SAC Talk

airickess wrote:Thanks for the updates on this platform. I've been wondering about it. SAC has been working fine for me on my many down-and-dirty theater productions (8 last Fall and 9 this Spring) but its well-documented limitations coupled with no foreseeable improvements have me considering searching for alternatives, both hardware and software based. How AMP implements Scenes is of particular interest to me.

The scenes will be useful for theatre shows. Or I should say when all their features are hooked up and working, they will be. One of the things that really needs to be finished prior to a release.

I am with you. SAC has been great. But I am so tired of not having a true DCA. Honestly if Bob L had just implemented that and fixed the fade levels on a surface bug (the latter of which is sort of fixed now, although control surface support still lacks) I would be very happy with SAC for a long time to come. Well... except that eventually it probably won't work on the latest version of the OS. But even that I could deal with for a long time if that was really the only issue.

I still vastly prefer this software console method to mixing shows unless the funds allow for something really nice like a good Digico or iLive. But even then there is some fairly unique features of both AMP and SAC that make theatre shows easier on these platforms. Of course if you can afford the Digico or iLive then you can probably get a nice DSP box to go with it and that is when I finally have the abilities I have in the computer from a routing standpoint.

RBIngraham wrote:The scenes will be useful for theatre shows. Or I should say when all their features are hooked up and working, they will be. One of the things that really needs to be finished prior to a release.

Good to know that the developer is working on this. Scenes are critical for me on some of these shows (I just did Into The Woods - try doing the first 10 pages of pickups on that show without scenes or a control surface. A mouse wouldn't cut it!)

I am with you. SAC has been great. But I am so tired of not having a true DCA.

I agree. A type of group or DCA fader that can be assigned to more than one output fader is just critical.

The DCA's is the first thing I asked about. It looks like outputs can be assigned to DCA's, and I know DCA's can be ganged (mutli assign)
Finally, someone that understands how to mix in the real world!

airickess wrote:[

I agree. A type of group or DCA fader that can be assigned to more than one output fader is just critical.

Well I would have just settled for a DCA that was more than a fader latch, so you could just have a relative level control of the fader position on an input without the fader moving up and down.

But I forgot to just "enjoy the ride". It was a "ride" alright...

jlepore wrote:The DCA's is the first thing I asked about. It looks like outputs can be assigned to DCA's, and I know DCA's can be ganged (mutli assign)
Finally, someone that understands how to mix in the real world!

Yep and more importantly, this Bob doesn't think he knows better than everyone else how to do it.

The thing that is unique about AMP is that is has a max number of "channels". (255 I think is the limit) And each of those channels can be an input, output (submaster or one the feeds a hardware out), Aux Master or a DCA. And any of those can feed another channel. So an Aux Master can be assigned to an output. An Output can be routed to an Aux (Matrix Mixer anyone?), anything can be assigned to a DCA.

For my kind of work this is just fantastic.

You do lose the "24 monitor console" concept that is very unique to SAC. So you don't have the layered mixer concept, which is what I always used to describe SAC. However with that many processing channels you could set up multiple sets of inputs to create something very similar. And in my opinion if you really needed separate EQ and Dynamics for every monitor mixer you're probably doing something wrong.

And another unique feature of AMP is that it is a true client/server relationship. So no more GUI error kills the engine. I can kill the GUI anytime I want, the engine keeps going and then restart the GUI with no glitches other than the obvious fact that I didn't have any control while the GUI was gone. Also the GUI is VERY customizable. The software basically just has a bunch of widgets that make up various GUI windows. There are some that will be included of course. But the end user could completely roll their own GUI based on the widgets available. And as you can imagine Brett is going crazy with this shit....

I look forward to its release.

RBIngraham wrote: But the end user could completely roll their own GUI based on the widgets available. And as you can imagine Brett is going crazy with this shit....

As will I, if I'm still doing this stuff when AMP becomes practical
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

randyhyde wrote:As will I, if I'm still doing this stuff when AMP becomes practical
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

Well you will have to get over your phobia of dongles first.

RBIngraham wrote:

randyhyde wrote:As will I, if I'm still doing this stuff when AMP becomes practical
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

Well you will have to get over your phobia of dongles first.

The developer is doing an iLok type of thing?

It has a USB thumbdrive as a Dongle and a license comes with 2 keys in case you break it. And in talking to him on the phone, I'm told there is a way to do a temporary thing to get you up and running in case of some complete disaster.

The software is small enough that you can just keep it all saved on the USB thumbdrive. I actually have many versions of the Beta all stored on the thumbdrive.

So it's proprietary, but it won't cost you extra money like an iLok does.