[cedricl[_2_]]

On Thursday, May 6, 1993 8:02:17 PM UTC-7, Mike Diack wrote:
I enjoy building soundmixers - i must have made several dozen in
the last ** years, from little portables to monsters, all have been
fairly traditional analog everything apart from transmission gate
switching and associated logic, and all end up looking like most other
peoples mixers - a forest of knobs, switches & faders.
Things are changing - innovative semi manufacturers are coming out
with pro-audio grade components that would give traditional
methods a fair challenge - for instance :
Faders : AD & Crystal now have some very respectably specced pot
chips and Dallas looks promising.
Patchbays : AD is coming out with a 16X16 crosspoint switch, there
are already plenty of 8X8s out there
EQ : Maxim & Nat Semi have contenders (havent tried them)
The list goes on & on - so (assuming one doesn't want to go total
digital and do everything with DSP), there are plenty of good tools
for the job. The problem is the user interface - would the average
sound engineer be prepared to forgo his/her multiknobbed ashtray
for a PC with a touch screen ?. What should it look like ? Has anyone
successfully done it (at a realistic cost) any ideas folks ?
Mike.

Yamaha is coming (has come out) with their Dante networked mixers. We're buying the CL5. It's basically a mixing control surface with 8 preamps and 8 outputs. But, it has remote stage boxes as big as 32/24 that connect with an ethernet cable. They can handle 64x64 utilizing network switches to connect to the console. There's an iPad app that lets one remotely control them. This is about as close as I know to a mixer with a "touch pad". You really can't mix a show with the iPad (unless you can get away with 8 VCAs) but, during sound check, you can go to the stage and adjust monitors standing right next to the performer.