shmick wrote:I tried to get into the beta. Received 1 email reply and nothing after that.
On the plus side, I think we're going to keep seeing smaller. more powerful and more affordable offerings from other companies, basically putting an end to the PC-as-a-mixer days.
I've become used to not having an physical control surface. What I really want is a system than can do 48-72 in/out with remote controlled preamps than can be placed where needed, iPhone/iPad support to allow everyone to adjust their own mix and a way to easily save/recall channel and mix data.
I think there is a still a market for the mixing on a PC. It's just that is has shrunk since one of the few advantages of it being cheap has been replaced by hardware that is even cheaper, at least once you add up the cost of all the parts a PC based mixer costs.
But I still think it will hold the advantage in bang for the buck. AMP and even SAC has far greater routing flexibility than any of the cheap hardware desks do. I thought about slowly putting together a Behringer based system a while back, since one other sound designer in town has gone that route. But if you look closely it required at least 2 and more like 3 of the X units (whether that be a full X32 or a Core or some other X device with stage boxes) to get all the inputs I would need for the larger shows. And I would still have a console with less routing flexibility and only 8 DCA groups and limits with scene recalls and just the general distaste I have for B in general. So for my kind of work the software mixing console still can make sense as it's hardware replacement with the same feature set would cost well of $30K or it would require going back to previous methods where I had a menagerie of products that would make up a mixing system, which is what going the X32 route would really be, it's just that they could not pass some audio signals digitally or with digital formats that are easy to deal with. (I've done the digital thing for many years now just with ADAT Optical and extenders, and using multiple small Yamaha digital consoles linked together with software and a "box" of some sort to handle system routing and EQ, Delay, etc..)
The other market I can see something like AMP being good for is the shove the mixer in a rack someplace and it gets turned on and off as needed with little to no human interaction or interaction via a control system. (think Crestron Touch panels here or similar) I'm talking about things like museums, installed sound pieces, perhaps churches that work in more traditional ways where the audio mixing is just a few vocal mics and such. This is a market that I tried to pitch to Bob L and he didn't really listen. (and when I mentioned it on the forum I was chastised for telling Bob how to run his business... sigh...) It is actually far more lucrative than selling to the live sound folks. (sorry guys... no offense...) But you have to put things into the software that would allow it to work in that environment. Mainly things like not having to click on a Live button to turn the engine one, would have been a good start. But you also have to allow for dealer networks, give them the ability to mark up and make some money on the software sale, get someone involved talking with consultants, blah, blah, blah.... none of that is something that Bob seemed to have an interest in or take seriously. I suspect AMP could change that.
None of this is really all that different than some of the popular units in that market segment already. They just use an off the shelf PC rather than a dedicated hardware box that might have Windows Embedded or Linux running on it anyway.
We'll see....