel assignments done by relays already.  If I can control that from the computer instead, and store and recall programs, I'm in pretty darn good shape I think.  Going the right way, anyway.  And hell, that'll be one set of notes I don't have to keep!

 

[grantlack]

Good thoughts.  Basically the same thing as a motorized fader, eh?

yessir, just nice and compact.  things would be a lot easier if the audio grade alps pots were... oh... 1/3 the price?  those still might not be able to make it into existing builds though, which was my main goal.  most have gear that they love and may not want to completely rebuild for the added functionality.  as far as position sensing goes, i'm debating an initial calibration on power-up (like mackie units) or trying to find micro servos w/ a feedback pot.  the latter has been tough to do, the former will let it be known more or less (+-error) by the software thanks to the discrete nature of pwm.  as far as switching from analog to digital, my thinking is thus: dp3t relay flips analog pots from position 1(manual) to ohmmeter circuit in position 2(adjust), which then yields analog position.  software turns motorpot to the corresponding location, then once everything's set it engages position 3(remote) and you're on the move.  not something you'd want to do mid-track... this is where the alps pots would be a luxury.

 

[analag]

So when do we begin...