Innovason AT13_InnovaSon_Sensory电路图.pdf

InnovaSon Sensory InnovaSon has given live sound mixing its own innovative Gallic interpretation. Christopher Holder asks that you pardon his French. T he sound reinforcement community are a right to be suspicious of digital mixers. In the recording studio a software crash might be a minor annoyance, it might lose you a few hours of work, it may even be very embar- rassing, but chances are you wont have 50,000 people queuing up for a refund! Reliability in a mixer is obviously paramount. But if that chasm of depend- ability could be crossed, the digital pay-offs are consid- erable extra func- tionality, extra versatil- ity, less weight, no more multicores, on- board dynamics and effects. the list goes on. InnovaSon (pronounced in-over- sun) is more than aware of all this. Theyre a French company that has been in live pro manufacturing since 1993, and with the likes of the BBC and Radio-France on its client list they must be doing something right. Sensory Perception The Sensory range of digital mixing consoles is InnovaSons latest venture. The Sensory range comprises three mixing consoles: the Compact Live (32 input faders, left/right/centre faders, and 12 Group/Aux faders); the Grand Live (48 input faders, L/R/C faders and 20 group/aux faders); and the Large Scale Live (96 input faders, 48 group/aux faders on two levels, L/R/C faders and 24 mix matrix outputs). In essence, the three models represent two different mixer frame sizes (the Large Scale shares the same frame size, as the Grand Live but accesses its inputs on different levels), while functionality remains very similar between models. The system incorporates a mixing control surface and a mix rack (with I/Os) which is connected to the stage I/O rack via two 75 coaxial cables (one sending, one receiving). All the D/A and A/D, signal processing, etc. occurs within DSPs in the I/O racks. The control surface brings together banks of faders (each complete with a digital scribble strip, cue, mute and metering), a single channel strip of controls (including gain, 48v phantom power, polarity, HPF, EQ, gate and compressor) and a display unit (which offers a well-conceived graphic repre- sentation of whats occurring). No audio passes through the mixing control surface, apart from the talkback section positioned to the far right where a mic pre allows you to berate those on stage. The Stage Box and Mix Box I/O racks utilise a modular approach to putting together the most suitable combination of mic/line and/or digital I/O, in banks of eight. The modular approach makes it easy to get the right configuration of analogue and digital inputs on stage (with digital active splitting if need be) to deal with the performance. Likewise its easy enough to place additional I/O where you need it eg. analogue I/O in the mix position to get in and out of your favourite outboard or to drive a delay speaker system. Bear in mind this is all without a multicore in sight! I imagine InnovaSon has gone for coaxial over fibreoptic in the belief that coax will handle rougher treatment. Incidental- ly, you can run a maximum of 450 metres of coaxial cable between the consoles Mix Rack and the stage I/O racks, which all neatly rolls onto a garden-hose style storage device. Control Control Control Back to the control surface. Depending on the frame size, you have at your disposal 32, 48 or 96 digital input channels (which can be further expanded) all with full pro- cessing, including: four-band fully sweepable parametric EQ, a 12-frequency selectable HPF, compressor/expander, gate (both can run simultaneous- ly), as well as L/C/R panning, and routing. Again, E Q U I P M E N T T E S T 108 RadioFans.CN 收音机爱 好者资料库 depending on the frame size you can then have 12, 20 or 48 group/aux buses, switchable pre/post per channel, and L/C/R routing. To round off the faders, theres three master buses (left/right/mono or centre). On the output side, you have up to 24 matrix outputs. Being in the digital realm, routing is extremely flexible. You can freely assign any preamp to any input channel, while every mix bus can be routed to any physical output of your audio racks. Furthermore, each of the 24 matrix outputs can access: eight-band fully-parametric EQ, gate, compressor/expander, 1.3s delay (most handy) and digital gain control after conversion. Youll notice that on the output side of things there arent any 31-band graphic EQ algorithms. InnovaSon has instead opted for, the aforementioned, eight-band fully parametric EQ. Each of the eight filters cover the full bandwidth with 15dB of gain range. The advantage of going parametric is the ability to go in nice and narrow (up to an eighth of an octave) and notch out troublesome frequencies. Be that as it may, jettisoning the graphics will take some re- thinking for many people (but, of course, theres no reason why outboard graphics cant still be used, if need be). As youd expect, being digital, the Sensory is fully automatable, offering snapshot and moving fader automa- tion. The automation takes in all the consoles settings, including preamp parameters, matrix assignments and processing. All the Sensorys knobs and faders have a nice feel to them, smooth with just enough resistance, while, additionally, the faders have a rather good detent, where the faders resistance increases slightly to mark where its preset position was very neat. Sensory Experience To get some more insight into working with the Sensory, myself and AT contributor, Trevor Cronin, tracked down Melbourne-based engineer, Glenn Helmot. Glenns had more opportunity than most in this country to put the Sensory through its paces. Trev and I met Glenn at the Myer Music Bowl the day before Carols by Candlelight. The show was to be a good test for the new console: lots of inputs, lots of outputs to delays and FOH, and of course theres the high pressure imperative of a concur- rent live-to-air broadcast to spice things up further. Despite these pressures (and the driving rain), Glenns relaxed demeanour was almost zen-like! AT: Hows this particular Sensory configured for this show Glenn? Glenn Helmot: As far as inputs go, this one can have up to 72 inputs 64 via I/O cards, and another eight line inputs on a D-connector. It gives us enough inputs for the orchestra and any particular artists requirements, as well catering for sub mixes of vocal and clip-on mics for speeches. The outputs are responsible for the sound system drive. AT: And how much work have you done with the Sensory? GH: This is the third show Ive done. First up I used it on the Catholic churchs Great Jubilee Mass at Colonial Stadium. The Sensory ran the entire system on that, including multiple delay zones of speakers. much like here. Each of the consoles outputs has its own eight- band parametric, dynamics, compression, gate, time delay, so I was able to EQ, and delay the system from the console without the need for additional outboard. And along with the on-board processing on each channel, the only external device I used on that Jubilee Mass gig was a CD player! AT: What are the EQ and dynamics like then? GH: Actually, really good. All you do is select a channel, switch the compressor/expander, and thatll give you access to all the compressor and gate controls. For the EQ, just hit the EQ button to access four bands of para- metric EQ for the selected channel. I think you could describe the EQ and dynamics as being really very clean and transparent it doesnt try and impart its own character, which I think is great. The dynamics are very usable. I mean, on cheaper digital consoles, you just wouldnt bother touching their compressors and gates. AT: What other operational stuff are you finding good value? GH: The copy and paste facilities come in handy. You get a nice sound going on one channel and its easy to then copy that to other channels. It makes setting up the likes of multiple drum or vocal channels very quick. Also each file or project can be made up of as many as 250 pages. Say you had a festival with multiple bands or songs, you can save a new setting or page for each of those and recall them instantly when needed. AT: So you can save the settings to a floppy and take it to another console? GH: Sure. And thats sort of what I did for this show. Ive got the software loaded into my laptop which Ive used to configure the show at home, then I brought in the floppy and loaded it up. Actually, you can remove the surface altogether and run the system from a laptop if need be dynamics and automation, the lot. Just another fail-safe I suppose. AT: What happens if the Sensorys in-built PC crashes, will it still pass audio? GH: Yes, you can turn off the mixing control surface and 109 Glenn Helmot mans the Sensory console RadioFans.CN 收音机爱 好者资料库 the racks will stay in the same configuration that they were in and continue to pass audio its the Mix and Stage racks that actually are the system. AT: Has it crashed? GH: No. Ive looked into this a bit as well. The Eagle Eye Cherry tour has had it out on the road for, I think, about 18 months or more, and it hasnt crashed. The Gypsy Kings have been using it without a problem and it was used on the MTV awards in New York City. I believe the only time anyone had a problem was when someone tried to plug in some muddy BNC connectors for the coax into the racks. Because theres such a high throughput of data, the extra resistance shut it down. Yeah, so its been really stable. The software platform is DOS-based, not Windows, which gives it extra stability as well. AT: How are you finding the I/O routing matrix to work with? GH: Its about a flexible as it can be, I think. For the main stereo system Ive got EAW KF750s, with KF755 down-fills so the system is split and I can control the top row and the bottom row independently. Same goes for the delay clusters: KF755 down-fills on the bottom and the KF750s on top. So off the Sensorys left master fader Ive got an output for the top row, and an output for the down-fills effectively Ive got four fully independent outputs Ive assigned to this one fader, which I can toggle through, adjust the parameters for, and see on screen. The right master fader is set up in the same way. Meanwhile the centre/mono fader is running all my outer delays. Again, Ive got multiple independent outs assigned to the mono fader, so I can program multiple delay taps on the KF850s out there. Then Ive got front- fill, left and right main subs and subs on the outer delay, which Im controlling from outputs assigned to the group/aux faders. Inputs can be bussed to any or all outputs with levels adjusted independently. Its a reasonably complex sound system but the InnovaSons matrixing, bussing and on-board processing made the whole thing very controllable. AT: What about the layout? Does it take a real rethink from working with something like a Midas? GH: My initial reaction was to think the fader spacing was too close. Like most people, I have the desk laid out in a similar way project to project, and when I instinctive- ly reached out for a certain fader I found I was going for the wrong thing. But I think that was more because, visually, there wasnt anything to line things up no vertical row of pots above the fader. A couple of days later I got used to that, and the faders arent really that close together it was just getting used to those different visual cues. After two or three days I was getting around the Sensory as quickly as any analogue console. In the end I was probably quicker. Because Ive got the dynamics on board Im not reaching away to adjust outboard. everything is there. AT: What about the audio quality of the preamps? GH: When I took it out on the Dennis Locorriere singer from Dr. Hook shows I pushed the preamps and they seemed to have a lot of headroom. I never got into clip distortion. It was just exceptionally clean, and transparent sounding. I believe InnovaSon designed these mic pres themselves and theyve obviously put a lot of work into them. Because, thats the bottom line, it can have all the functionality in the world but its got to sound good. Mother of an Invention? With the introduction of the Sensory range I dont think youre going to find Midas Heritages or Yamaha PM4000s piling up on the side of the road for council pickup. But, the Sensory range does give us an insight into a live sound future in store for us. Digital processing simply offers too many advantages to be ignored, and it looks like InnovaSon has taken the right approach to implementing digital technology into a live sound console. You dont need to undertake a major learning curve to hit the ground running with the Sensory theres enough thats familiar to hop straight in. But equally, InnovaSon hasnt attempted to unnecessarily recreate an analogue-style work surface theyve employed a VDU, there is assignability in the controls. and this keeps the componentry cost and physical size down. The space saving advantages of Sensory are con- siderable. If youre leaving racks of compressors and gates in the warehouse, losing the multicore snakes, and teaming the Sensory up with a powered speaker system (in particular), you really are looking at a huge reduction in whats going into the truck. It wont happen overnight, but Ive no doubt the Sensory will catch on. it makes too much sense not to. Distributed by Production Audio Services Phone: (03) 9415 1585 WWW: Price POA A CD-Rom video tutorial is available free of charge. AT 110 The Sensory display: showing mix, dynamics, EQ and metering information. RadioFans.CN 收音机爱 好者资料库