The Hurt Locker, MIB wins Oscars!!!

[dr.sound]

Marti here:
It is 2 HD6 Accel systems on PE6R4 Magma chassiss and 1 HD1 for Video and stems all on Satellite Link.
We monitor through a Martinsound MultiMax because the Control 24's
monitor section tracks poorly and doesn't sound great to me.

It is mixing in the Box (2x) .
No outboard gear.

As for the New C24, it seems fine. I haven't spent more that 3 or 4 minutes on it , but for the money it seems good.

[Brent_in_Sydney]

Hi all,
awesome thread btw, great read.
FWIW my new room is running all the BChain controls (bass mgt, room eq, xcurve, ) ITB on the master fader, I dont need to use the dubber workflow, rather automation.
Dcommand gives me easy access to those as needed and if I wanted to solo/isolate stems during a layback I could set up a template to do that as needed, but I dont need to, as yet.
Products like Vmon from neyrinck, the rane 31 band EQ's as plugs, bass mgt from waves and others all make mixing and monitoring ITB quick and straight forward and augment the existing monitoring sections of any control surface, whether youre using ICON or C24 or some HUI/MIDI thing.
I dont see the need for the expensive monitoring systems anymore unless you desperately need hands on control. To me ICON allows me to access those plugs easily, giving me that hands on control, and Neyrincks Vmon has a seperate controller too.

I dont get the fuss about hardware monitoring controllers/matrixes - but I dont have the experience that you guys do.
Charles: Any info to share on limitations of this sort of ITB approach vs the hardware/high end consoles? Any info you could share would be awesome.

nathand
I'm with the others on this, I wouldnt consider ITB, in a single box - especially not with HD video. Plenty of folks are using various non linear video playback systems sync'ed to their audio systems, immediately breaking that definition.
The PT8 satellite tech as discussed also makes it easier than ever to spread your mix arcross several rigs and more and more folks have adopted it - even a straighforward scoring session at Trackdown here in sydney will typically involve 3 systems, 2 for audio and 1 for video.

[charles maynes]

Brent, I must really defer to Chris and Marti on that- though the comments made by Marti regarding the audio quality of the lower end gear is an issue.

Beyond that, the convenience of having a gate between any workstation and your loudspeakers is a really good idea- and the most repeatable and professional quality you can put into that monitor control will be a once only hurt- vs a hurt that rears its head on a regular basis with inconsistent levels and low grade components.

[Brent_in_Sydney]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

the most repeatable and professional quality you can put into that monitor control will be a once only hurt-

That's really the goal most of the time isnt it...keep it simple, keep it pure, avoid unwanted noise, avoid changing "the signal" too many times.
I love the look of the martinsound, the grace, the coleman, the dangerous audio monitoring controllers, they all look great and have great reputations but I just couldnt afford them.
The Xmon sounds clean enough for me, all I was missing was a subwoofer crossover, so I went for something ITB. Fingers crossed it wont bite me later on.
I also like the idea of tailoring the B chain handover to different final mix rooms via a plugin graphic EQ - my room is for premixing, so being able to tailer the room EQ and bass mgt to different dolby rooms around me and recall that through presets seemed like a good idea.
(on top of the best acoustic matching we can achieve, lets face it, everything has a budget cap)
Thank you to all for any advice/feedback.

[Henchman]

Hmmm, maybe it's me but the only EQ, if any, would be for your room
The rooms you go to would have their own eq already.
So if it's not translating between rooms, then one of the two is wrong.

[ggegan]

Originally Posted by Henchman

Hmmm, maybe it's me but the only EQ, if any, would be for your room
The rooms you go to would have their own eq already.
So if it's not translating between rooms, then one of the two is wrong.

Could be bad acoustics, which EQ can't necessarily cure.

[nathand]

Originally Posted by dr.sound

Marti here:
It is 2 HD6 Accel systems on PE6R4 Magma chassiss and 1 HD1 for Video and stems all on Satellite Link...

It is mixing in the Box (2x). No outboard gear.

I love that, "ITB (2x)"

Although your rig qualifies as a ITB (3x) in my mind. Video playback is an essential piece of the puzzle and IMO should be included in the duties the box must take on.

It sounds like I'm alone in expecting the box to handle sophisticated monitoring control as well.

Most importantly I agree with your definition of ITB as: No outboard gear.

But I struggle to see how your 2nd HD6 rig would not be considered an outboard unit to your first. But maybe that's just being to literal.

There was a day when Digidesign was making an ITB solution but that was when track counts were under 100 and SD Video was acceptable. Now that tracks can approach a thousand and HD video is a must Digi has decided to offer a solution that requires the user to purchase several computers that work together through a highly specialized protocol, Satellite Link.

Maybe I would have been more comfortable with the thread being titled:

"The Hurt Locker wins Oscars without a Big Fancy Console."


PS - Chris and Marti, you guys could be mixing on a Teac Portastudio and still kill it. It's never been about the gear.

[Brent_in_Sydney]

Originally Posted by ggegan

Could be bad acoustics, which EQ can't necessarily cure.

Off topic, Gary that was something I saw first hand when working on the room. I had this nice EQ over my master buss notching out some room modes and then ran some measurements without it by accident and looked over....hang on, how come Im getting the same results?? Room EQ made almost no different to the sine sweep in the room and the waterfall plot of energy over time. Its just there to give freelancers peace of mind now. Use it if they feel they need it.

BTW thanks so much for your advice last year, it was all formulative in the room design and folks are happy with the sound we're getting. More experienced ears than mine have been through and feel its a good space - couldnt have put it together quite that way without your early suggestions on speaker placement, angles and mix position.

Henchman - absolutely, the EQ is on the bchain for room flattening/xcurve, and bypasses when recording/laying back. Just for my rooms monitoring to assist translation to larger rooms. It wouldnt go with the session. I dont use it myself, I built bass traps and panel/perf absorbers to tune the room and that's working a charm so Im gradually training my ears to know the rooms translation, rather than using a graphic.