FRONT OF HOUSE
ANCIENT OF DAYS , MODERN OF MOMENT | Kent Morris
While moving the gear warehouses of Cornerstone Media for the first time in over twenty years , the dramatic shift in live production equipment offerings become visceral as well as intensely physical . Large format analog consoles , weighing hundreds of pounds in their flight cases and requiring separate racks with power supplies , umbilicals , and processing of all types , proved difficult to move , unwieldy , and truly of another era . The sheer mass of the system brought home its antiquity as it loomed like a telephone switchboard next to a cell phone over the small , lightweight digital wonders sitting next to it on the box truck . In essence , we used to work really hard to provide live sound , working sixteen hour days using discrete , heavy hardware with maladies of all sorts expected .
Experienced , and exhumed while we now enjoy reliability , repeatability , and compact dimensions wholly at odds with the past . However , there remains a flux of nostalgia mixed with a nagging sense of loss over what we had when every knob had one function , and toroidal transformers ruled the day . On the other hand , do we really want to go back to hernia inducing set-ups and cable trunks weighing as much as a small elephant ? Let ’ s find out .
When audio is analog , it remains in its “ natural ” state since audio must begin and end as analog , statis is maintained . When converted to digital , audio is altered . Now , it may be altered imperceptibly to the casual listener , and it may be altered in an enhancing manner at high conversion rates and deep depths , but it is different than the analog original . Different can mean better or it can simply mean different . The balance to the “ purity ” concept of analog , however , is the functional improvement inherent within the digital domain . Freed from the constraints of analog control , anything currently available offers vast improvements over the best of yesteryear in terms of operability , recall , routing , and logistics . If there is nostalgia for the old days of audio , one push up a ramp with a seven hundred pound Crest XVCA-48 console will assuage the notion .
There is a key element , though , to analog when it comes to training and learning over digital . Analog forces the operator to physically patch and assign each component and brings to bear an economy of usage missing from digital . If an analog rig has four compressors in the rack , then only four signals will be compressed . In contrast , even a low-cost digital mixer has compression on each input and output . But just because we can doesn ’ t mean we should . Finding the fix for the mix with the limited tools available is a grand way to learn how to function successfully in live sound . And knowing the patch was made correctly because the cable can be traced to its in and out points offers tangible assurance when the heat is on .
Cumulative noise floors from analog days are gone thanks to software , but there is
the balance in lost lessons from proper gain structure . When the noise level rises with each piece of additional gear and the worst offending product affects everything connected , it leads to forced efficient gain , but when anything can be mated to anything , operators get sloppy . Just as computer programmers had to be efficient when the memory was tight but can get away with lax code now that the limits are gone , gain goes out the window in capable systems . Success , though , simply means embracing all that digital offers while retaining the forced discipline of analog . For instance , practice dialing in a vocal without dynamics control . Find the sweet spot where the vocal breathes but doesn ’ t go overboard . Ride the fader in real time . Instead of relying on a plug-in to trim the vocal problems , adjust the channel strip HPF , LPF , EQ and routing to tame the beast . Actual mixing can be fun and rewarding .
Now that the Cornerstone gear is safely tucked away in its new home , it is time to roll out the Midas Easy Tilt and pop the lid on one of the analog mixers sporting hundreds of physical controls to see if I remember what they do !
Kent Morris Kent Morris is a 45-year veteran of the AVL arena driven by passion for excellence tempered by the knowledge all technology is in a temporal state .
100 January 2025 Subscribe for Free ...