952 Chapter 25
embedded processer such as an ARM. Being short of
the tyranny of thin module strips allows the garnering of
a reasonable number of controls’ data and the driving of
a reasonable number of indicators without the indirec-
tion and bottle-necking encumbrance of a console long
data busing scheme. Even a large console’s worth of
controls and indicators is easy pickings for a large
processor treating them as medium-speed peripherals
through industry standard buffers or FPGAs. Should a
devolved scheme be necessary from a semimodular or
macromodular approach to the surface each submodule
may be looked after by a smaller embedded micro or
even an FPGA, with communication from each back to
the host by fast serial link.
Chances are, this host will also be feeding data to a
subsidiary LCD screen driver processor (or two, or
three), talking down Ethernet to the signal-processing
host sending it fresh parameters (or even coefficient sets
if they’re being calculated at the surface end), receiving
back from the processing host packets of metering
information to be divvied out to the appropriate
displays, and last but certainly not least attending to the
level of automation (static snapshots or real time) in
which the console is operating. To this end, it almost
certainly has mass storage, such as loads of flash ram,
and/or a hard drive.
25.16.13.4 Multiuser, Multifunction
User arguments can run something like, “But we might
want to change several things at once, and Fred the
producer likes to look after the monitor mix while I do
the rest.” The control software would naturally allow
simultaneous control actions on a pair or across a group
of channels to be ganged, which is fairly trivial and not
the point being addressed. The main engineer console
can be regarded and would be regarded by the host
computer in console systems as simply a terminal, albeit
the main one. There is nothing to stop other terminals of
greater, equal but probably lesser or deliberately limited
facilities having access to the main body of electronics,
sharing the network and its resources, in other words. In
practice they would have access to and be able to
manipulate a preprogrammed subset of the total capa-
bility (e.g., our producer friend’s monitor mix) concur-
rent to the main terminal or control surface. Another
obvious secondary terminal would be a second or even
third set of assignable channel controls for multi-op
situations, although we can’t help wondering how often
they would be redundant except in the all-hands
on-deck film mix-down world. As a capability it would
go a long way to soothing the frustration of engineers
new to the concept who are wary of losing so many
controls at once in sacrifice to the new false god ratio-
nalization!
Simultaneous access to the same set of information
is what the term multiusers is all about. Multiple control
surfaces pose no real issues—control systems and
networking operate so quickly in relation to the rate of
changes a mixing engineer can make that several
concurrent operators sense no interaction at all.
In computer terms the system described bears more
than a passing resemblance to a hardware-related data-
base, remotely controlled by a terminal or terminals
down a network. Again, in computer terms, it’s a pretty
small database, and at least on the control side a pretty
lightly loaded network, too.25.16.14 Goodbye Jackfields, Hello RoutingConsidering that one of the easiest audio subsystems to
organize using digital technology is signal switching,
it’s astonishing jackfields still exist. Analog switching
matrices are now at such a level of development that
they can be considered transparent to the system.
Digital routers of course have no impact on signal
quality whatsoever. Neither in any way, even when
many are cascaded, create performance limitations.
They are dense (many thousand source/destination cros-
spoints will fit in the same rack space as 144 jack holes)
and decreasingly expensive—much less expensive per
crosspoint than a comparable jack circuit. Control is
soft and the operation can thus be anything from a
humble computer terminal, PC application, to effec-
tively complete seamless integration as part of the
console’s control surface. Of course, within assignable
systems, the matrix is controlled by an interactive
control surface by the operator, all routings and parame-
ters being storable, recallable, and resettable as are the
rest of the parameters of the console, in real time if
desired. Try that with 50 patch cords!
Inputs and outputs of everything internal to the
console (equalizers, dynamics sections, front-end ampli-
fiers, line-output amplifiers, and so on) and everything
external to the console (effects, machine input and
outputs, and so on) all appear as sources or destinations
on the matrix. The concept of insert point has disap-
peared; anything can go in anywhere. After decades of
things getting more complex suddenly things have
become simple again—there is no system and no
prewired interconnections. A system to fit a given
circumstance is built up from scratch using all the
circuitry building blocks interconnected as required via