SAC Question

[IraSeigel]

Hi and Happy New Year to all,

I was looking thru the most recent issue of Electronic Musician. They gave their "Most Innovative Product of 2006" award to the JazzMutant Lemur.

I don't know anything about this piece or if there are similar controllers on the market, but it got me to thinking of a non-mouse way to control a virtual mixing console like SAC will be.

Bob, will you be taking into account these types of UIs and allowing their use with SAC?

Thanks,
Ira Seigel

[Bob L]

First things first... to get SAC out there and working completely virtual from the mouse and keyboard... then with the typical midi control surfaces... then we'll see where else it evolves to.

Personally, I still believe all that's needed is the mouse and keyboard when the interface is well designed... the rest becomes more luggage to carry around and in many cases, ends up in the closet after the thrill wears off.

Bob L

[Cary B. Cornett]

Personally, I still believe all that's needed is the mouse and keyboard when the interface is well designed... the rest becomes more luggage to carry around and in many cases, ends up in the closet after the thrill wears off.

Bob L

To some extent I must disagree with that statement. When mixing from a recording, where a lot of decisions can be made "off line", it is indeed quite possible to do all that you need with just keyboard and mouse, as a little extra time to navigate to the control you want is no big deal. This is NOT true for live event mixing, where there is no chance to "back up" and fix a mistake. In a live mix situation, speed of navigation becomes critical, especially when multiple mutes and level changes happen simultaneously. When we did our live show work with SSL last year, the Behringer BCF2000 proved an invaluable tool. Without it, mixing live through the computer would not have been workable for the shows, where we had to deal with multiple mics on performers which HAD to be switched on cue, and often in groups. In fact, at times the bank switching needed was a bit inconvenient, even though it was VERY fast.

Based on my experience, for live show mixing at least an 8-fader pack should be used, and for really complex productions a full control surface may not be out of line.

As for the Lemur, I thought it was too expensive to really be interesting. It is now probably in the same price class as a full LCD display with a stylus-pad type overlay (a big version of a PDA display). I have long wished that I could have one of those so that I could have a stylus tip that would fit on the end of my middle finger so that I could just reach out with my hand and touch a fader in Saw to move it. With a setup like that, I would not need a fader pack at all. It would be EXCELLENT for SAC.

I have even considered the idea of trying a Wacom style tablet instead of a trackball... wonder if that would work?

[Bob L]

I did live sound on the road for over 7 years... I disagree.

The use of a control surface actually takes longer, in my opinion, to bank switch to a specific channel than it does to use the interface and FKey views to jump instantly to a specific control on any of the 72 channels.

I find it much faster to get to any control or group of controls using just the interface... but perhaps that is because I am not fighting the idea... humans are very resistant to change... this is a radical new approach and usually takes some getting used to and also requires that resistance to the idea be dropped.... then the results can be quite dramatic.

But, it does not matter... SAC will support various control surfaces and each can do as they want until they eventually might agree with the concept of going completely virtual.

Standing behind a large Harrison for many years and trying to line up directly in front of a specific channel module that may be 5 feet of to the side of where I am standing... especially in the dark, with little lites casting shadows across all the knobs, its very easy to grab the wrong knob... with the SAC virtual interface, I can jump instantly to the exact channel without ever moving my position and see all knobs in perfect view without shadows cast.

Just my opinion... I am sure this concept will grow more popular as many start to break down this myth in live theater... once the software exists to prove my point.

Bob L

[Craig Allen]

The one thing I like about control surfaces is that you can grab 4 faders at once and pull them down, and then pick another 4 channels and move to them quickly if you need to. In SAW you can select the 4 channels, but you you have to click them all first, then click 4 new ones. But you're right, bank switching is a pain. I'd love to see a way to support 2 BFC2000's to be able to get 16 cheap channels for SAC.

[Bob L]

If you set up preset groups you can instantly change groups of a lot more than 4 faders and they can be scattered all over the console... very powerful.

And the interface will be expanded upon specifically for fast adjustment of on the fly control changes... as well as offer the full use of a complete cue list that can be controlled with a simple click to advance to the next cue change which can alter thousands of controls at the same time or over a preset time delay.

And you will be able to control any of the 24 full monitor mix consoles in exactly the same way... as well as handing that over to an offstage or onstage monitor engineer or even the individual muscians themselves with network connections.

And SAC will allow you to use multiple control surfaces, even though they might require the use of multiple midi ports.

It is going to be FUN!!!!

Bob L

[trock]

Hi Bob

i don't do live mixing so this is just out of curiousity. is SAC kind of like the exploded view of SAW?? where you have the large channels and can jump to eq or comp etc like you can now so easily?? or will this be a totally new look??

also if you can handle the multiple MIDI controllers does that take up more MIDI ports? and if that is the case is this something that you can put over into SAW for the multiple extenders etc?

when i fixed my RME FF 800 my cubase friend was over, the one with 24 faders, and he was literally stunned at all the comp's, eq's, sonaris plugs, auto tune plugs etc that i had slamming SAW and he was pretty excited byhow i work in SAW now ans i was telling him about SAC, well as much as i know, cause he does do live stuff to and he was asking about combining them both with how he likes to work with the faders.

please don't take this as a re hash of the fader question, it is mroe out of general curiousity with all you are doing now.

thanks

[Scott Anthony]

I think both sides of this are somewhat valid.

The best mixers I've worked with on large format live consoles spend soundcheck making sure the mix hitting the subgroups is all tweaked out, then spend the show with 8 fingers on eight subgroup faders, listening, riding and finessing the mix, occasionally adding additional dramatic gain changes for effect... almost never touching the rest of the board during the gig.

This is indeed possible without a controller (building a main screen to all needed "showtime" elements), but certainly easier to watch the stage for unwritten cues if all fingers are ready to do the job without looking down...

[Craig Allen]

If you set up preset groups you can instantly change groups of a lot more than 4 faders and they can be scattered all over the console... very powerful.

And the interface will be expanded upon specifically for fast adjustment of on the fly control changes... as well as offer the full use of a complete cue list that can be controlled with a simple click to advance to the next cue change which can alter thousands of controls at the same time or over a preset time delay.

And you will be able to control any of the 24 full monitor mix consoles in exactly the same way... as well as handing that over to an offstage or onstage monitor engineer or even the individual muscians themselves with network connections.

And SAC will allow you to use multiple control surfaces, even though they might require the use of multiple midi ports.

It is going to be FUN!!!!

Bob L

The problem I had with that is I never know what 2, 3, or 4 faders I'll need to get. But SAC looks like exactly the thing to make everyone happy in this regard - looking forward to it.

[AudioAstronomer]

I think the thing craig is getting at is that when the engineer is more than just the engineer...

If you have to look away from a the screen, then quickly grab the mouse.. find the cursor, refocus your eyes to the smaller text, move the cursor to the right track and move a control... bad things can happen. In this case simply grabbing a physical control is way easier, even if you have to jump a bank it's still easier.

I think Bob is looking at it from the point of view where the engineer is 'glued to the screen' essentially. So the mouse hunt game isnt played much and your eyes are constantly adjusted to the bright screen and smaller text, if at all... in that case a controller would be a silly addition.


Still at this point I dont think it's Bob's worry. Everything required to operate 99% of modern control interfaces is there in the midi standard and companies refuse to use it I personally rather re-route my brain for one complete method than always having to learn and use new standards... which is why i've liked sawstudio so much