DigiDesign D-Command Manuel d'utilisateur télécharger pdf (Page 3)

comes

great organisation,

right? Wrong! You have all your

tracks laid out the way you want: guitars, guitar

FX, guitar subs, vocals, vocal subs… ad infinitum.

Now when you come to mix, you have to chase all

these tracks around the screen with a mouse. Custom

Faders offers a nifty solution to this problem. If you

want certain faders grouped together in front of you

without changing the order and grouping of tracks in

the ProTools file itself, you can. Select a custom fader

group, go into assign mode and select any track in any

order from anywhere in the project! Custom faders can

occupy anywhere from four faders up to the maximum

width of the console – 24 faders. Beautiful! Custom

Faders can be named to allow you to get to a focused

group of tracks with just two button pushes and

dismiss them with one. What’s more, custom faders

allows what I call ‘plug-in explode.’ When you select a

plug-in on a track, in the blink of an eye it takes all the

custom faders and encoders and automatically places

all the parameters for a plug-in on them, including the

parameter names under each encoder. If you want

to single out some parameters for special treatment,

such as frequency cut-off and resonance on Virus, you

can map the parameters to function via the faders,

effectively taking what could be tons of parameters

and focusing on just the five or so that you want to play

with. Take that you pesky mouse!

Slotting Together

Physically, the main D-Command module and the 16-

fader expander pack slot together and form a complete

unit that looks like a larger-format desk. Then, I/O-

wise it’s a simple matter of plugging the two compo-

nents together with an ethernet cable. I had the review

model setup in five minutes. On this point, I’d quite like

to see a future version use ethernet to connect to the

Digidesign preamps. The Midi method worked fine, but

does seem a bit antiquated.

Bussing cue sends to performers is a very important

part of getting a great performance and to this end the

unit has a Cue Mix section on

the X-Mon. The assignment

of sends and inserts can be

done directly from the control

surface and there is no need

to go reaching for the mouse

(I had to keep slapping my

hand to stop myself).

Tracks can be created

and put into record arm all

from the D-Command. The

only time that I needed to grab

the keyboard was to input track

names via the qwerty keyboard.

All the various transport modes can

also be controlled via the surface.

I also tried some more esoteric

commands like importing tracks from another

session, and all of this was gobbled up for lunch by

D-Command, but I did have to resort to the computer

interface for workspace management of files etc. Plug-

in control of all the Digi-Racks gear was seamless and

I really did feel like I was beginning to get the hang

of this beast – at times I forgot that I was operating

ProTools. I inserted EQ III’s and dynamics on all the

channels so that there was no need to bother with

assigning them as I went. As long as you have an HD3

or Accel system, all is okay.

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising but I was really

struck by the difference it makes interfacing ProTools

with a Digidesign controller. As opposed to other

consoles that double as ProTools controllers, the

D-Command’s integration of ’Tools is seamless. And

when you combine that integration with the quality of

the controls, you really are in ProTools heaven. The

backlit buttons are excellent, the colour-codings really

help to identify functions and the touch-sensitive rotary

controls are brilliant to use. For example, there is a

great mode where the last fader in the control strip

becomes the selected fader’s channel. That way it’s

nearest to all the buttons on the D-Command so it

become obvious what you’re controlling without having

to hunt for the fader amongst 16 others.

Automation

I have always liked automation with real controls rather

than a mouse. Good mixing regularly requires you to

adjust the levels of more than one channel at a time as

it’s about the dynamic relationship between different

inputs. The mouse technique is great for trimming a

mix and setting the level of one channel to a specific

point (post FX people require this more than most).

But when you’re mixing a song it can be incredibly

time consuming relying on a mouse to get the mix as a

whole to ‘sit’ correctly. I’m sure this is one reason that

mix professionals still prefer desks such as the ubiqui-

tous SSL (sound quality issues aside). Even final mixing

for TV and film is always done with some kind of mix

104

1 2 3 4

Commentaires sur ces manuels

Pas de commentaire

DigiDesign D-Command Manuel d'utilisateur Page 3

Commentaires sur ces manuels

Produits connexes et manuels pour Logiciel DigiDesign D-Command