Cadac things

[MarkCadac]

Hi guys.

It's been a while so I thought I'd drop a quick note on some things Cadacian for your interest. (I'll try not to make it sound like a blog.)

I've been trying to track down J-Types all over the world and list them on a database, what shows they are on, which theatres they are in etc. so if you hear of any in strange or unusual locations that may have slipped under my radar please drop me a line and let me know. It makes for an interesting read as despite what you might hear about the "market being stolen from under our noses" (which I read in an earlier post) while we finish our digital desk, we currently have more than 75% of Broadway and 60% of the West End, and we're more than 90% of major shows and musicals in places like Japan and Germany.

In a recent survey I asked some of the top designers their main criteria on their choice of Cadac desks and "sound quality" came in the top three answers for all of them which I thought was worth noting. So I thought I'd find out for real what was happening.

I took our R&D engineering team to the theatre in Milton Keynes for a day with Mike Walker and the crew on Jerry Springer the Opera (On a J-Type with Opus amps and speakers) and we went through the whole system design and structure, then spent the afternoon trying different bits of kit and comparing the sound quality. If you ever get the opportunity and the kit, the venue and the time to do something like this I'd strongly recommend it, as the results were quite astonishing. Listening to the sound image collapse in varying degrees with different pieces of digital outboard processing and even different CD players. All very interesting.

And that digital piece of news. I've been showing off our digital desk here and in New York (I recently attended the Broadway Sound Masterclass, highly recommended if you ever get the chance to go, drop me a line off list for more details) to some of the great and the good in the theatre and rock'n'roll touring worlds and all are knocked out by it. It looks like we're on schedule to start deliveries in October this year. I'm hoping to have pictures and brochures in around 4-5 weeks. Drop me a line off list and I'll add you to the first brochure mail out.

 

To close, a favourite conversation overheard at a recent exhibition.

Kid (looking at a DJ mixer) "what's the crosstalk on this?"

Owner of DJ mixer company "it's 49 dollars"

Kid "what's the signal to noise ratio?"

Owner "it's 49 dollars, I ain't tellin ya nuttin else"

(I'm going to reverse engineer this when fielding questions on our digital board Q. "what's the crosstalk on this?" A. "it's a hundred and eighty grand.")

 

Thanks for the bandwidth, tata for now.

Mark

[lifeisacabaret]

Is there anything you can tell us about this desk at all!?

 

JG

[Bobbsy]

Yeah. It's £180 grand!

 

:)

 

Thanks for the update, Mark!

 

Anybody else here got a theatre with a good/great system who'd let Blue Roomers in to play with lots of extras like Mark suggests?

 

Bob

[dbuckley]

180K puts in in the same ballpark as the XL8, which is interesting, as for top end theatre use, having a Midas has always been seen as the cheap option if you can't spring for a Cadac, there traditionally being a big price gap between the two. Assuming we are talking about broadly comparable machines (by which I mean they can do the same job, not that they go feature to feature), that gap has now evaporated, so the battle lines are drawn.

 

Of course, to those of us in the real world, this is all just an interesting diversion :)

[lifeisacabaret]

Amongst all this, where does the arrival of the Cadac Digital Console leave the D5T/TC, which recently it seems has become the console of chice for big budget shows (Lord of The Rings, La Cage, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Spamalot, We Will Rock You- all of which, it is safe to assume, would probably have been Cadac shows if it was not for the D5T), and has been adopted (and indeed developed) by Andrew Bruce, who's implemented it on the transfer of Les Mis and Mamma Mia in London- both of which were Cadac J's in their previous London Homes.

 

A very interesting time in theatre audio, for sure!

[Dj Dunc]

I always thought midas xl8's were like 265k not 180k.

[ampcats]

To someone with little cash, they are in the same ballpark - one a very, very long way away!!!

[Bobbsy]

Interesting times indeed. I'm wondering if the ability to make a world class analogue console automatically means that a company can make a world class digital one.

 

On one hand, understanding the needs of the operator is a great start. However, the technologies inside are VERY different.

 

Whatever the case, I really would like to try a number of the latest offerings!

 

Bob

[MarkCadac]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Where to start without writing 14 pages?

 

The Midas XL8 is an interesting development for sure. Our digital desk pricing is cheaper than our analogue, their digital is more than their analogue, so suddenly Midas have brought their engineers onto our playing field. The XL8 has a feature set for live work, but not specifically for theatre. Ours is specifically for theatre but can do either.

 

Specifying a particular brand of console onto a show is actually much more complicated than just having the designer add it to the list. Different consoles will also be specified for different reasons. I'm not going to give away all the secrets of rental shop politics, personalities and how it all works behind the scenes, but in some cases there are very practical reasons for specifying a digital desk. Take Tarzan on Broadway for example. John Shivers main reason for using the PM1D was that he managed to negotiate a better mix position in the house while promising not to take up so much room, so he went with Yamaha as it was too early for us. No designers are locked into one particular brand of desk. If a new tool comes along that will do the job better, more efficiently then they will use it.

 

The whole argument about making room for putting more bums on seats is a very valid one on a show like Tarzan where they are pretty much guaranteed to be filling every show, but regardless of whether the show actually sells out every night or not, the accountants like the concept as it makes their business plans look better.

However, lose a show through equipment failure and that argument is immediately diminished.

 

Which brings me to ... our concept. From the survey I did of why people specify J-Types the top 3 answers were sound quality, reliability and that it was designed specifically for theatre in terms of operation and functionality. So that's what we did for our digital desk, we copied a J-Type.

It's modular, each module has its own embedded processing, (so if a module fails you don't lose the whole control surface), each signal path has its own DSP for EQs dynamics etc. (so you can never run out), we use dedicated rotary encoders in the same positions as on a J-Type (no learning curve, and it allows you to do more than 2 things at once which you can't with a touch screen), and too many more to list. This is not a computer with faders attached.

 

Can an analogue company design good digital? (Apart form our existing Our D16 digital mix matrix started life as an R&D project which we turned into a product. We use the same algorithms in the digital desk. In listening tests people have already been favourably comparing our digital audio to other peoples analogue. The MADI card in the M16 remote mic amps taught us a lot of things about A/D converters, idle tones and suchlike that even the manufacturers of the chips thought nobody would notice. So the quality of our digital audio, and our respect for and adherence to current EMC guidelines has already been proved in the field. (The digital desk uses the same or improved circuits as the D16s and M16s.) The anti static circuits we use on the motor faders is the same that we use on the J-TYpe. (This is a major issue.)

 

end of part 1

TTFN

Mark

[Bobbsy]

I always thought midas xl8's were like 265k not 180k.

 

According to a bit of paper in front of me, the list for the XL8 is £194K plus VAT.

 

Mark, thanks for the very open an honest comments! I can't wait to see and hear your digital desk, though (in common with dbuckley) I don't often move or mix in those rarified circles. A corporate event on a DM1000 or 2000 is more usual for me!

 

Bob

[J Pearce]

IIRC we did have a Cadac desk (albeit small) at a school concert once...

Tony Waldron's sons attended the same school as me, and he was recording their band live at the concert.

 

A thing of beauty it was, and a superb sound too.

[lifeisacabaret]

A simple question really- will a 100 channel count Digital Cadac take-up less space than a 100 channel count J-Type. Its just that the modular thing confused me slightly....apologies though- I'm knackered- I was in london till 1.20 this morning(Southwest Trains- ARGH!)- whistle down the wind on a PM1D and then phantom on a venerable old a-type- ironic considering those are the two desks being discussed!

[MarkCadac]

Hi.

Wow, that A-Type on Phantom went into the theatre about 1984 I think, and to date is the oldest Cadac on a continuously running show, closely followed by the A-Type on Phantom on Broadway which I think was 1986.

(Small aside, I said to Dennis Short of Masque that the rental must have paid for the desk after all this time to which he replied, "yes, but unfortunately its still at 1986 prices.)

With regards to an earlier post, it's quicker to list the musical shows not on a Cadac than the other way round, and from my database I know there are 250+ J-Types (frames) out there somwehere. I've tracked down most of them.

 

In brief.

The digital desk control surface looks exactly like 2.5 x 20 slot J-Types. On the input frame you have 18 input modules and 18 faders (in 8 banks), allowing for control over 144 inputs at once. (Of course if you have the room you can have as many input frames as you like.) Similarly the 20 slot output frame has 16 output modules in 8 banks allowing control over 64 output busses, (32x32 matrix) the 16 DC master faders and two grand masters. (The other 8 output busses are 3 independent stereo listen busses and a stereo LR master. Each frame can have its own listen bus, allowing for multiple operators to work on the desk.)

The layout with regard to Aux sends, EQ, mic trim, group faders etc. etc. is the same as a J-Type.

The third CCM frame is 11 slots and houses the SAM (on steroids) show control computer, control processors, 1600 x 1200 21" monitor and Cadac bespoke keyboard. The input/output frames meter bridge shows you all the inputs and outputs so you can see what's going on, even if the control surface is looking at a different layer.

 

I'm hoping to have photos within a couple of weeks so I'll try get a sneak preview up on the website.

 

TTFN

Mark

[lifeisacabaret]

Hi Mark,

 

Thanks for replying- very interesting info! I was wondering, will there be a digital snake integrated into the system, and will this be the M16 +madi merge, or a new development specifically for this console?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS- Would it be ok for me to email you? Im an almost third year technical theatre student with a particular interest in sound, and it would be lovely to be able to ask someone knowledgeable some questions about Cadac and Theatre Sound in general. If this is ok, that'd be great!:-)

[MarkCadac]

Hi.

Feel free to e-mail me anytime about anything.

 

We have developed our own very high speed, high bandwidth, low latency comms system for transferring audio and control data between the different parts of the system, i.e. the control surface, local and remote IO racks and DSP rack. (Although we're not using the full potential of this comms sytem on this product it's actually a 1024 x 1024 matrix.) This runs on coax but we will have a fibre option also. IO is normally on XLRs or Jacks but AES and MADI is also an IO option (so it would be possible to use M16s and the X16 MADI merger as the Input stage as an alternative to the dedicated mic input cards.)

 

TTFN

Mark