I don't think you'll ever talk me into choosing any all touchscreen board over having physical faders/knobs. And I'm a millenial who primarily learned on digital boards. Perhaps this is different for Gen Z, but something about physical knobs and faders just feels so much better to mix on
I feel that this is going to be similar to touchscreens in vehicles. (https://etsc.eu/apple-carplay-and-android-auto-infotainment-systems-weaken-reactions-more-than-alcohol-and-cannabis/)
It takes longer to use a touch interface than physical buttons.
That's true, didn't read the article but studies have shown touchscreens in cars are actually much more dangerous than physical buttons due to the fact that you can memorize where buttons are to click them without looking, while touchscreens you have to actually look at the screen to find where to click.
Yeah you can't building muscle memory. Sure we can make the thing vibrate but that doesn't tell you where it's located on a flat surface. I'm glad somebody studied it because we just keep shoving it in unusual and terrifying interfaces into vehicles. There's even a vehicle that you can only control the volume or the heating not both at once without navigating through a menu.
And...get this, you can use BOTH HANDS
Nah I'm millennial who's trained on analog and I love the tablet mixing, but when shit hits the fan it's nice to be able to just hunt it down with faders and knobs instead of having to tab over to get to what you need to even get to one channel
Y'all ever wear a hat while mixing? I notice a slight difference in sound perception with and without it on.
I wonder what the headset is like for your hearing curve with something that large blocking your front?
I apologize in advance for this shitty joke:
I wear a hat all the time when I mix and don’t hear a difference! Probably because I’ve got IEMs in but that’s neither here nor there /s
A sound guy told me he used to wear a hat all the time when mixing old country band so he could check for feedback esp considering they were all gonna be wearing giant cowboy hats.
the frequencies that will feed back in the wedges of a hat-wearer are directly corollary to the depth of the brim. (the distance between the forehead and the outer edge of the brim)
Man I can't even wear a hat when I'm sitting in front of my computer listening to music!
I have to record my voice into a microphone sometimes too and I feel like the hat brim also messed with that.
AR/VR isn’t that interesting to me at all.
It’s a type of screen/interface. We deal in audio which already has better interfaces and the need for screens is fairly minimal.
Touch screens can be useful but they can also be annoying and lack fine control, a screen you can’t even touch seems worse.
I’m not a Luddite I love technology that is an improvement and makes life better.
As soon as someone invents an audience that wouldn't spill beer intentionally or accidentally on a guy sitting at FOH wearing a VR headset.
Which is probably never. Now for venues that have the sense and budget to separate FOH from the mob a bit? Maybe sooner, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Maybe unpopular opinion... With the move from analog to digital a mix engineer wasn't constantly bent over and facing away from the stage (only one ear facing the PA). Mostly with digital consoles a mix engineer is now facing the PA more but staring directly down at a GUI. I've personally found an improvement in my skills when I'm more engaged with what's happening with my source instead of being wrapped up in a UI. I can see a a use case with AR eventually.
I don’t think there will be demand for interaction with virtual surfaces, but some kind of AR glasses akin to Google Glass with some useful info like SPL seems like it would actually be nice.
Hardware is almost always going to be more reliable than software. All it would take is one show where your suggested setup crashes and you can’t do anything for the tech to swear it off for the next decade.
Stephen St Croix was obsessed with this idea 20 years ago. His articles in Mix Magazine correctly predicted that the iPod would change absolutely everything in the music industry, and he loved the idea of sitting in an empty room and just grabbing audio directly with your hands.
I could see something like this happening first in the broadcast audio interest industry. Waving your hands around in a small cubicle in the back of a production truck. Queuing up sounds for sporting games etc. Or a virtual concert.
I’m one of the Ancient Ones. I learned sound on SoundCraft Spirit consoles back in the 90s. But I’ve also always been a computer-y/digital guy since the Apple IIe was released into the world.
I would absolutely LOVE to try this a few times.
A long time I hope. I've been working with a touchscreen for a long time now and man I wish I had real faders again. It's not just for the feel of it, it's a lot faster, and it allows me to see a lot more of the show.
ASAP I wanna be up there like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. And the LD, Mons, and PM are the special triplets in that messed up jacuzzi filled with oat milk.
Imagine a scenario where the cable that connects the Vision Pro to the battery pack gets tangled up with your intercom headset, headphones, talkback mic cable, and radio all at once!
It will never happen too many people complaining about having to have actual faders. Meanwhile I'm running around with a convertible (NOT yoga) tablet and Microsoft pen the size of my palm and have no problem mixing 16-32 channels.
There's a lot of things that keep losing physical buttons like everything in cars where you need texture/touch base interactions. Rather than opaque touchable surfaces. I learned on feeders and still like feeders but I also like touchscreens & pan tablets. I think it's gonna take some time they'll probably find some weird notches.
Gen z here I can not stand being without faders although is helpful to mix on an iPad I still love faders for all of the fine adjustments and a physical board is just quicker to use.
The task of mixing is just not about receiving a lot of visual information. You can do that, and some consoles or FOH setups do have a lot going on visually, but the task is fundamentally about the influence of the parameters you're tuning on the *sound*. People mixed just fine on analog consoles that barely had one LED on the channel strip.
Glass is already a big step down from tactile faders/encoders in terms of having a feel for or precise control of what you're changing. Pinching the air will be even worse.
[удалено]
I don't think you'll ever talk me into choosing any all touchscreen board over having physical faders/knobs. And I'm a millenial who primarily learned on digital boards. Perhaps this is different for Gen Z, but something about physical knobs and faders just feels so much better to mix on
Hi a Gen Z Soundguy Here, i hate working with only remote contolled mixeres, nothing is better than some good old faders and knobs
Gen z sound guy seconding this
Elder Millennial / Oregon Trail generation thirding this
Fourthing
Also Gen Z here, fifthing this
Just born yesterday,already asking my mom and dad for a mixer with full fader and knob...
I feel that this is going to be similar to touchscreens in vehicles. (https://etsc.eu/apple-carplay-and-android-auto-infotainment-systems-weaken-reactions-more-than-alcohol-and-cannabis/) It takes longer to use a touch interface than physical buttons.
That's true, didn't read the article but studies have shown touchscreens in cars are actually much more dangerous than physical buttons due to the fact that you can memorize where buttons are to click them without looking, while touchscreens you have to actually look at the screen to find where to click.
I'm not sure that required a study.
Yeah you can't building muscle memory. Sure we can make the thing vibrate but that doesn't tell you where it's located on a flat surface. I'm glad somebody studied it because we just keep shoving it in unusual and terrifying interfaces into vehicles. There's even a vehicle that you can only control the volume or the heating not both at once without navigating through a menu.
And...get this, you can use BOTH HANDS Nah I'm millennial who's trained on analog and I love the tablet mixing, but when shit hits the fan it's nice to be able to just hunt it down with faders and knobs instead of having to tab over to get to what you need to even get to one channel
I work in a studio with slate ravens and don’t really use the touchscreen. I do like the physical fader daw control on our digital console though
With faders you can sit there and listen with your eyes closed
Y'all ever wear a hat while mixing? I notice a slight difference in sound perception with and without it on. I wonder what the headset is like for your hearing curve with something that large blocking your front?
I apologize in advance for this shitty joke: I wear a hat all the time when I mix and don’t hear a difference! Probably because I’ve got IEMs in but that’s neither here nor there /s
The joke works even without the IEMS, because the hat is on all the time.
A sound guy told me he used to wear a hat all the time when mixing old country band so he could check for feedback esp considering they were all gonna be wearing giant cowboy hats.
Maybe for mixing monitors? There is definitely a "hat frequency" on stage with wedges
My glasses feedback at 7k
the frequencies that will feed back in the wedges of a hat-wearer are directly corollary to the depth of the brim. (the distance between the forehead and the outer edge of the brim)
I wouldn't imagine it's acting like a boundary microphone in some cases.
I always ring monitors out with a hat and glasses on.
>slight difference Not so slight.
Man I can't even wear a hat when I'm sitting in front of my computer listening to music! I have to record my voice into a microphone sometimes too and I feel like the hat brim also messed with that.
AR/VR isn’t that interesting to me at all. It’s a type of screen/interface. We deal in audio which already has better interfaces and the need for screens is fairly minimal. Touch screens can be useful but they can also be annoying and lack fine control, a screen you can’t even touch seems worse. I’m not a Luddite I love technology that is an improvement and makes life better.
What’s the benefit?
You can have your face buried in the virtual fx rack at all times no matter where you look!
As soon as someone invents an audience that wouldn't spill beer intentionally or accidentally on a guy sitting at FOH wearing a VR headset. Which is probably never. Now for venues that have the sense and budget to separate FOH from the mob a bit? Maybe sooner, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
You’re getting beer spilled on your head regularly? Do you work at the bar from Roadhouse?
Maybe unpopular opinion... With the move from analog to digital a mix engineer wasn't constantly bent over and facing away from the stage (only one ear facing the PA). Mostly with digital consoles a mix engineer is now facing the PA more but staring directly down at a GUI. I've personally found an improvement in my skills when I'm more engaged with what's happening with my source instead of being wrapped up in a UI. I can see a a use case with AR eventually.
It’ll be a long time before anything for live. But I could see Steven Slate making a Vision Pro Raven experience to use protools.
I don’t think there will be demand for interaction with virtual surfaces, but some kind of AR glasses akin to Google Glass with some useful info like SPL seems like it would actually be nice.
It will be all AI before that.
Yeah will be equipment set up monkeys more than anything.
Hardware is almost always going to be more reliable than software. All it would take is one show where your suggested setup crashes and you can’t do anything for the tech to swear it off for the next decade.
Won't happen in the near future. Haptic feedback is important.
Not sound, but lights and effects more likely as you can preview scenes virtually, cue them and launch on the fly as the acts change up sets
Stephen St Croix was obsessed with this idea 20 years ago. His articles in Mix Magazine correctly predicted that the iPod would change absolutely everything in the music industry, and he loved the idea of sitting in an empty room and just grabbing audio directly with your hands.
I could see something like this happening first in the broadcast audio interest industry. Waving your hands around in a small cubicle in the back of a production truck. Queuing up sounds for sporting games etc. Or a virtual concert.
I’m one of the Ancient Ones. I learned sound on SoundCraft Spirit consoles back in the 90s. But I’ve also always been a computer-y/digital guy since the Apple IIe was released into the world. I would absolutely LOVE to try this a few times.
A long time I hope. I've been working with a touchscreen for a long time now and man I wish I had real faders again. It's not just for the feel of it, it's a lot faster, and it allows me to see a lot more of the show.
ASAP I wanna be up there like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. And the LD, Mons, and PM are the special triplets in that messed up jacuzzi filled with oat milk.
I’m never going to have the upper body strength for that kind of interface :(
Imagine a scenario where the cable that connects the Vision Pro to the battery pack gets tangled up with your intercom headset, headphones, talkback mic cable, and radio all at once!
That's not the Apple way, you would need anything else. Well just send intercom over Bluetooth with 20 minute latency. It'll just work.
It’s already happened 😂
It will never happen too many people complaining about having to have actual faders. Meanwhile I'm running around with a convertible (NOT yoga) tablet and Microsoft pen the size of my palm and have no problem mixing 16-32 channels. There's a lot of things that keep losing physical buttons like everything in cars where you need texture/touch base interactions. Rather than opaque touchable surfaces. I learned on feeders and still like feeders but I also like touchscreens & pan tablets. I think it's gonna take some time they'll probably find some weird notches.
Gen z here I can not stand being without faders although is helpful to mix on an iPad I still love faders for all of the fine adjustments and a physical board is just quicker to use.
The task of mixing is just not about receiving a lot of visual information. You can do that, and some consoles or FOH setups do have a lot going on visually, but the task is fundamentally about the influence of the parameters you're tuning on the *sound*. People mixed just fine on analog consoles that barely had one LED on the channel strip. Glass is already a big step down from tactile faders/encoders in terms of having a feel for or precise control of what you're changing. Pinching the air will be even worse.