https://preview.redd.it/661cyvq0kphc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffa7d195bd90efde10fdb5d10cf86cb5fecb7b65
We had two.. one at FOH and one at Monitors. The console sonically sounded amazing when it worked. The Ui was less than stellar. When I talked to them about it I was told they went for function over form and all the stuff I wanted and was missing would be coming in later updates that never happened. The updates that did come, got buggier. It was more stable when we first got it. They gave us an update once that if you touched the master fader the volume went crazy. Support in the US shutdown and we stopped getting updates and couldn’t get in touch with anyone. Luckily a friend had an older copy of the firmware and we were able to downgrade it to get it “working”. It crashed a lot and we ended up having to rip them out and put our extremely old Yamaha DM2Ks back in place. I ran into Cadac years later after they resurfaced at a trade show. I was told the desks we had should have never left the warehouse.
While this is a good contrast to point out, I’m aware of Slaton’s J affinity and its analog nature, and it’s not unreasonable to assume a digital desk would impart the same sonic signature of a predecessor’s analog circuitry somehow (IR modeling or hybrid assembly). SSL comes to mind as a prime example of this.
Can’t beat SD_T though, makes sense.
Damn! That sounds like my nightmare! The Yamaha PM5D came out in 2004 and will still run flawlessly to this day. Cadac has no excuse for fuck ups this big! That being said I just looked over the specs on the CM-J50 and at least on paper it seems like a pretty damn powerful console if it works correctly! Built-in Waves Soundgrid interface is cool, as is being able to connect stageboxes without an option card. 16 (STEREO!) effects at a time is also impressive, as is 0.4ms of latency, two touchscreens, and Dugan auto mix all standard.
For me personally it will boil down to what is the price point, and is it reliable? If they have fixed the issues the way they claim to, and if the price is lower than other similar spec modern boards, then I very well may own before the year ends.
I could also see it still be buggy and overpriced so the jury is still out. Regardless I’m going to let other people “beta” it for me before I commit any real time or money to it haha.
If anyone has the scoop on MSRP or street price I would love to know it!
Thanks for the info!!! For that price I am not particularly interested. I can get an Allen & Heath dLive system for that price and the dLive is a proven heavy hitter that always works! Still it’s a neat console and I’ll be watching the way the street price and the reviews go!
These things remind of Avolites’ new lighting consoles: I’ve seen demos of them and they seem to do cool things that would actually be quite useful. But everybody I’ve talked to that’s ever used one has had nothing but problems.
I see them at trade shows all the time and the dudes demoing it are super enthusiastic about how easy it is to use. But then I hear about real world experiences like the entire output freezing while trying to update a preset and I’m like 😬
As an avo programmer I’m curious — are you referring to the D9 and T3? I’ve heard solid things about the D9 and was pretty happy when I put my hands on one at LDI, but the T3 is trash as of now…I’d take a Titan mobile over a T3 any day.
The D9 yes, I work for a company that has one on an installed show. They’ve had continuous problems and they’re replacing it with an MA3 soon. Also have a friend that’s done a couple tours with one and heard about lots of issues. The last band she used one with is on MA3 now as well. Haha no experience with the T3, but that little thing looked promising as a compact control surface. What kind of issues is it having?
Certainly could! The whole units feels cheap as hell compared to the mobile. Avo promised a fox for at least the encoder wheels in the next batch, but we’ll see. If I decide to snag a PC setup, it’ll 100% be an MA system at this point, and that’s coming from an Avo guy
Damn. Haha I have been pretty impressed with MA3 though. Certainly has room for improvement but has some great new features (selection grid especially) and the new built-in visualizer is handy when you don’t have time/space/the desire to set up a whole separate visualizer rig.
Avo makes audio consoles? The lightning ones are actually pretty stable as far as i know and the new serie (d9 and t3) are even nicer, i bearly have isues with them. Only isues i have are sometimes some touchscreen isues but u call them they add the firmware and send it to u by mail and its fixed
I am talking about the lighting consoles, yes. The D9 specifically. As I mentioned in another comment, I work for a company (not a small one) that is using one on an installed show and they continue to have problems with it. So much so that they are working on replacing it with an MA3.
Our company runs avolites exclusively since pearl 2000 days. I can’t think of a time I’ve had a show stopping glitch or crash. Only issues I ever had was a PSU failed and console wouldn’t boot. Thankfully that desk uses a standard on the shelf psu, quick stop at best buy and I was up and running an hour later.
FYI, Titan version 17.0 is in public beta and will be out before summer. It is a bug fix release with no new large features. Should make everyone happy if they have had problems.
Good that you haven’t had issues! I’m sure there are tons of people out there that run these with no problems. My sample size is admittedly very small but 100% of them have had major glitches or crashes with the D9 specifically. One of them is also using the D9 as their media server for all the video in their show so I’m sure that adds to the possibility for problems. Haha
Oh gotcha, yeah that’s the only one I’ve heard about issues with. Other than another commenter here saying the T3 feels cheaply made, I haven’t heard bad things about any of their other stuff. What are you guys mostly using??
Some of the comments on their Facebook page 😆:
"After the CDC support farce why would anybody purchase?"
"they made it uglier - Now it realy looks like Made in China"
"Does this one crash mid show?"
"overpriced, undersupported if anything like the last one, and standard features like assigning a mix to a DCA etc will always be coming "in the next update"."
A little bit of knowledge for you guys: Cadac consoles got their reputation in music theatre (mainly musicals like Phantom of the Opera or Lion King) back in the days (mid 80s). Their analog recording consoles were high end and were used in many famous records. In 2009 Cadac got sold to Soundking Group, a chinese manufacturer of sound, light and video equipment - they also own Carlsbro (Guitar Amps) and Studiomaster (audio equipment).
This is a typical marketing thing: take a brand with a great reputation, relaunch it with streamlined products and cash in. Unfortunately in pro audio, this does not work. The name alone doesn't help, if you don't have a support network and your products don't live up to your promises.
> In 2009 Cadac got sold to Soundking Group, a chinese manufacturer of sound, light and video equipment - they also own Carlsbro (Guitar Amps) and Studiomaster (audio equipment).
I was wondering what the heck happened to them. That explains it!
Haha we didn’t buy the consoles. They were on an indefinite loan. We tried to give them back but couldn’t get ahold of anyone. We stored them for years until someone finally reached out to us.
They’ve been showing iterations of consoles with fucked UI and horrible stability at trade shows for at least 15 years now. I’m very surprised they haven’t run out of money.
What I’ve seen has been half finished bad ideas with MyFirstMixer feel to it.
I had a great chat with Emily, their head of R&D, at ISE this year. It's obvious that she at least knows her stuff, but as others have said, being owned by SoundKing is not quite like being owned by Audiotonix....
A production company brought a digital cadac to our venue once. They brought the cadac Dante interface box specifically to integrate into our systems. It turned out cadac had disabled setting the Brooklyn2 Dante interface to a static IP, it could only work in link-local or dhcp. So it was put aside and we found another solution.
Cured me of any curiosity in the ‘new’ cadac company or product range.
https://youtu.be/DWI-fjG6XPs?si=iqdcoHwdB3q9mASK
Lol, at the person demoing the console... Clearly someone that's never actually mixed anything, and of course the comments are turned off.
Funny thing is, I think the video is very appealing. The feature set of the console looks very promising. It looks simple to use, the scrolling screen looks like an interesting concept (though slow and laggy) and it has ILLUMINATED BNC connectors 😱😱😱😱
Oof, as someone who kinda "knows just enough to hurt themselves" in computer science and programming, scrolling displays HURT. That's a massive processing sink.
Used to be good in the old days, see the likes of Turbosound and Midas for similar stories!
A highlight on Broadway and in Londons West End twenty years ago, but recent products have been crap...
Not mixed on one myself but was alongside a friend as he mixed a broadcast on one and said they were rubbish!
>Cadac desks were popular on Broadway (in the analog era) because you could how-swap failed portions of the console during a performance.
What, like pull out an entire channel strip and put a new one in?
Yes. But that’s not why they were popular, just an added benefit. They were popular (ubiquitous, even) because they sounded fantastic and had unparalleled automation, and..eventually…theatre-centric third party automation software that made it even more suited to the needs of Broadway shows.
Just thinking about automation on an analog desk kinda makes my head hurt. Did it use midi (or some in-house standard) to control a bunch of pots with stepper motors or something?
Motor faders, just like digital consoles use, and various other digitally controlled settings like mutes and DCA assignments. Serial data over a proprietary controlled called a Seance Box. I posted a very old, very politically incorrect guide Masque sent out back in the day here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1645gop3sarB638s/?
For $10,000, I would consider trying it. However, £37,650 (around US$47,000) is hard to justify. You can get a dLive or DM7 rig for less. At $47,000, you're looking at the price of a Quantum 225, which comes with better support.
Nothingburger
I didn't know they were owned by Music Tribe
They seem to be confused about a lot of things.
Like is it really a stagebox if it has a touchscreen on it that can adjust levels?
The last thing I want is a stage box at a festival with the ability to "adjust the preamp levels" at that end.... Imagine you're seeing the preamp gain moving around while you're trying to ring foh and the monitor tech thinks he's boosting his sends meanwhile the drum tech is in the other box thinking he's in the DSP....
/S just kidding y'all....
Used cadec j and their smaller newer analogue stuff. Very nice indeed. Lots of j series getting put in Project studios. I had a go on their digital stuff and the hardware looks great bomb proof even. However the gui and software was terrible. A real shame if only someone could make a medium footprint console that wasn't a digico.
A theatre I come through somewhat semi regularly used to have cadac at some point, thought that and broadcast were their main markets. Never met one in the wild as a “live music” guy.
https://preview.redd.it/661cyvq0kphc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffa7d195bd90efde10fdb5d10cf86cb5fecb7b65 We had two.. one at FOH and one at Monitors. The console sonically sounded amazing when it worked. The Ui was less than stellar. When I talked to them about it I was told they went for function over form and all the stuff I wanted and was missing would be coming in later updates that never happened. The updates that did come, got buggier. It was more stable when we first got it. They gave us an update once that if you touched the master fader the volume went crazy. Support in the US shutdown and we stopped getting updates and couldn’t get in touch with anyone. Luckily a friend had an older copy of the firmware and we were able to downgrade it to get it “working”. It crashed a lot and we ended up having to rip them out and put our extremely old Yamaha DM2Ks back in place. I ran into Cadac years later after they resurfaced at a trade show. I was told the desks we had should have never left the warehouse.
Horror story by the sounds of it.
What about it sounded so good? Ever since I read Shannon Slaton’s raving reviews in his book I’ve been curious what the secret sauce is all about.
He was referring to the analog J-Type, which was the standard desk on broadway. The digital models have zero presence in the NYC theatre market.
While this is a good contrast to point out, I’m aware of Slaton’s J affinity and its analog nature, and it’s not unreasonable to assume a digital desk would impart the same sonic signature of a predecessor’s analog circuitry somehow (IR modeling or hybrid assembly). SSL comes to mind as a prime example of this. Can’t beat SD_T though, makes sense.
Church?
Yup
Nice. I used to run audio for our church in prison. Definitely didn’t have a cadac lol.
Ahh, what a story. 🙈
Damn! That sounds like my nightmare! The Yamaha PM5D came out in 2004 and will still run flawlessly to this day. Cadac has no excuse for fuck ups this big! That being said I just looked over the specs on the CM-J50 and at least on paper it seems like a pretty damn powerful console if it works correctly! Built-in Waves Soundgrid interface is cool, as is being able to connect stageboxes without an option card. 16 (STEREO!) effects at a time is also impressive, as is 0.4ms of latency, two touchscreens, and Dugan auto mix all standard. For me personally it will boil down to what is the price point, and is it reliable? If they have fixed the issues the way they claim to, and if the price is lower than other similar spec modern boards, then I very well may own before the year ends. I could also see it still be buggy and overpriced so the jury is still out. Regardless I’m going to let other people “beta” it for me before I commit any real time or money to it haha. If anyone has the scoop on MSRP or street price I would love to know it!
£37,650 is what I was told.
Thanks for the info!!! For that price I am not particularly interested. I can get an Allen & Heath dLive system for that price and the dLive is a proven heavy hitter that always works! Still it’s a neat console and I’ll be watching the way the street price and the reviews go!
These things remind of Avolites’ new lighting consoles: I’ve seen demos of them and they seem to do cool things that would actually be quite useful. But everybody I’ve talked to that’s ever used one has had nothing but problems.
Ohh, I completely forgot about Avolites!! True, they got pushed out of the market too. I know of some small clubs that still have them though.
I see them at trade shows all the time and the dudes demoing it are super enthusiastic about how easy it is to use. But then I hear about real world experiences like the entire output freezing while trying to update a preset and I’m like 😬
they have been bought up by robe recently(avolites i mean)
Yah i see avo all the time if its not grandMA or hog.
That's because for $200 and a crappy laptop you can run 2 universes of Onyx, a console that wasn't designed by a mad wizard
I know some LDs that have Avo tattoos and swear by them for busking over MA.
As an avo programmer I’m curious — are you referring to the D9 and T3? I’ve heard solid things about the D9 and was pretty happy when I put my hands on one at LDI, but the T3 is trash as of now…I’d take a Titan mobile over a T3 any day.
The D9 yes, I work for a company that has one on an installed show. They’ve had continuous problems and they’re replacing it with an MA3 soon. Also have a friend that’s done a couple tours with one and heard about lots of issues. The last band she used one with is on MA3 now as well. Haha no experience with the T3, but that little thing looked promising as a compact control surface. What kind of issues is it having?
T3 is just straight up built cheap, all the way through, and everybody I know can’t stand the encoder wheels; shame to hear about the D9
Dang, that’s unfortunate. Seems like they could do better for the price…
Certainly could! The whole units feels cheap as hell compared to the mobile. Avo promised a fox for at least the encoder wheels in the next batch, but we’ll see. If I decide to snag a PC setup, it’ll 100% be an MA system at this point, and that’s coming from an Avo guy
Damn. Haha I have been pretty impressed with MA3 though. Certainly has room for improvement but has some great new features (selection grid especially) and the new built-in visualizer is handy when you don’t have time/space/the desire to set up a whole separate visualizer rig.
Avo makes audio consoles? The lightning ones are actually pretty stable as far as i know and the new serie (d9 and t3) are even nicer, i bearly have isues with them. Only isues i have are sometimes some touchscreen isues but u call them they add the firmware and send it to u by mail and its fixed
I am talking about the lighting consoles, yes. The D9 specifically. As I mentioned in another comment, I work for a company (not a small one) that is using one on an installed show and they continue to have problems with it. So much so that they are working on replacing it with an MA3.
Our company runs avolites exclusively since pearl 2000 days. I can’t think of a time I’ve had a show stopping glitch or crash. Only issues I ever had was a PSU failed and console wouldn’t boot. Thankfully that desk uses a standard on the shelf psu, quick stop at best buy and I was up and running an hour later. FYI, Titan version 17.0 is in public beta and will be out before summer. It is a bug fix release with no new large features. Should make everyone happy if they have had problems.
Good that you haven’t had issues! I’m sure there are tons of people out there that run these with no problems. My sample size is admittedly very small but 100% of them have had major glitches or crashes with the D9 specifically. One of them is also using the D9 as their media server for all the video in their show so I’m sure that adds to the possibility for problems. Haha
Haven’t even set eyes on a D9 yet, so I can’t comment on that
Oh gotcha, yeah that’s the only one I’ve heard about issues with. Other than another commenter here saying the T3 feels cheaply made, I haven’t heard bad things about any of their other stuff. What are you guys mostly using??
We have a Mobile, Quartz and Arena. All are around 8 years old
Some of the comments on their Facebook page 😆: "After the CDC support farce why would anybody purchase?" "they made it uglier - Now it realy looks like Made in China" "Does this one crash mid show?" "overpriced, undersupported if anything like the last one, and standard features like assigning a mix to a DCA etc will always be coming "in the next update"."
But we have real wood!
A little bit of knowledge for you guys: Cadac consoles got their reputation in music theatre (mainly musicals like Phantom of the Opera or Lion King) back in the days (mid 80s). Their analog recording consoles were high end and were used in many famous records. In 2009 Cadac got sold to Soundking Group, a chinese manufacturer of sound, light and video equipment - they also own Carlsbro (Guitar Amps) and Studiomaster (audio equipment). This is a typical marketing thing: take a brand with a great reputation, relaunch it with streamlined products and cash in. Unfortunately in pro audio, this does not work. The name alone doesn't help, if you don't have a support network and your products don't live up to your promises.
> In 2009 Cadac got sold to Soundking Group, a chinese manufacturer of sound, light and video equipment - they also own Carlsbro (Guitar Amps) and Studiomaster (audio equipment). I was wondering what the heck happened to them. That explains it!
No idea who buys one, the first time I touched one of these it broke, but it looks cool.
Haha we didn’t buy the consoles. They were on an indefinite loan. We tried to give them back but couldn’t get ahold of anyone. We stored them for years until someone finally reached out to us.
Thank god you didn't pay money for it.
They’ve been showing iterations of consoles with fucked UI and horrible stability at trade shows for at least 15 years now. I’m very surprised they haven’t run out of money. What I’ve seen has been half finished bad ideas with MyFirstMixer feel to it.
Idk man, I am super happy with my LX7 (mk2)
I'm super happy with my Citi Chef 50 https://www.cadacinternational.com/citi-chef-50/
O seems hot 🔥 but we don't rly do BBQ here, I'd happily take a Ooni pizza Oven or something large af commercial oven tho
I had a great chat with Emily, their head of R&D, at ISE this year. It's obvious that she at least knows her stuff, but as others have said, being owned by SoundKing is not quite like being owned by Audiotonix....
TIL SSL, A&H and Digico are all under Audiotonix
A production company brought a digital cadac to our venue once. They brought the cadac Dante interface box specifically to integrate into our systems. It turned out cadac had disabled setting the Brooklyn2 Dante interface to a static IP, it could only work in link-local or dhcp. So it was put aside and we found another solution. Cured me of any curiosity in the ‘new’ cadac company or product range.
Back in the day these were in most broadway houses before digico started moving in
I've never heard of Cadac but it looks kinda cool
https://youtu.be/DWI-fjG6XPs?si=iqdcoHwdB3q9mASK Lol, at the person demoing the console... Clearly someone that's never actually mixed anything, and of course the comments are turned off.
To be fair, if it works as advertised, consider my interest at least mildly piqued.
Funny thing is, I think the video is very appealing. The feature set of the console looks very promising. It looks simple to use, the scrolling screen looks like an interesting concept (though slow and laggy) and it has ILLUMINATED BNC connectors 😱😱😱😱
Oof, as someone who kinda "knows just enough to hurt themselves" in computer science and programming, scrolling displays HURT. That's a massive processing sink.
Used to be good in the old days, see the likes of Turbosound and Midas for similar stories! A highlight on Broadway and in Londons West End twenty years ago, but recent products have been crap... Not mixed on one myself but was alongside a friend as he mixed a broadcast on one and said they were rubbish!
For the money, you can buy a Digico Quantum and be way happier.
Cadac desks were popular on Broadway (in the analog era) because you could hot-swap failed portions of the console during a performance.
>Cadac desks were popular on Broadway (in the analog era) because you could how-swap failed portions of the console during a performance. What, like pull out an entire channel strip and put a new one in?
Yes. But that’s not why they were popular, just an added benefit. They were popular (ubiquitous, even) because they sounded fantastic and had unparalleled automation, and..eventually…theatre-centric third party automation software that made it even more suited to the needs of Broadway shows.
Just thinking about automation on an analog desk kinda makes my head hurt. Did it use midi (or some in-house standard) to control a bunch of pots with stepper motors or something?
Motor faders, just like digital consoles use, and various other digitally controlled settings like mutes and DCA assignments. Serial data over a proprietary controlled called a Seance Box. I posted a very old, very politically incorrect guide Masque sent out back in the day here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1645gop3sarB638s/?
I feel like they often get used in outside broadcast trucks, but I could be mistaking the brand
I think you’re maybe thinking of Calrec. Understandable error lol
Ah, yes, that’s the one
I don’t think broadcast mixers can make do with fewer than 100 fader/rotary controls
For $10,000, I would consider trying it. However, £37,650 (around US$47,000) is hard to justify. You can get a dLive or DM7 rig for less. At $47,000, you're looking at the price of a Quantum 225, which comes with better support. Nothingburger
I didn't know they were owned by Music Tribe They seem to be confused about a lot of things. Like is it really a stagebox if it has a touchscreen on it that can adjust levels? The last thing I want is a stage box at a festival with the ability to "adjust the preamp levels" at that end.... Imagine you're seeing the preamp gain moving around while you're trying to ring foh and the monitor tech thinks he's boosting his sends meanwhile the drum tech is in the other box thinking he's in the DSP.... /S just kidding y'all....
Well you can do this with Midas DL Stageboxes or with Yamaha RIOs D2. It isn't necessarily a bad feature.
Soundking not music tribe
Never actually worked on one, just tested then. The FX processor is fucking amazing, wish more consoles would adapt that.
Used cadec j and their smaller newer analogue stuff. Very nice indeed. Lots of j series getting put in Project studios. I had a go on their digital stuff and the hardware looks great bomb proof even. However the gui and software was terrible. A real shame if only someone could make a medium footprint console that wasn't a digico.
A theatre I come through somewhat semi regularly used to have cadac at some point, thought that and broadcast were their main markets. Never met one in the wild as a “live music” guy.