CADAC is launching its brand new CDC six digital live sound production console at prolight+sound 2015 in a worldwide launch event, at 11:00 on the first day of the show on its stand.
The CDC six is based around further development of CADAC’s advanced gesture-operation user interface, and the same audio performance of the CDC eight. Developing still further the user interface debuted on the CADAC CDC eight, the CDC six is less menu dependent than some other digital consoles. The traditional fixed physical controls have been replaced by a user interface, accessed via a widescreen 23.5 inch touch screen.
The new console features optically bonded 23.5 inch 16:9 high definition LCD touch screen, with digital encoders to the bottom and the right, displaying the graphical user interface. A combination of touch screen and traditional encoders, for additional control of console features, enables “touch and swipe”. The faders follow the swipe of the screen or scrolling of the channels, giving control at all time of any combination of inputs, outputs or VCAs displayed on the screen. First time users face a minimal learning curve navigating the features by gesture – similar to those for navigating a tablet or smart phone – without a need for any formal training.
CDC six features stereo metering located to the left of each of the 100mm motorized faders, plus an individual full colour OLED display above each fader. The hi-res OLEDs depict the channel name, complete with colour coding, to aid with channel navigation. The OLEDs also denote any VCA assignment of the channel. The additional 6.5 inch LCD touch screen, located to the right of the main screen, provides access to the advanced system controls and automation functions.
A 64 input channel, 48 assignable buss design (as Group, Stereo Group, Aux, Stereo Aux or Matrix plus LCR, Monitors and Talkback), with 20 touch sensitive motorized faders, the CDC six features CADAC mic pre amps, matched with 24-bit / 96 kHz Delta Sigma AD/DA convertors, and sub 0.4 millisecond latency from analogue inputs on stage, through the CDC six, to analogue outputs on stage.
There are four AES3 inputs and 4 AES3 outputs, eight fully assignable mic/line inputs and eight analogue outputs. 4-band fully parametric EQ, 16 stereo on-board effects, extensive dynamics, input and output delays, snapshot automation, 16 VCA groups, with ‘VCA unfold’ navigation, as well as compressor/limiter, 4-band fully parametric and 31-band graphic EQ on all outputs. In addition to which CDC six (as now does CDC eight) comes with an integrated Waves card for Waves MultiRack SoundGrid server.
CDC six also ships with CADAC’s Monitor Mode. This feature, found on both the CDC six and the CDC eight, has been developed to tackle the specific requirements of the monitor engineer – too often an after-thought on many of today’s digital consoles. When enabled, Monitor Mode gives the engineer the ability to access any of the 48 user-assignable busses and their respective contribution channels in ‘sends on fader’ mode with a single touch of the screen.
Additional to this is the Mix Focus feature; when any mix is ‘flipped’ into sends on faders mode, the console will only present the user with the channels that are contributing to the selected mix, negating the need to navigate through all of the inputs. It is also possible to select an input channel and ‘flip’ the outputs onto the faders, allowing a single channel to be sent to multiple destinations simultaneously via the faders.
Commenting on the most significant aspects of the CDC six from a user’s perspective, CADAC brand manager, Richard Ferriday, states, “CDC six defies the paradigm that a console of this level of performance demands complex operation.”