Saw one at Plasa last week. Screen is nice, and thank goodness for the same multitouch functionality that we've all been used to on everyones iPad apps for years. Seems like it is pretty straightforward to navigate, though screen can look messy. The headline feature I found attractive was cloud storing your show files and favourite channel settings, but its not fully operational in the desk yet. Some of the other speed-setup features I'm honestly not sure I'd use. When we all started, the whole point of digital boards was that you could save all your settings and load approprate show files, saving onn programming time, and I guess if you are working in the same venue on the same rig, then great, but personally we are building a new system every gig, and those time saving devices are as likely to screw me up as anything. Still always better to build a custom showfile per gig from the bottom up.

Price point will be interesting. Spec seems great, but are they going to be pitching at the Yamaha CL/ Digico SD12 point, or QL/S21 point?

Have to query the perpetual this-sounds-better-than-that discussion above. I usually use Yamaha, and less often Digico. Once you've factored in the room, the PA itself, and the actual content you are mixing, I think you can do a really good job on any modern digital board, and speed and workflow are certainly hugely important, also Dante networking and scaleability. In days of M7 and LS9 you could rightly criticise Yamaha for sounding cold and horrible. CL/QL sound great, and the new PMs are supposed to sound fantastic. You need to heavily use the EQs, where others need only slight tweaks to get the same effect, but so what. I prefer the GUI of Yamaha's dynamic EQ to the Digico, and the channel compressors are super usable.

Will be nice to have an intuitive Midas, and finally one that doesn't use the infernal track ball!

got a quote from my distributor:

€23'500
$25'800

pretty tough call for digico, yamaha, avid, soundcraft etc. i'd say!

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[off topic but getting back to the discussion on 'sound': there is a good reason to dislike the eq's of yamaha desks up until pm7/pm10 as they have been using an asymmetrical filter design which gets perceived as rather unpleasant by most any people, regardless of whether they are pros or not; can more easily be experienced when boosting than when cutting.

try for yourself and set up two consoles, one from yamaha and one from almost any other manufacturer, split a signal and apply equal amounts of eq boost in a frequency range to which our ears are sensitive...

having said that, i'd like to mention that one of the best mixes i ever did was on m7cl, using the built-in mic pres, converters, dyn/eq/efx (without any outboard at all) - and another one was even on the much-hated ls9 (plus a couple of mics i don't like much but a dbmax and a xo24)]

There will also be a new Midas personal monitoring system to go along with this new board (and any 44.1/48K AES50 system, so X/M32 as well), the Midas DP48.

https://www.midasconsoles.com/Catego...oogtrans(en|en)

Images from the Midas/MT website:





Allows you to mix 12 stereo groups which contain up to 48 channels, i.e. you could have the keys on one group, drums on another etc. also allows these group assignments to be shared between 2 users, so you can have 2 musicians sharing one DP48. Has built in comp and a master reverb. Ambient mics are also included as is an aux in and stereo SD recorder.
It can be powered either by PoE from one of their new AES50 hubs (although no details of them yet) or via a standard PSU which then allows daisy-chaining of units.

More importantly the product page for this confirms that there will be a V4 firmware for the X/M32 and it is rumored that it will remove the b locks of 8 patching limitation.

Can you say feedback...?

I'm of two minds about these systems, because on one hand I get that some musicians want to be in control of their monitor mix, but on the other hand, so many years after the introduction of personal monitoring systems in the studio and I'm convinced that most musicians can't build the 'right' mix, faster than a competent and experienced sound technician, and that includes very experienced musicians who can tell you exactly what they want.

Anybody with enough experience behind the console knows that more vocals can sometimes really mean less guitar or less of everything else. With IEM systems musicians will probably only hasten hearing damage and negatively affect how they play, with stage wedges however, we can add feedback and loud stage problems to the list of things that can and will go wrong.

We're already in the era of musicians (many are 'studio' owners) who think they're better sound technicians/mixers than 'real' sound technicians and mixers...let the fun and games begin.

there's another thing which bugs me: this seemingly new toy is yet another copy of an existing product which has been around for ca. 15 years - doesn't help to re-establish my faith in any of the companies which went over to the dark side...

Couldn't have said it better! Most want to hear their own concert, not what will make them sound/play better.

But then again Behringer have had their 16Ch unit for a while now so it's not exactly a new product range for the group.

you don't really wanna go further back in the history of b?! be warned: there might be a bad smell rising from the tomb...

A copy of what?

From the Midas product information:

Remote Control
In addition to the remote configuration from compatible FOH or monitoring consoles, any DP48 mixer can also fully control one or several other DP48 mixers on stage, for concurrent changes. A stage tech can remotely assist whenever a performer needs help with his personal mix.

Seems like they thought about those concerns.

Also going by their facebook post (Midas' that is), the DP48 can send the mixed audio BACK out the AES50 port so that if you have wireless IEM's you do not need an audio lead from the DP48 back to wireless world, just that the transmitter needs to be connected to an output somewhere on the AES50 network.

Also it gets colour coding/channel names from the mixer, so you know when patching exactly what channels are what.
The remote control feature could be used, I suppose, to get extra monitor feeds if you run out of monitor/AUX sends while at the same time it putting a headphone amp (well 2) on stage.

Not really...this feature allows intervention, if the musician wants it, but it does not prevent the things I mentioned, it won't stop a musician from turning up his mix or elements of the mix to ridiculous levels, and by the time you intervene to kill a feedback it would have already happened. It also won't stop a musician with IEMs from destroying his hearing.

Mixing monitors properly is a special skill unto itself, This feature turn over monitor mixing to a bunch of inexperienced and incompetent people when it's a lot easier and certainly more efficient for one competent person to maintain the cohesive balance between the sound on stage and FOH than a bunch of people on stage just doing their thing.

Don't forget many smaller bands don't have a stage console at all.
I think they made it thinking of those situations.

Some updates from Rob Lofgren on the PSW forums, the DP48 will allow a local click input to be sent back down the AES50 line and shared between other DP48's without tying up a mixer channel, plus the mentioned HUB4 has 16 local analogue outputs so can be positioned in an IEM rack and fed from outputs from the DP48's so only 1 cable to a DP48 even if a return for a wireless IEM system is required.

As for related news, the V4 firmware for the X/M32 (as I understand it) will remove the blocks of 8 limitation by allowing custom user banks of inputs/outputs.

See: https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index...tml#msg1586692
https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index...tml#msg1586696

not sure i'd want to leave musicians any 'control' over parts of this (or any other) desk: ime they often don't know what they want or need to hear and while one might say who cares, results of bad mixes show up pretty quickly in their performance and can get catastrophic with wedges!

You don't use a personal mixer for a wedge mix. Oh, I am sure SOMEBODY does it, but it is not standard practice, especially in large scale touring, large houses of worship, etc. These are for IEMs.

...which is exactly my point: SOMEONE always messes up things!

if giving musicians some control over their mixes, i recommend the klangfabrik which indeed adds something to the table which no one else offers but all the midas, ah, aviom, roland etc personel mixers imo are toys and indeed get better used in church sound...

yes, many bands have been switching to iem's, down to local bands; however, hardly any large production uses personel mixers, except for maybe one or two members of a band occasionally - i'd really need to dig it up though when this a has been the case; cannot remember this to happen this summer season or the year before.

On the subject of bands using personal monitor mixers I believe Earth, Wind and Fire use them and that Genesis have been using them for years (each member appears to have a small fader box, which I am guessing is for monitoring).

There is no rule that limits personal mixers to IEM/headphone use except in the case where the musician is listening to a click...and nobody said its use with stage wedges was standard...yet. Big tours use monitor console(s) and monitor mixer(s), not personal mixers operated by the musicians.

But even if their use was limited to people using IEMs, some of the concerns that were raised, are still relevant.

Same for me, apart from drummers who need a click, I can't remember ever seeing any musician using a personal mixer on stage. Even in the case of a musician integrating a click through a micro mixer, they are not mixing the music, just just balancing the click against the music.

I have worked with bands where the singer had his own personal monitor mixer and monitor console, but never with a band that had people mixing themselves...before modern digital technology the logistics would have been overwhelming, so anybody who claims bands have been doing this for a long time, better come with irrefutable proof.

this - and then the 'format war' which personal mixers extend into another domain...

it's silly: some of the formats really just popped up 'cause manufacturers were not willing to pay license fees for another long established format used by competitors! - if i go to the warehouse, it's insane how many protocols i can find (same btw with the remote control of preamps; i really wish the large manufacturers would share a common technique)

i'm gonna 'test' the desk tomorrow (dunno how much time i'll get though) - anyone wants me to check into a specific topic?

There is an image floating around of somwonw using a Heritage-D looking unit but without any faders, no one knows quite what it is yet but it is rumored to be version of the HD-96.

I am mostly interested in haptics. How do potis and fader feel?
I really love my Pro 1 because it just feels good to push a button or turn a poti.

Can you check if there are any improvements with the automation (e.g. relative updates, global paste ...), please?
Also would be interesting to see if it's possible to change the input patch without loosing the gain settings.

if they are smart, they'll come up with a dsp engine which can get remotely controlled with a touch screen or two (like the waves lv1) as some folks like to work this way (i don't, see my comment on the lv1*) or use it as a redundant dsp in a high profile situation.


* i rather think the surface might be too small for some users and but maybe there will be a larger version or an additional faderbank? let's see...

prologue/disclaimer/spoiler:

i'm a freelance sound engineer with 35+ years of experience in recording/mixing/mastering/broadcasting of all genre and on all levels (including international touring) and i have been working on pretty much any desk there has been in the last 50 years, from tapco to tascam, amek to waves and everything in between.

together with a friend from a rental company (for which i've regularly been working for ca. 25 years), i got a chance to have some fun with the heritage d96 but mainly to ask tons of questions to a knowledgeable sales rep/sound engineer, standing in front of one of the few pre-production desks which currently exist and are getting shown around.
my questions were mainly aiming at the concept, signal flow, implementation of functions and some operational aspect, judged against the offerings from the competitors but NOT about 'sound'...

at this stage, the core functions work and one can get a pretty good idea on how to get sound from a to b and how to maneuvre the desk; some features are not yet fully implemented, others not at all - and of course things will change until release (aiming at chinese new year) and beyond so please don't nail me down or ask further question: i'm not one of the engineers dunno/cannot answer them; i'm not one of the engineers who got to test the desk in recent months (or in the near future/prior to the official release) and i'm not affiliated with the brand.

oh, the spoiler: imo midas will give pretty much any manufacturer a hard time, especially considering the price! some features are what you know and expect from midas, others draw quite a bit from other manufacturers, some are unique and new... - once fully operational, this desk imo is gonna make a BIG splash!

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what's there so far (in no particular order):

- lightweight
- this is a LIVE desk, not a broadcast desk
- 96k, latency compensation (to different degrees)
- view angle of (touch) screen and scirbble strip is amazing
- customizable view (preference) options
- pres/fader from pro series (well, faders/knobs slightly different)
- no gain sharing! :-)
- post fader inserts now available; signal path/processing order easily adjustable
- basic channel strip is pretty normal with gate, comp, peq including hpf and lpf; too bad the gate cannot get swapped for an expander (which for me is a complete show stopper)...
- 1st or 2nd order allpass filter (implementation/graphics still a bit sketchy)
- de-esser and multiband comp: kinda of plugins/efx but lots of them/on every channel (promised, no indication at this time)
- dual pfl bus
- two tb mic inputs
- stem groups (they got a different name for it)
- temporary gang of functions on different levels (relative, absolute, and min/max)
- 'preview' (not sure about names for this or their terminology in general) function which allows you to tweak things sending only to the pfl bus before applying the function to audio!
- tc vss4 efx! (working)
- other emulations (eq? comp? didn't check but working)
- adjustable color options for say eq curves
- 'tags' allw you put some functions anywhete on the screen
- 'pin' does assign a function to knob
- preview, isolate, global paste, recall safe, crossfade time etc. looks very promising (although in the early stages at this time) *
- lake processing! (not yet implemented at this time)
- shout matrix! a matrix with point-to-point routing without taking away from normal inputs/buses
- ai enhanced! not sure what to think of it but i assume it can be helpful: auto channel naming to way more complex tasks one your cloud account knows a bit better about your preferences - i didn't dig much into it (as i haven't been much interested); i was told it currently works on 8 channels, should become more powerful and go up to 32 channels

should i remember a few more things, i might add them in the next few days (if time allows)...


vague:

- no mix-minus buses (yet)
- no analyzer (yet)
- no surround (yet)
- rear panel connectors indicate that there might get all sorts of things hooked up to the desk such as a second screen (which duplicates the main touch screen) but also a third screen say for the system tech to set up the lake processors/align the system.
- two slots, say for a madi and dante card: dunno whether src for recording at standard rate will get implemented...
- probably no built-in multitrack recorder
- most likely no mp3-playback via usb
- how about an additional external faderbank...?
- how about a downsized version with just dsp and a touchscreen (or two)...?

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my impression:

while none of these functions (except ai) are entirely new to some live sound or broadcast desks, none of the competitor's desks have all of these features packed into one desk! in this regard, the heritage d96 is/will become outstanding!

would i have invested in a digico, yamaha, a&h, cadac, soundcraft, avid, waves or midas desk lately, i guess i'd be very much embarrassed/annoyed!

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epilogue:

not sure one 'needs' all these functions for an average to large band and i personally don't like how some functions get accessed (such as temporary ganging); i doubt it will become a walk-up desk or can change the fact that every band is schleppig their desk to each gig; also, some high-profile broadcast desks imo still got an edge (plus some unique features) - however, this desk does not seem to aim at becoming the ultimate desk for all applications but more like a very capable live desk with huge processing capacity, in a relatively small package, suitable for most any band and festival with some unique features, in a functional form and contemporary appearance - even at this stage, i'm quite impressed; looking forward for this desk to become fully operational! i'm sure it then will appear on many riders pretty soon...


* see pic

Yes, on the PSW forums they were saying it has features that were either only availabe on or the cheapest way to get said features was to go for a SD7 Quantum, one of the members on said forumks a dealer and got pricin claiming that it would do said feature(s) for 10% of the cost of a SD7 Quantum!

I suppose one thing Midas do ahev going for them noe is the brand leader (boss) of Midas was a midas engineer who worked on their digital consoles, so is a bit more than just a marketing man. But then again the leader of the whole Music Tribe group designed and built his own products at the start.

Hey guys,

Just chiming in to answer questions you may have regarding the Heritage-D. I'm not on GS as often as I used to, but I'm available via PM or you can call me directly at 702 842 9364.

Next week we'll be showing the console at the TC Furlong console event in Chicago as well as a few other cities (Madison, WI & Minneapolis, MN). The following week we're in Texas - Dallas and Houston. We'll be hitting more markets across the country in the coming months too.

We'll also be hosting something in Anaheim during the week of NAMM. Still ironing out the details but if you contact me as we get closer I'll be able to provide more information.

i forgot about a neat additional feature: basic settings can be typed into an excel sheet (!) and get imported into the desk - we're not talking just channel names but low cuts, phantom power etc. (if i remember right)...


to me, this seems to be a poor comparison as the midas has some features not rivalled by any digico (which are essentially all the same, some with 'more of the same' though)...

one would have to look at studer, stagetec, lawo and ssl live desks to find some of the smarter features. while these desk are using a much more conservative design approach (and are aiming at a vastly different clientele), they still outperform the new desk in several ways, yet are clearly behind in other areas - where exactly imo is beyond the scope of this thread; after all, this is about the new midas heritage digital LIVE desk (and not about broadcast desks)!

i appreciate the experts taking over! (i started this thread after seeing a prototype in action some time ago and was wondering about what to expect - glad we're getting closer to the official release!)