Know-how

»There Comes a Time to go Digital« – by B. Morgan Martin

In '85 the first large digital console appeared – with high cost and major limitations. Since then, various other digital consoles have been either too costly or too unreliable to be truly successful in the US broadcast world. But in 2001, the year we are supposed to reach Jupiter along with HAL 9000 (1), it can be argued that Digital's the way to go!

At that time, my staff and I were faced with the task of specifying new audio consoles that we hoped would meet our needs for many years to come. Our counterparts around town were dealing with the same challenge. Some of the consoles we all speced then remained in use for as many as 20 years! But despite our careful attempts to provide for future needs, we soon found that we were »running out of faders«. We often had to wheel in »side car« consoles to have enough inputs for increasingly more complex productions. For example, »Name That Tune« suddenly went from one live orchestra to an orchestra and a band, instantly doubling the number of inputs we needed. Who would have thought!

We also found that from time to time we could have used more than the 10 aux busses we had built into our consoles at MetroTape. We could have expanded those consoles, by adding more input strips – but at prohibitive cost. Adding more auxes, subs, and the like was impossible. And we weren't alone – others around town were running into similar difficulties.

CANTUS to the Rescue!

Today, with Stage Tec's CANTUS digital console, the situation is radically changed. With CANTUS it's easy to change the console's »spec« as your needs change. You just define a new CANTUS »project« with however many inputs, auxes and subs you need. It makes keeping up with changing needs easy!

Of course, the maximum number of input channels a particular CANTUS can have will depend on the number of plugin ADSP cards you install. These ADSP cards, housed in one 3U high Rack, handle all of the processing for a CANTUS console. And unlike with analog consoles, if someday you find you need more channels than there are cards for, it's a simple matter to plug in more ADSP and an update program and voila, you'll have more input channels!

Adding Faders is easy!

Even adding more faders to the console can be a snap! Example: the CANTUS console recently installed at a broadcast network's stage in LA was built with blank panels for future expansion. If the folks there decide that they want more faders, installing them will be as simple as plugging in the fader and knob panels, an interface card, and linking cables. A quick software update from a floppy disk and they would be in business.

One I/0 Section for All

With analog consoles, it's nearly impossible to add more microphone inputs, mainly because a console's mic input circuits are usually a part of its channel strips: new microphone inputs require new channel strips – which means very expensive modifications to the surface.

With CANTUS, adding more inputs or outputs is simple. All inputs and outputs to a CANTUS console come from a NEXUS digital audio router. If you need more microphone inputs, or more analog outputs, or maybe I/O for a new digital format that didn't even exist when you bought the CANTUS, it's only a matter of expanding the NEXUS, usually just by plugging in cards.

And since the NEXUS is not necessarily tied to just one CANTUS console, any CANTUS in your plant can use any input and output in the NEXUS, making it easy to say connect microphones in stage 2 to the CANTUS in stage 1.

No Routine Maintenance!

Another issue with analog consoles is the matter of intermittent switches and noisy pots. Those that are not used often are particularly susceptible to embarrassing failures. It's a sad thing to see a highly paid, talented tech spending the morning twisting knobs and pushing buttons to insure that when they are used »on air«, they work without problems.

As time goes by, CANTUS users find that there is basically no routine maintenance needed for their CANTUS consoles. There's no need to exercise pots and switches to make sure they don't go noisy or scratchy because there's no audio going through any of the controls on the surface.

CANTUS knobs and switches are merely controllers, with the actual fading, muting, etc., done by the processors on the ADSP cards. And real world experience has shown that the CANTUS/ NEXUS hardware is much more reliable than the best analog! The result is that maintenance costs drop precipitously.

The show will go on

In this fabled year of 2001, it is fair to say that some digital consoles can have problems that are relatively unknown in the analog world – specifically problems of software instability. We have all heard all-too-true stories about digital consoles that have crashed in the middle of live productions, causing an unfortunate loss of audio. However, CANTUS is never mentioned in these stories. Why? Because CANTUS simply does not crash.

Unbelievable, how can a system working with microsoft windows (no offense, Bill!) be that stable? It's because the PC in CANTUS doesn't handle any audio at all – it's only used for saving set-ups to disk and for updating certain configurations. All audio control and processing is handled by the CANTUS hardware and software. So even if Windows crashes, the show will go on. CANTUS will stand firm, keeping you »on air«.

Still a Normal Console

You might wonder if anything remains the same as we go from yesterday's analog consoles to today's CANTUS Digital Console and the answer is certainly »YES!«. The mixer still sits down at what he or she will recognize as a real audio console, not some screen based semi-pro thing. There are actual PFL buttons, solo buttons, hiresolution meters, etc. And, just like the older analog consoles, the maintenance staff will be happy to see redundant power supplies and fully hotswappable cards throughout the system. Of course, there are lots of other benefits offered by CANTUS digital consoles – all of which help to make it a must to go digital today. Not with HAL, but with CANTUS!