Consoles 983- A normal control-surface/mixing router arrange-
ment is shown with a single major transport require-
ment at juncture (B). - A distributed mixing-on-the-network style console
is shown with network links inserted at (B) and (E). - An all-in-one box arrangement (emulatingo-
stand-alone analog consoles and simpler digital
consoles) is shown with no transport insertions. - A DAW with an external input output unit has a
connection at E. - A similar DAW but with an add-on physical control
surface has links at B as well as E. - A simple DAW with limited I/O output having no
need of external interconnection.
This latter uses the host PC’s GUI for control and
display, the PC’s CPU to do all the hosting and audio
processing, and internal converters to get the audio in
and out. A surprise may be the extensive use of
semi-pro or domestic communications schemes in the
DAW contexts —for instance, MIDI (musical instru-
ment digital interface) for the control surface intercon-
nection, and USB as the audio transport to the audio I/O
interface box.
The major underlying message from all this is that
DAWs are consoles, too! In broad-brush architecture as
shown in Fig. 25-151 they are—since they have to
perform all the same functions—indistinguishable from
“real” consoles, which is actually an understatement,
since in many respects DAWs are more versatile and
powerful.
25.24.1 The PC
A decently fast and capable central processor(s); a
reasonably easily crafted and programmed graphical
and user interface; fast, inexpensive, and capacious
memory; and omnipresence all afford the PC an envi-
able basis for audio production. It is and nearly always
has been a more cost-effective platform than any
purpose-built digital audio system of comparable
facility. All the technical advantages made it a natural
basis for initially fairly elementary audio functions such
as a hard disk recorder/stereo editor, up to today where
entire multitrack recording/editing/processing systems
readily fit on a laptop—the like, of which would have
been the envy of major studios just a couple of decades
ago. Despite the best efforts of operating system manu-
facturers to make real-time audio streaming into and out
of PCs problematic, the PC is a formidable tool.
25.24.2 MIDI Sequencing—Where It BeganAn early PC application was in the recording, storage,
manipulation, and automation of MIDI-encoded
musical parts, to facilitate the assemblage of songs. This
did not involve any audio, per se, merely the manage-
ment of streams of MIDI commands against time. These
were then issued in sequence down a MIDI path to
attached music synthesizers that played the music itself.
The desired ability to compose, rearrange, copy, and
time-slip parts in relation to others in synchronization
gave birth to extensive and powerful automation, which
largely outshone concurrent traditional console automa-
tion schemes.
Recording and manipulating audio on a PC occurred
when processor speed and disk drive size and access
speed allowed (two-track editing became commonplace,
resulting in stereo tape recorders plummeting from
hallowed possessions to doorstops virtually overnight).
Although the means of getting multiple simultaneous
live audio streams into the systems lagged, it was
certainly possible for multiple tracks to be recorded
sequentially so building up a true multitrack recording,
and this was exactly the mode of operation prevalent in
basement studios anyway.
And so it was not the least bit surprising that the
major exponents of MIDI sequencing software became
the major exponents of PC-as-studio, and their
approaches from MIDI world translated over into audio
world reasonably well, despite significant differences in
philosophy. This does explain why those previously
steeped in traditional recording find the assumptions,
methods of control, and even terminology of
sequencer-studio tools quite alien, while those who have
grown up with it regard traditional techniques (and
terminology and assumptions) to be, well, odd and
quaint. MIDI sequencers have cast a long shadow over
today’s audio processing.
Many of the strengths of the sequencer applied to
audio readily in ways unthinkable before—time-slip-
ping or copying individual tracks or segments, unlim-
ited takes of tracks or segments being treated as related
parts rather than completely separate tracks, as exam-
ples. As the recording hardware (PC) became more
powerful and the number of instantaneously available
tracks increased, a deliciously ironic approach has come
to the fore: originally, the sequencer shuffled MIDI
elements around, in the hybrid audio-plus-MIDI the two
were treated in parallel yet separately, but now it is
common for all the MIDI tracks to be rendered as audio
onto audio tracks just like live sources, and the audio
control and automation methods rule.