Cadac is claiming its new CDC six digital live sound production console to have ‘the fastest, most intuitive user interface and highest possible audio performance of any audio mixing console available’.
Based around Cadac’s advanced gesture-operation user interface and the same audio performance of the CDC eight, the CDC six is less menu dependent than other digital consoles. The traditional fixed physical controls have been replaced by a ‘high agility’ user interface, accessed via a 23.5-inch touchscreen – offering a fast, logical workflow without compromises dictated by hardware-centric designs.
The optically bonded 23.5 inch 16:9 high-definition LCD with digital encoders to the bottom and the right is the most striking feature of the new console. The over-sized touchscreen displays the clean graphical user interface, while a combination of touchscreen and traditional encoders lead to an instinctive use of ‘touch and swipe’. The faders follow the swipe of the screen or scrolling of the channels, ensuring full control at all times of any combination of inputs, outputs or VCAs displayed on the screen. First-time users face a minimal learning curve navigating the features by gesture – similar to those for navigating a tablet or smart phone – without a need for any formal training. The interface is being claimed to make the CDC six the fastest medium format digital console to set-up.
To aid operational agility, CDC six features stereo metering located to the left of each of the 100mm motorised faders, plus an individual full colour OLED display above each fader. The hi-res OLEDs display the channel name, complete with colour coding, to aid the speed of channel navigation. The OLEDs also denote any VCA assignment of the channel. The additional 6.5-inch LCD touchscreen, located to the right of the main screen, provides rapid access to the advanced system controls and automation functions.
A 64 input channel, 48 assignable bus design (Group, Stereo Group, Aux, Stereo Aux or Matrix plus LCR, Monitors and Talkback), with 20 touch-sensitive motorised faders, the CDC six features tCadac mic preamps, matched with 96kHz, 24-bit Delta-Sigma AD/DA convertors, and sub 0.4ms latency from analogue inputs on stage, through the CDC six, to analogue outputs on stage.
There are four AES3 inputs and four AES3 outputs, eight fully assignable mic/line inputs and eight analogue outputs. four-band fully parametric EQ, 16 stereo onboard effects, extensive dynamics, input and output delays, snapshot automation, 16 VCA groups, with ‘VCA unfold’ navigation, as well as compressor/limiter, four-band fully parametric and 31-band graphic EQ on all outputs also feature. In addition, CDC six (as now does CDC eight) comes with an integrated Waves card for Waves MultiRack SoundGrid server.
CDC six also ships with Cadac’s Monitor Mode. This feature, found on both the CDC six and the flagship CDC eight, has been developed to tackle the specific requirements of the monitor engineer. When enabled, Monitor Mode gives the engineer the ability to access any of the 48 user-assignable buses and their respective contribution channels in ‘sends on fader’ mode with a single touch of the screen, making mixing a large number of monitor feeds fast and easy. The low latency also means that CDC six is well suited to in-ear monitoring.
Additional to this is the Mix Focus feature – when any mix is ‘flipped’ into sends on faders mode, the console will only present the user with the channels that are contributing to the selected mix, negating the need to navigate through all of the inputs. It is also possible to select an input channel and ‘flip’ the outputs onto the faders, allowing a single channel to be sent to multiple destinations simultaneously via the faders.
‘The combination of an exceptionally fast and intuitive user interface, legendary Cadac mic preamps, state-of-the art DSP and FPGA processing technology, with incredibly low latency, make the CDC six a uniquely compelling proposition for those who do not want to be faced with either audio or creative compromises,’ says Cadac Brand Manager, Richard Ferriday. ‘CDC six defies the paradigm that a console of this level of performance demands complex operation.’
More: www.cadac-sound.com
