Mixer section: details
In keeping with the Sydec philosophy, the Soundscape Mixer is the ultimate in flexibility, power and ease of use. In fact, it offers infinite possibilities and puts you in control right from the word go… because you can build any Mixer you want, according to your own specifications, within the limits of your chosen Soundscape system’s DSP power… and whatever your requirements, there is a Soundscape configuration to match them.
The Soundscape Mixer runs on the DSPs of the Soundscape 32 and Soundscape 16 Digital Audio Workstations and Mixpander PCI card(s) if present. It is independent from the Arrangement, so you can use any number of Mixers with the same Arrangement, depending on how you like to work: for instance one for tracking and one for mixdown… or several for mixdown if you want different mixes… or you can use just one, and modify it as required as you go through your session, saving the different versions as you go along.
Of course, a choice of ready-made Mixers is provided to get you started. You can use these Mixers to experiment, or start from scratch. You can save Mixers (including all the settings of all plug ins), name and rename them, store them on an SDisk (on-board Soundscape hard disk) or on a PC logical drive, exchange them with other users via email.
Mixers are built by inserting “mixer elements” into user-defined mono, stereo, 4-channel, 6-channel or 8-channel “mixer strips”. Everything, from an input to a track insert, from a fully parametric EQ module to an effects processor, is a mixer element. In this respect, even optional third party plug ins are considered the same as other Soundscape mixer elements, making for a consistent user interface and a totally transparent mixer creation process. Audio signals can be routed freely to and from hardware inputs and outputs, or between channels using internal busses (16 internal busses are available when using a Soundscape 32 or Soundscape 16, and up to 64 (dynamically allocated) for a Soundscape 32 or Soundscape 16 with Mixpander). In addition, each Mixpander adds up to 64 channels (dynamically allocated) of audio streaming to and from the PC (subject to Sample Rate), so you can route audio from Soundscape to the PC to use native plug ins, or route audio from your virtual instruments, virtual sampler or audio sequencer to the Soundscape Mixer. Mixer strips can be assigned to any one of 99 Solo Groups and 99 Mute Groups. Monitoring is real-time and you can easily provide different monitor mixes for different performers by inserting send elements routed to any hardware outputs. Effects can be applied before or after recording. Of course you can bus signals as 6 or 8 channel groups and the mixer architecture fully supports surround plug-ins.
The Soundscape 32 and Soundscape 16 Digital Audio Workstations have enough on-board power to run the Soundscape Mixer during recording and editing. The built-in mixing engine can deliver high quality reverb, multiple compressors or take care of high-end processes that are not normally available without a very substantial investment in expensive dedicated hardware. This may be all that you need, especially if you want your Soundscape Digital Audio Workstation to fit into an existing studio based around a hardware mixing desk with racks full of effects units and processors. However, Soundscape has more to offer. If you connect a multi-DSP Mixpander card to your Soundscape 32 or Soundscape 16 using the Expansion Bus (or even multiple Mixpanders for multiple-unit Soundscape DAW systems), you will have staggering power at your fingertips for the most demanding mixing jobs, combining the traditional advantages of hardware (stability, reliability and a guaranteed level of performance) and software (running multiple instances of your effects and processing units, saving and loading configurations at will).
Besides the extra DSP power, there are other crucial advantages to adding a Mixpander to your system: when connected to a Soundscape DAW, a Mixpander provides up to 48 channels of audio streaming in each direction between the Soundscape Mixer and the host PC. These “native streams” can be used in many ways. For instance, audio tracks from a PC-based sequencer can be routed to the Soundscape Mixer. VST plug-ins can also be inserted directly in the Soundscape Mixer, just like DSP plug-ins. They can even be automated inside the Soundscape Editor like DSP plug-ins. The VST plug-ins run on the processor of the PC and the audio actually travels through the PCI bus, yet this is all taken care of automatically and the added latency is as low as the PC can allow. VSTi plug-ins can also be inserted at any point in the Soundscape Mixer and played via any MIDI port and channel available on the host PC. In fact, even DX plug-ins can be used via the VB-Audio FFx-4 DX-VST wrapper.
While the processing delay of Soundscape format DSP-powered mixer elements is negligible in most cases (being comparable to that of digital hardware effects and processing units), the processing delay for VST plug-ins running on the PC’s CPU can amount to several thousands of samples, added to the streaming latency (roughly twice the buffer size). Therefore, compensating for these delays has become a necessity in order to avoid phase and synchronization problems at mixdown. The Automatic Delay Compensation neatly solves this problem. As you would expect from the brains at Sydec, the Automatic Delay Compensation system is smart. It can operate purely in the Mixer, inserting delays automatically as required. Optionally, in order to be more DSP efficient, it also can shift audio Parts to create delays. And as always with Soundscape, you decide…
The ADC On/Off button is located at the bottom of the Mixer window, as shown here:
For a complete hardware feel, you can control the Soundscape Mixer from just about any control surface via the free Soundscape Console Manager utility. This combination is a desirable alternative to a digital mixing desk. It integrates closely with the front end PC for display purposes, but does not suffer the instability of native systems where running multiple programs may cause audio glitches or other serious problems while you mix critical material. Yet it exceeds the capabilities of hardware digital mixers that offer only a finite number of on-board effects units, and rivals their input/output and format capabilities with the iBox range of Input/Output boxes. And of course, it allows you to do all of your work within the same creative environment.
The Soundscape Mixer Automation reflects the general priorities of the Soundscape Editor. It is flexible, powerful, easy to use and user configurable. Automation data is generated whenever a mixer parameter value is changed using the on-screen controls or the hardware control surface, and can be recorded dynamically to any one of 128 available automation tracks (one per mixer column; by default the automation data for each mixer column is recorded to the track that has the same number).
The resulting automation Parts can be edited in much the same way as audio Parts. They can be cut, moved, copied, repeated, trimmed, slipped, timelocked, glued, etc. The Context Sensitive Edit tool (described in the Soundscape Editor product page) can be used on automation Parts for lightning fast editing, and in this case it can also take on the function of the automation specific editing tools for editing of individual automation events, thinning of automation curves, and automation curve selection within Parts (each recorded parameter is displayed as a curve that occupies an individual layer within the corresponding Part). In addtion to dynamic automation recording, automation data can also be recorded as snapshots at any point in the Arrangement, and for any chosen parameters. All the parameters of all standard mixer elements and nearly all optional third party plug ins are automatable. The system is easy to learn quickly by using default settings, but can be configured to suit your preferences. For instance, you could very well decide to record all of your automation data to a single track, or define individual tracks for each parameter type regardless of mixer columns. As always with Soundscape, you are in charge:
“Normal”, “Touch Record” and “Touch Record Till Stop” modes are provided, along with a "Cycle End mode" option and adjustable “Knob touch timeout” and “Knob auto return time” parameters, making your work easier with or without hardware touch-sensitive faders.
The Cycle End mode, requested by some of our sound-to-picture users, allows automatable settings (for instance EQ parameter values) to be adjusted while listening to a section of audio (which could be a loop between the Left and Right locators). When recording is stopped, the last values are copied to te beginning of the new automation Part.
|
 |
|