Avid Pro Mixing Blog: Mick Guzauski on S6

[Tom Graham]

I've posted my latest blog entry and it contains a great interview with one of the greats: Mick Guzauski! Check it out at http://www.avidblogs.com/pro-mixing-...mick-guzauski/

Thanks,
T

[Drew Mazurek]

Tom,

Mick mentioned layouts in the piece, is he a current S5 user?

[Tom Graham]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

Tom,

Mick mentioned layouts in the piece, is he a current S5 user?

I'm told he has Artist series controllers at his studio currently but has mixed on S5 and ICON. I think the biggest take-away (that I get) from that statement "I'd give up layouts to have it now with beta software" is that he is really excited about all of the benefits of S6 in the things he talks about later in the piece: Great ergonomics, visual feedback, color coding, Master Touch module, exploded track views, matrix mode, etc.

The navigation capabilities of the Matrix Mode with color-coding is very freeing - mixers don't need to spend a lot of time building layouts or custom faders. They literally can just dive in.

What will be really great is if there becomes a standard or suggested pallet for color-coding tracks. We talked to several mixers about this idea and they seemed really excited about moving in that direction.

[Bob Olhsson]

Just alternating the colors on each group of four faders makes a console much faster to relate to.

[ErikGuldager]

Interesting idea bob, but why four?


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[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by ErikGuldager

Interesting idea bob, but why four?


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How many fingers you got??

[ErikGuldager]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

How many fingers you got??

[scratches head trying to figure out the correct answer]
Four?

But yes it's a interesting idea I have never considered. I use colors to define type of use for a track, pretty standard I think.
To use alternating colors of four would make my color setup a lot more complex. But visibility of what is what when mixing obviously would improve...

I'll have to give it a shot.

[Bob Olhsson]

Our brain can navigate among groups of four more easily than smaller or larger groups. I would sometimes put masking tape between groups of four on a large console I wasn't familiar with.

Input grouping was done early on in mixing consoles. Music recording didn't adopt faders and large numbers of inputs until the mid 1950s and even then you were talking about 12 input consoles at the major label studios. In film, multi-track optical recording in the modern sense was common by the 1930s and a 96 input console was in use at Todd AO by 1955!

Music studios have never been leaders when it comes to console design. I wish digital console designers paid a lot more attention to the history of film consoles where most of the pioneering occurred. To me, "in-line" consoles such as MCIs and SSLs were always an ergonomic abomination we only put up with due to lower prices and recall capability. Digital designers could do much much better!

[rcutz]

HI Tom. OK about the color, the excitement of the matrix window… But I`m a addicted use of Layouts (I mix in Artsits Series, S5), have been mixing on Icons with the massive use of custom fader groups as layouts, so… You guys don`t take this option out take you?

To post guys, that have to deal with a huge amount of tracks, tracks that dinamically hold several differents sounds, that change scene by scene, much of time in a seconds time scale, a fixed layout out, where you all ways knows where each track was in the desk, is very conforting and mind easing feature.

Is it there, in Eucon 3 and the future road map, right? I guess you also have plans to make it easy to us to make layout`s, no? The actuall eucon 2.xx… has a bad way to do it…

But please don`t take it out. Improve it…

[Tom Graham]

Originally Posted by rcutz

HI Tom. OK about the color, the excitement of the matrix window… But I`m a addicted use of Layouts (I mix in Artsits Series, S5), have been mixing on Icons with the massive use of custom fader groups as layouts, so… You guys don`t take this option out take you?

To post guys, that have to deal with a huge amount of tracks, tracks that dinamically hold several differents sounds, that change scene by scene, much of time in a seconds time scale, a fixed layout out, where you all ways knows where each track was in the desk, is very conforting and mind easing feature.

Is it there, in Eucon 3 and the future road map, right? I guess you also have plans to make it easy to us to make layout`s, no? The actuall eucon 2.xx… has a bad way to do it…

But please don`t take it out. Improve it…

Hi Ricardo, We will be adding Layouts and Custom Faders to the S6 in the future. We can't comment on a date because of being a publicly traded company.
In the meantime - try to get a demo and see the console in person. The color coding and matrix view present a new way to navigate that may appeal to you.
Thanks,
Tom