Random Thoughts Archive

Well! A bunch of new product releases announced today! Pro Tools HD version 8.1, a free update for 8.x HD system owners!

Now, you may think, 8.1 is a point release, probably some bug fixes and support for the NEW INTERFACES ( back to those in a tic) but in actuality, 8.1 sees the release of a massive, amazing, brilliant new feature set that will save serious mixers potentially hours and hours of their life. No, its not HEAT, the new tube/analogue warmth buss flavour feature….it’s the I/O setup.

Yes, the I/O setup! New in 8.1, the I/O setup has been totally overhauled to make moving sessions between rooms a much, much easier process! Avid audio listened to the gripes about moving large projects between rooms, endlessly moving those little squares around to just get audio out your speakers. Taken from the I/O Setup primer:

“In Pro Tools 8.1, changes to the I/O Setup have
been made in order to solve session interchange
issues (such as maintaining studio settings on
different Pro Tools systems) and to provide better
overall workflows for session interchange. In
lower versions of Pro Tools, I/O settings are recalled
from the Pro Tools session document, so
studio settings corresponding to your hardware
could potentially change each time a session is
opened. This can result in a temporary loss of
monitor paths. In Pro Tools 8.1, I/O settings can
be recalled from the system. This means that
your studio settings can be maintained when
opening sessions created on other Pro Tools systems”

So, THAT is cool! Cant wait to play with it and put it through its paces.

Secondly, the new interfaces! It’s been over 7 years since Avid nee Digidesign released the 192io and 96io series of HD interfaces. Since then, manufacturing has gotten cheaper, specs on AD/DAs have improves and low jitter clocks have become much more affordable, time for Avid to up the competitiveness with some new hardware. AND they got Butch Vig to talk up the sound of them!

The pick of the bunch definately looks to be the OMNI…preamps, monitoring, some analogue and a bunch of digital ins and outs…a bit of everything for everyone in  small 1RU box. Retailing in Australia for around $3600, cant wait to hear what this box sounds like.

Another important and long overdue addition to the IO choices is the new MADI interface. I’m guessing that with 64io to arrange in your I/O setup this box was a bit part of the reason to overhaul the way ProTools addresses output paths versus internal bussing.

Given Avid just acquired Euphonix I wonder if they looked over the Euphonix AD/DA specs before release? Only good can come from that pedigree. Another interesting question will be how these interfaces fair against the main rival that was announced a few weeks back, the updated Apogee Symphony IO. I’m sure info will come to light soon, hopefully some of it will be objective!

Lastly, HEAT…Harmonically Enhanced Algorithm Technology. Niiiiiiice acronym usage! So basically, a button at the top of your channel strips to turn it on or off and a global “character” setting for drive and tone across your mix buss. Very cool idea. A 30 day demo download is available and I’m very keen to try it out in the coming weeks.

We’ll also be running 8.1 and HEAT at the Integrate trade show in Sydney next week at AT World is anyone is stopping by. I’ll be running two masterclasses on behalf of UTS:ProSchool and plans were hatched today to present a mixing automation seminar at AT World as well. Hope you can make it!

If you are coming down to the Integrate 2010 trade show at Sydney’s Hordern Pavillion in a few weeks (August 24-26), I’ll be presenting Pro Tools “masterclasses” as part of the seminar series, flying the UTS:ProSchool flag.

Topics such as shortcuts to speed up editing and other HD specific topics like snapshot automation and VCA faders will also be discussed.

More information here

Hope to see you there!

A little survey to establish what you readers would like me to blog about next?

Well, the buzz on the street was the NAB announcement that Avid (aka The Borg according to many, unimaginative detractors) have struck a deal to acquire well respected console manufacturer Euphonix. The full news story is here.

There’s pretty much two camps on this one – those who use Pro Tools love the idea, those who use other systems are wetting themselves they will lose the only viable market alternative to ICON, their Eucon protocol.

Basically, Euphonix make great consoles and when ICON came along, realised that integrated with a DAW would be a good thing, so they made a communications protocol for a DAW to send and receive mix information to their mixing hardware, a bit like  HUI but on steriods. Its a bit like HUI becuase it’s seen as an “open platform” that many developers can use, such as Logic, Pyramix and Nuendo and the like. Nuendo and Euphonix have very tight integration today using Eucon and have sometimes been mentioned as a viable alternative to ICON and ProTools, but most clients still go ICON due to price, support, and most importantly industry adoption of PT over Nuendo.

So what does this mean going forwards? Well, I dont work for them anymore so this is just conjecture, but here’s a few ideas Ive seen posted by folks in LA and discussed around the world in the last 24 hours:

Eucon protocol on Digi hardware – ICON and C24 working as a control surface for Logic, Nuendo and Pyramix? Sounds like a good idea to an ex Digi sales guy. It expands the possible candidates who would buy Avid Audios mid prices offerings (c24 vs Tango, what would you buy?)

Eucon protocol in ProTools – I dont know how long this will take with the current economic climate, lack of resources etc but I’m guessing this HAS to happen to make this acquisition make sense. I just dont think it will happen overnight…

Eucon in Media Composer – this would be a good thing when you look at the Artist series. Its a modular control surface with jog/shuttle wheel and programmable touch screen. Why should it just be an audio device? The Command8′s buttons can be used to control anything in Media Composer, the Artist series would simply be a new and improved version of the same thing. Sexeh…

Euphonix not only make consoles for audio post, but many of them are used in broadcast situations for live to air mixing. Venue and ICON sit really on either side of this industry and have wanted inroads for some time. I would expect Euphonix style technology would be an asset to the ongoing product line when it comes to Avid Audio selling consoles into broadcast alongside their video offerings where the own that space.

Console automation? In feature film post storing your mix automation on the console would seem to me like a PITA. Any time you have to chase a picture recut and reconform your mix, you can do that fairly easily in ProTools using third parties like VK, Conformaliser, Editrace etc You would then have to reconform your mixing console automation as well and hope the two marry up nicely! If I were a large scale euphonix user, chances are I’m using Pro Tools as a dubber and to me I’d be begged to access the Pro Tools automation features from the desk, or at least store the desks automation inside the PT session.

Then there’s the automation tree – a Euphonix consoles has an incredibly elegant way to following the progress of your mix. A bit like a labelled undo tree where you can see where decisions have been made and you’ve changes directions in the mix. In the real world, Ive heard its great but you only use the three most current levels most of the time, whereas the tree is sold as a feature with many levels of recall. Still, this sort of feature would be great integrated with ProTools. Either into the software so all Avid Audio’s surfaces benefit or just some level of communication between the two to restore a saved PT session that matches that tree state. who knows?

Really, looking at the existing Euphonix product line, there aren’t that many places they and Digi overlap:

Artist series – replaces the aging Command 8 and makes it much more attractive to a wider market

MC Pro – I had no idea this existed until today and it looks pretty much like the mock ups Ive been shown by clients wishing for an “edit station” for sound designers using Pro Tools for years. Again and again folks have said “yes, you do good mixing surfaces, but I just want something intuitive to edit on and ride a few faders” Looks like a winner if it starts to talking to PT soon.

System 5 MC…well, there’s the rub. Its a controller only and sits in the same space as DControl in many ways. I’m guessing ICON and system 5 MC will have some sort of love child down the track and this area will get tidied up.

System 5 Fusion – brilliant! A tracking room solution! Clients wanting to record many audio channels into ProTools have often bemoaned the existing mixers and how to set up headphone mixes and latency etc A System 5 fusion that talks to PT would be ideal for Pro Tools based recording facilities as you’d have the brilliant sounding front end and then could use it as a mixing surface inside the box when the session is finished (with all the automation benefits, third party plugs, and conforming assistance etc)

System 5 – well, some folks would say ICON sits here as well but I think we all need to sit up and smell the roses and know that isnt the case. System 5 has a brilliant reputation for sound quality, expandibility and automation ease of use/ergonomics. ICON just doesnt have the same build quality, largely because the System 5 is about 4 times the price! You get lovely meters and feedback on this sort of console, a common gripe with ICON ops. If a system 5 could talk to PT with regards to automation, again you’d have this lovely integration. Set up the PT rigs to playback audio through the Euphonix mix engine, but some vapourware future feature allows you to send your mix state to PT, EQ/Dyn as virtual plugins (ie plugins in the mix window for automation but the processing is being done by the console) then when a picture cut comes along, you reconform your PT session and your console now tracks to the new automation. THAT would be quite cool I would imagine.

Anyways, lots of conjecture and ideas on where this could go.  To me, as a PT op, I see it as a brilliant thing and wish the team at Avid Audio all the best on bringing everyone’s wish list to fruition over the coming years.

Hi all,

A close friend and mentor, Chris McKeith, now runs the Audio department at one of Australia’s leading film schools, AFTRS. He asked me if I could pass on they are running a short course on location recording and enrolments have just opened up.

Head on over to this link to check out the details.

For those of you who are local readers, Ive kicked off a new PT User group under the auspices of my role with UTS:ProSchool.

So many folks have embraced Facebook, that dreaded viral entity, that I have myself turned to it to organise events.

So the homepage for the SPTUG is link here, you’ll need to be logged into FB to get to it.

If you are in Sydney, please become a fan so you will be made aware when events are posted etc

First meeting penciled in for Tues 16th March, 630pm, somewhere near UTS most likely. Hopefully my Sydney readers can make it!

So it’s been a week since I left Avid Digidesign and the work has been non-stop!

Finally the room has a lovely coat of paint on it, my XLR connectors arrived today and tomorrow I’ll be making up cables and setting up the machine room in its final configuration (at least for launch!). The RPG acoustic panels arrived today too, some gorgeous red hemifusors

They are all in my machine room until I finish cabling…(see picture above!)

I was reading Screenhub the other day and noted an interesting storyby Nathan Wellington about the future of Aus post production. The article went on to comment on “wellywood” and how SAFilm are building their new facility as well and yet for all this infrastructure what type of movies do we make and how well do we compete on an international level? At Encore, another article was talking about the state of our studios in Aus.

Particularly interesting was Wellingtons comment on the world of HD and the technology evolution over the last few years; “I see the Australian Post industry struggle to keep pace with these developments. Australia has the talent without the exposure to this ‘bleeding edge’ technology find’s it difficult to gain the appropriate experience global productions demand.”

I must admit, reading this I felt pretty good, knowing that Trackdown, myself and Cutting Edge upstairs are all very much on top of the international tech trends into HD production and using the latest gear to get the job done quickly, efficiently and to a high quality. The video satellite system I’m putting in to collaborate/communicate with video editors is one of only about 4 in Aus, whereas it’s well adopted in other major film lots like Sony, Warners, Paramount and even China Film (where they have a vid sat on every PT HD system to speed up their workflow!). Well I guess I’ll open the doors next week to show folks through and we’ll see what they think of this bleeding edge technology and if it’s a case of “producers want it but facilities havent upgraded” OR do producers NOT want it, dont “get it” and aren’t prepared to pay extra for it? Which was the case with surround sound for TV in Aus for the longest time – it needed studio upgrades, the studios charged a premium for surround and producers for the most part, chose to ignore it and kept getting stereo product crafted to keep costs down.

I guess I’ll find out next week…

So, a bit about the new mixing room!

“Sumsound At Trackdown” – an affordably priced ICON mixing room on the Fox lot at Sydney.

An "unfinished" Sumsound at Trackdown front wall

Lots of techy details coming…feel free to skip if you’re not into it…

Heart of the studio is an 8 core “Nehalem” HD3Accel rig with a D-Command ES 24 sitting in a lovely custom made desk running lots of plugs; McDSP, Sonnox, SoundToys, Waves 360, Brainworx, URS amongst others. Attached to that system is then a Video satellite (8 core Xeon) running Media Composer but it also loads up PTLE for HD Quicktime workflows (ProRes, DVCPro etc)

The video satellite would be silly unless we could show that picture nicely – so, a 150′ (3.5m wide) 16″9 projection screen with the LCR speakers mounted behind. Responsible for display of the HD image is a current generation Sony BRAVIA projector. This projector is rather massive weighing in close to 10kgs but it’s ridiculously quiet! (Thankfully!)

Bass management is being handled by the Waves 360 bundle, but interesting the sub channel is then split through a crossover into two subs. The idea here being dual subs, time and phase aligned and positioned carefully should give a smoother bottom end in the room, rather than a single point source. Room EQ curves are then through the Serato RANE 31 band graphic plugin suite. Benefit being we can tune the room to flat, small room XCurve or Large room XCurve, and play around with them until we find the best translation to the larger rooms in town like Soundfirm, Deluxe or Audioloc.

Monitoring, well, you could accuse me of being a company man…my near fields for several years have been the co-designed PMC/Digidesign RM2s. I love the transmission line design and the incredibly smooth bottom end. Then the satellites I’ve gone with the new DSM series. 4 x DSM2s and a DSM3 centre. What I dig about the DSMs is the great imaging but also the filter section on the back – you can really go to town tailoring these speakers to your own needs.

The room is psuedo “coffin shaped” – 6m deep and about 7m at is widest, an even sided trapezium making up the front of the room and then the rear walls are joined in the middle behind the mix position. To place the mixer as far back from the LCRs as possible (for theatre translation) we’re using a fair amount of diffusion on the rear wall, some on the ceiling and some on the first reflection points on the side walls, and then appropriate amounts of absorption to tailor the reverb time to our liking.

So that’s Sumsound! We’re at the point of painting now, then comes the acoustics treatment(mounting RPG “Skylines” and “Hemifusors”) and calibration. We’ve taken “before” measurements of the room, and will take several measurements as we progress and I’ll post some updates as we go along – hopefully you readers are as interested in the real world effects of acoustic treatment with non-parallel walls as I am…??

Hope you’re all having a good Jan 2010 – back to work for me, tomorrow!

Just a link to a fantastic site I stumbled across in the last few weeks. It used to be a part of the online community for MIX magazine.

Lots of great video interviews with some of the biggest names in sound design and audio post.

http://soundworkscollection.com/

Shameless plug, the next Pro Tools 101 course I will be teaching at UTS is open for admission and will run Feb 3-4

There will then be a follow up 110 course Feb 8-10

Info, pricing and online booking form linked here

Had to share this, many of you can possibly relate!

Hi all,

So I took yesterday off work to edit my blog videos (yes! in Media Composer 3.5 no less!) to promote Avid…sighs…what hope does my girlfriend have?! So coming your way shortly are a couple of demos showing  video satellite workflows and a few interviews with key staff from Avid Audio.

It was a tidy process – Im lucky enough to be running my Media composer on an old PC alongside my Mac G5 PTHD rig, so as soon as I finished cutting the video, I just popped the audio across and locked them up in the “Video Satellite” configuration until Id finished the audio then popped it back to MC and exported my high res QT H264s and upload to web – qed!

Off to Singapore next week to “cross-train” some of our video division on what the audio team does and things like this – yes, its really happening!

I’ve been having fun with Sonic No Noise and look forwards to trying out Izotope RX in the near future – need to pull back that trade show walla from my interview records!

Anyways, just a quick note to let you know the videos should be up very soon. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile – does anyone have any questions about Digidesign inside Avid, now as Avid Audio? The Digi User conference has been busy with a lot of discussion, a lot of it needlessly doom and gloom IMHO (but what would I know, I only work for the company, right?). What do you think of the new Avid logo?

I’d love to hear some of your thoughts – please, post some comments!

Hey everyone,

Just wondering what topics you’d like to see me cover next? Yes! The Blog is “interactive”!!

Hi all,

Just wanted to apologise for the gaps between the last few blog posts. Ive had some work trips recently, keeping me away from the office studio and getting videos finished…

Ive also just taken delivery of a new CPU for the office, switching from XP to OSX and need to find new screencasting software (Camtasia that I normally use isnt compatible with OSX unfortunately).

Should be back on “the air” within the week.

Ive also managed to swap out the local DCommand unit from Blue to a new ES black unit, which should help visiblity on videos in the future.

Big thanks to Brad Watts and the crew at Audio Technology magazine for their recent news item about this blog. I appreciate any help in letting folks know about the work I’m putting into the topics here and hope you’re all finding the videos and tips and tricks useful.

Lastly, if you’re in Adelaide, Sydney, Auckland or Wellington, hopefully I’ll see you at the up coming workflow clinics with Scott Wood and myself. Seats are limited, so be sure to register, by clicking HERE

Mapping on ICON blog coming up soon, promise!