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.