Some might find this interesting

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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby jlepore » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:39 pm

Look out world. I got my dongles today :)
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby randyhyde » Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:53 pm

RBIngraham wrote:
Well you will have to get over your phobia of dongles first. :P


Uh, forgot about that.
Oh well, I'm not really the market anyway.
SAC is probably going to work for me (on my A rig) until:
1. I shut down
2. I can justify spending 20,000+ for a new console.

At this point in my life, I have the equipment I need to do the types of shows I'm doing; going bigger is going to require an investment in excess of $200,000 and I just don't see the return on that kind of investment in my market.

Still ought to come up with a better-than-SAC solution for my B rig that involves a simpler console that *anyone* can use without a whole lot of training (e.g., A&H QU-24). But even there I'm having problems justifying $3,000 when SAC "gets the job done" (even if training is a bitch and guest engineers are often a problem).

Really, at this point, if I were going to invest more money in my rig I'd start looking at better microphones. Audio-wise, SAC is quite good and I just don't see the need to spend any more money on a console. There are so many other things that need my attention these days; heck, saving for retirement is probably more important at this point :)

FWIW, I kinda feel sorry for Bob L. With the new rash of digital consoles, the interest in SAC has dropped *tremendously*. Not that he hasn't been warned about getting his act together or this would happen, but it's pretty clear that the posts are way down on his site and even the Kool-aid gushers have cooled down considerably. Personally, I think the X32 has been a fatal blow to SAC's chances (and I'm hearing lots of positive reviews from early X32 adopters, so maybe the famous reliability issues won't come home to roost; and for people like me, who will never accept Berhinger, there's always the M32).
cheers,
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby RBIngraham » Fri Jun 13, 2014 6:56 pm

I think Bob's treatment of his customers and the fact that he clearly isn't really interested in working on new things with any of his products is why the interest in his products has cooled so considerably. You can only do that kind of thing for so long before it will drive folks away. The same thing happened with SAW years ago. It just got a bit of a reboot because of the interest in SAC. Join that with the fact that there are cheap alternatives that are actually fairly nice and big shock SAC is circling the drain.

I would feel for Bob a lot more had he been more approachable and open to suggestions.

The reality is that the target market for any of these software based mixing products is very small. Always was and always will be. There are places where it can make a lot of sense but of course our buddy never listened and wouldn't tailor his software to make it really work in things like installs, museums, theme parks, etc... That is where I could see this kind of product being really accepted because everything that runs those kind of places is a computer already.

Sorry Randy, you really do have to just get over your fear of a dongle. I don't mean to be a jerk... but it is a bit naïve. Or perhaps worry wart is a better word? :-) Real software has protections to keep the honest users honest. I ran shows for YEARS with SFX that required a dongle. And somehow the show always went on. If I was building a AMP rig for the road I would buy a rack mount computer, put the dongle on a USB port inside the computer and not worry about it. SFX rigs went out on national tours like this all the time for a long time. Big shows that can not afford to cancel a show or not have their sound cues play. While we (Stage Research) had many grumbles over the years the number of times folks called was really pretty low considering just how many of these systems were out there in the world. And most of the time it was from something stupid... academics who have students that forget to unplug their dongle and snap it off while moving the computer.... duh! I never broke a single dongle and I had 4 SFX systems in almost constant use. I only forgot to bring it with me one time... and then I never made that mistake again! :-)
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby mrloud » Sat Jun 14, 2014 5:32 pm

Are basic effects(delay and reverb) planned/implemented in AMP?
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby RBIngraham » Sat Jun 14, 2014 8:57 pm

mrloud wrote:Are basic effects(delay and reverb) planned/implemented in AMP?


I don't think I can say with any certainty. And I don't want to make any assumptions or promises on Bob's behalf.

All I will say is that right now they are not there and there has been some discussion about what the best way to do this is. (built in vs. plug-in) Let's just say he knows it's something that is important.
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SAC details and goodies at: http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/SAC.html
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby airickess » Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:38 pm

I hope AMP has included one of the features I've been using the most in these musicals I've been mixing - the channel latch feature as is currently implemented in SAC. I've found it very valuable to be able to left click on the top of one or any number of channels in the F-Mixer to bring up mics for dialogue or chorus pickups.
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby RBIngraham » Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:30 pm

Yes you can select channels and they will all follow each other, but really, why the heck would you want that over a proper DCA submaster. Just assign them to a DCA, bring up that fader and they all come up. AMP has real DCA groups, so there in no need to screw around with that fader latching nonsense in SAC.
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby IraSeigel » Tue Jun 17, 2014 11:18 am

RBIngraham wrote:Yes you can select channels and they will all follow each other, but really, why the heck would you want that over a proper DCA submaster. Just assign them to a DCA, bring up that fader and they all come up. AMP has real DCA groups, so there in no need to screw around with that fader latching nonsense in SAC.


I'm not trying to start an argument with you, but I think the fader latch feature is a valuable one. The "nonsense", for me, was trying to remember all the SAC keyboard shortcuts to implement all the features. I once had a laminated page filled with all the keyboard commands that I would keep next to me for reference. It's silly. In that regard, AMP's DCA feature - easily accessible and intuitive - sounds far superior.
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby RBIngraham » Tue Jun 17, 2014 12:02 pm

IraSeigel wrote:
RBIngraham wrote:Yes you can select channels and they will all follow each other, but really, why the heck would you want that over a proper DCA submaster. Just assign them to a DCA, bring up that fader and they all come up. AMP has real DCA groups, so there in no need to screw around with that fader latching nonsense in SAC.


I'm not trying to start an argument with you, but I think the fader latch feature is a valuable one. The "nonsense", for me, was trying to remember all the SAC keyboard shortcuts to implement all the features. I once had a laminated page filled with all the keyboard commands that I would keep next to me for reference. It's silly. In that regard, AMP's DCA feature - easily accessible and intuitive - sounds far superior.


Ira, I'm not saying it has no purpose whatsoever. It's just that to me, for musical theatre mixing... it's a bunch of nonsense. We've had a very good system in theatre for decades now of how to mix large wireless counts with a relatively small number of faders the operator typically uses. Which is, using DCAs (or going back to analog, VCAs) to control all your levels and you write scenes (or whatever the console of the day called them) which mute and unmute the appropriate wireless channels and reassigns their DCA assignments. you typically have at least a couple for orchestra levels, a couple for male and female chorus and a few for principles. Obviously is depends on the show and the console and personal preference as to how many you use, how you use them, how often you're switching things around and how you lay them out with regards to order, etc, etc, etc....

But it's pretty painless, most theatre mixers with much experience at all know how to do this and it just makes sense. Which is why my blood would boil so much when Bob would insinuate that I didn't know what I was doing or that I was afraid to try new things. BS!

The reason this is important is that if something goes wrong (i.e. a bad mic) you just reach over to the input and bring its fader down. If someone is a little vocally weak that night, you just bump their input fader or if they are getting carried away you just bring it down. And then you just keep doing the same thing you've always done every show with regards to your DCAs. Very easy.

Eric will have to forgive me, but I don't understand why anyone would prefer linking faders and having them all going up and down together to the traditional DCA/VCA method of doing things. Maybe I'm just missing something.

I can totally understand if you're mixing the band it might just be easier to have all your drums linked and you just grab any input and they all track together. You can do the same thing with a DCA of course and AMP lets you have up to 32 DCAs, (which is awesome... don't get me started about consoles that only have 8 DCAs) but I can see where if you're only dealing with a handful of inputs it can be easier to just go the fader latching route. And I would suspect on most music concerts you're not going to want/need to tweak that balance all that much, or at least not constantly. Where as in my world, it's pretty common to need to tweak that balance, sometimes I'll have one hand on an input or two and the other on the DCAs, to keep a group of vocalists well balanced.

Anyway I'm not Bob L. so I don't think my way is always the right/best way. And the best news is that Bob P (AMP creator) get its. So I would suspect that if a bunch of people wanted fader latching and it wasn't impossible to pull off, he would put it on "the list". Only things on this list I think have a far greater chance of becoming reality.

Right now AMP's fader latching isn't as sophisticated as SACs. But maybe I'll bring that up with Bob P and see what he thinks.
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Re: Some might find this interesting

Postby IraSeigel » Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:09 pm

RBIngraham wrote:...Right now AMP's fader latching isn't as sophisticated as SACs. But maybe I'll bring that up with Bob P and see what he thinks.


Maybe I'm not getting it, but I don't see the need for BOTH latching and DCA's. If AMP were to only have one, I'd say the DCA method is the way to go. It seems to offer far more flexibility than the latching method, as you pointed out in your examples. Whatever you can do with latches you can do with DCAs. But the reverse isn't true - whatever you can do with DCAs isn't always possible with latches.
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