New territory

[worldover]

Well, i've read quite a bit about this new Digidesign venture, Venue, Mainly from this site. The obvious question that springs into my mind is... why?

I mean, Digidesign make a rock solid recording system, but the company has absolutely no background in the live sound world. In a competative environment already dominated by the likes of Yamaha and Digico, why try and compete?

I can't really see what this console has to offer over any of the similar, and more specialised consoles from their competitors.

Its an interesting move for Digidesign. I would be interested to know why they chose to compete here, wheither you guys think it will take off the ground and where they plan to take this?

I suppose what it needs to succeed is the major sound design companies buying into it. Somehow I don't personally see this happening on a wide scale, but I guess we shall have to wait and see.

Dan

[Third Eye Studios]

The mid-sized sound company I work for is still all analog (Midas and Soundcraft). The owner of the company knows he's going to have to go digital soon, and the digi Venue is at the top of his list. The main reasaons are price point and the new things digi have done with a live sound console over the competitors (mainly the use of plug-ins). I think the product will take off.

I still have yet to hear the console, and that will be the deciding factor for most people ultimately. If it sounds good the major sound companies will use it I think.

[Rock_Artist]

First of all,
Digidesign got some exprienced people from the FOH to be a part of the team making this product.
Keep in mind that any product in Digidesign is being first researched by the R&D team. So experience is based on the people they got just like IT companies get people to help them out (Eg. Steve Jobes back to Apple ).

As written in the post above me...
The Venue is TDM based! that means the you have DSP based (not cpu!) reliable plug-ins & you have already a variety of plug-ins because it's based on digidesign's format.

Not sure about other consoles but features like being able to control the console by WiFi while listening from more than one location sounds charming.

And the last reason I can think about is Pro Tools.
Most of the industry known the name. now if they know they can trust it in the studio it might be worth checkin' for live.

[Nilesh]

When it comes to live sound, things are pretty straight forward in one way, all you need is the ability to have plenty of inputs and outputs, flexible signal routing, head amps and mix buses with as much headroom as possible, comprehensive metering and a very very user-friendly control system and interface as opposed to complex editing, tracks and playlists etc.

Right from the early days, I'm a big fan of the PT mixer, mainly because of the way it resembles traditional console architecture and the flexibility it has. And I think it is appropriate to try and use such an environment for live applications. In fact, a couple of us working at a digi dealership used to discuss how awesome it will be to have such a console with all the plug in options to mix gigs.

I completely agree that Yamaha has pioneered live console technology with their PM series boards with more than 35 years of collective experience, and digico's success in the world tour market with many major acts is significant. But that need not stop a company or an individual to come up with a new product or solution. We should look at it as a new option to do the things that we do on a regular basis, who knows there might be a better way to do it.

I have mixed many gigs, small and big and have used consoles from Studiomaster (yeah right studio master for a gig!) to Mackie, A&H,Soundcraft, Midas and quite a lot of Yamahas. Like you said the new PM series digital consoles are awsome, great control and automation, lotsa DSP, reliable, no more outboard racks (if you would agree on that without saying, yeah but i like those dbx comps on my vocals etc etc)there is nothing wrong with them at all, and they deliver. But, If you have an option to mix with focusrite and Drawmer dynamics inserts, with full recall and easy mapping, don’t you think it is an advantage? Provided the rest of the stuff is at par with other digital boards or the analogue counterparts with recall facilities, I'd say it is a definite advantage.

Well I haven't mixed a show using the Venue, but I saw one hooked up and running during Broadcast Asia in Singapore this week, and got a 20minutes run thru. It is still a baby, but is healthy and growing. They said they are going to upgrade to 24 aux bus architecture from 16, which is good enuff even for complex monitor mix application with in-ear stuff. It has good metering and dedicated dynamics and EQ knobs (the plugs wont come up there, I would prefer to have the EQ and dynamics plugins (if there is an active insert) of the selected channel to be mapped there instantaneously and the operator should get an option to switch to the default channel eq and dyn if needed) Personally I don’t like the knobs, they remind me of star trek, but it is just an aesthetic affair, I'm sure a lot of people would have liked such a thing before digi decided to have them all over the ICON and Venue family. Another feature I'd prefer to see is onboard displays, may be on the meter bridge (or panel), one or two of them, so even if you dont have an external secreen, you could get instant visual feedback which is very critical for live applications.
I hope to see the Venue more on tech riders, as often as we see Yamaha and digico these days. We will have to wait and see, but I feel very positive about it.