RSS Digital Snakes

[Mr Rich]

I've been doing location recording work for many years and I've finally taken the plunge and opted to go for a kitted-out van, rather than lugging cases of gear into buildings and trying to find some place to set up. The van in question is a new Mercedes Benz, Medium-wheelbase Sprinter and the main medium is Pro Tools HD.

In the past I've been carrying 100m of 24ch multi (sometimes x2) and I really don't want to install half a ton of that stuff behind the rear doors, if I can avoid it. I've been looking at Digital snakes and the RSS system seems very tempting. It's already on test with some high profile companies here in the UK and Roland have offered me the chance to give it a go.

So, has anyone had any experience with this system yet? I'm pretty well-read on the background, but if anyone has any useful comments or experiences, I'd love to hear them.

Here's a link:

www.digitalsnakes.com

Thanks.

Rich.

[drblank]

Originally Posted by Mr Rich

I've been doing location recording work for many years and I've finally taken the plunge and opted to go for a kitted-out van, rather than lugging cases of gear into buildings and trying to find some place to set up. The van in question is a new Mercedes Benz, Medium-wheelbase Sprinter and the main medium is Pro Tools HD.

In the past I've been carrying 100m of 24ch multi (sometimes x2) and I really don't want to install half a ton of that stuff behind the rear doors, if I can avoid it. I've been looking at Digital snakes and the RSS system seems very tempting. It's already on test with some high profile companies here in the UK and Roland have offered me the chance to give it a go.

So, has anyone had any experience with this system yet? I'm pretty well-read on the background, but if anyone has any useful comments or experiences, I'd love to hear them.

Here's a link:

RSS by Roland - Home

Thanks.

Rich.

There are other companies that make digital snakes as well. I am also interested in knowing about these as well. It seems that it is the way to improve the sound with regards to long cable lengths.

I am also wondering if there is anyone doing any work with 24/192 systems.

[aussie_techie]

maybe its just me but i would opt for a widely adopted and proven technology from a manufacture that will keep a product going for a long time and ideally a standard so that you have choices of products from many manufactures. maybe Roland will keep this one going who knows, im only thinking of their track record so far.

alot of people seem to use MADI around here and SSL make MADI to TDM boxes. i think you also have to consider your pres and converter chain when spec'ing these systems.
the standard of Ether-sound and AES50 are other options that come to mind but there are so many now days it hard to try and list them all.

but thats just how i see it, take it for what its worth.

[klaukholm]

Our location setup is a HD3 system with 52 ch IO at 96/24 over madi (with 4 aes IO making it 56ch).
All you need is a 4 or 5 channel multi (one for redundancy).
This setup is so much lighter than our old AES based setup. If you opt for a optical madi setup you can have one small reel of 250 meter optical multicable.
Our setup is based around Euphonix madi converters, but for a lot less money you can get the cheap, but serviceable ssl 24io. This way you can stay in PTHD, but get the benefit of madi.

[Jim vanBergen]

I used the Roland RSS snake and 400 series mixing console this past fall.

Short story:
I thought the desk was passable for a small-format FOH console, but it was nothing to write home about for recording or higher-end, top level reinforcement. (It's no Digico or Studer, but it's a fraction of the price.) The scene cueing & automation was lousy, but the dynamics, EQ, and verbs were OK.

I'd choose the snake before I paid for the mixing console, personally.

The best thing it has going for it is the price. It's nothing great to write home about as far as a snake or a console, but it compares well to copper and the snake sounds OK.

I found the console much better than the automation software, and the reps were really wonderful in NYC.

My $0.02.

[skygod]

Here's a quick primer and short history for those interested:

Technology Showcase: Fiber-Optic Audio Snakes

The problem with RSS Roland at this point, and probably into the near future, is that they limited their own bandwidth at 24/44.1-48? Nuts? Yup. They should have set their 'mean' bandwidth at 24/88-96 but they took the low road again like everybody else who have no .... what do they call those things again .... oh yeah now I remember … Quijones? I can never understand MFGs mentalities. They have the technology and the means to set good baseline standards and always seem to sell themselves short. I remember what we called those back in the day: Self-inflicted gunshot wound to get out of combat duty. Hmmmm. Yup the coward’s way out ….

SSL-SOUNDSCAPE and the likes should take over that market from Roland no problema. But even those astute engineers will have to think beyond TOSLINK and AES and MADI and marry up with MUSE-like research and get the entire industry on a 10/100 Gigabit Ethernet wavelength sheet of music if you will-- a seamless duplex MIDI/Digital Audio Stream that is a hundred times or better more powerful than any MAC or fastest duo core Intel/Motorola based CPU.

The sooner that everybody realizes this and comes to a new market "hardware" base paradigm and standard for pro-audio-video 'pre-, during-, and post- production' needs, then the sooner we can all cut the umbelical cord from these client server office word processing machines that the entire planet has diligently spent the last two decades brainmelding, brainstorming, and brainfarting themselves to death to tweak to make them arrive at their present state to where they finally have maxxed out in capability and performance. So we can add more RAM now on a 64 BIT BUS? Bloody lovely mate. Final answer? Guess whaa? It’s just another band aid patch fix on top of all the previous ones. Smashing!

Imagine a laptop simply running you fav software managers with everything else running off how ever many Receptor2s via 10/100 Gigabit one needs. Waves, UAD2s, URS, Eventide, Lexicon, TCE, Massenberg, yada yada ....all you fav software plugy thingys from here there and everywhere else all at 64 BIT and beyond, no latency, no delays, no overhead, no realtime limit to track count, no nothing but professional audio-video BLISS. A genuine Socratic-Platonic-Aristotlean- Hobbesian-Lockian-Machiavellian-Nietze-Freudian-Jungian-Marxian-Clintonian-Bush-Pelosi-Kennedy-Acorn-Obama Utopia for all lol ...

~skygod~

‘Wherever you are …. That’s where yer at!’
…. Rogers