It’s Gonna Be The Future Soon
The beautiful thing about DSP is that it’s largely a function of software code, so we don’t have to physically rebuild the desk to add new features.
Bug fixes are the most critical part of firmware updates, but the exciting part is the new features that manufacturers dream up.
I often find myself wishing a console would support a certain function. Here are some excerpts from my wish list:
—A good vocal doubler or “Abbey Road Doubletrack” effect.
—A grid-style matrix with delay and polarity inversion at each crosspoint. This would greatly simplify zoned musical theatre systems and foster driving delay clusters and sub arrays straight from the desk at smaller events.
—A convolution reverb effect.
—Re-allocatable channel DSP. If I’m not using the EQ or dynamics modules on a certain channel, let me double up somewhere else. One of my “go-to” studio techniques is to use several compressors in series, separated by EQs. I would love to be able to do this on a live desk.
—More flexible routing and busing. Let’s say I want to send a vocal group to an IEM mix. Most consoles don’t like this, as both buses are at the same level of hierarchy in the DSP. The DiGiCo S21 allows sending any bus to any other bus, which can be a real problem solver. Similarly, the Midas PRO Series allows input channels to be sent straight to matrices. This saves a lot of resources and also effectively provides extra monitor buses.
—Selectable high-pass filter slopes. Every FOH engineer’s best friend, the HPF does a lot of heavy lifting. I’d love to see more desks allow me to swap between 2nd- and 4th-order filters.
None of these ideas are flaky or revolutionary, but they’d all be truly useful in my workflow. If you have a wish list of your own, why not drop an email to your favorite console manufacturer? Hey, you might just get lucky!
Jonah Altrove is a veteran live audio professional on a constant quest to discover more about the craft.