Midas Consoles XL8 User Manual

AMSR

04|06

I

n amongst the digital live console launches of late
there as been an obvious one missing. Surely Midas

must go digital sometime? Finally, the answer is here,
accompanied by the typically bold sell: “Digital Goes
Midas.” Inside that clever cliché reversal is an
important statement, emphatically backed up
by the decision to replace the XL4 analogue
with the XL8 digital – Midas claims it has got
the new flagship so right that it doesn’t need
the old one.

The first thing to note is that ‘XL8’ is the
name of a complete system, not just a board
and a hunk of DSP – open the box and find
everything that you need to rig an FOH or
monitor position from stage to stereo.

The standard package includes four DL431
System Input splitters – each with 24 mic/line
inputs. Each of those inputs has three mic pre­amps. The two variable gain amps feed two sets
of ADCs and two sets of rear panel balanced analogue
splits and three splits, while the set of fixed gain amps
supply a broadcast/record split on the front panel.

Then there are five DL451 modular I/O boxes – each
capable of 24 input and output channels depending on
how they’re loaded. Other standard features here include
MIDI and GPIO.

System conn ections are all taken ca re of with
cable or fibre. While the details of the network are too
detailed for this article, a couple of things stand out.
First, all connections are dual-redundant at the system’s

96kHz sampling rate. The DL451 system
router (two supplied for each system), for
example, features ten fully redundant AES
50 connections for local I/O.

Second, the decision to go with AES
50, and specifically the Sony SuperMac
and HyperMac standards is wrapped up
with ambitious requirements for capacity,
laten cy, timing, data tunnellin g, and
more. Latency is listed as ‘70µS per link,
and the specified total latency, including
A/D (often the weak point) is 2ms – which
for SR monkeys everywhere, is peanuts.
In addition, Midas says it has the whole
system phase and sample synchronous. If

you want a comb filter you’ll have to use the EQ.

Even the DSP rack in this system is modular and
includes ‘n+1’ redundancy (you only need nine DL471
DSP Engine modules, but you get ten... just in case). In
a conversation with Midas it turns out that to lose a DSP
module would be the worst failure as recovery for the

affected channels can take around 20 seconds. Losing

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M I D A S X L 8

LIV E PER FOR M A N C E SYS T E M

Some assumed Midas had a

little catching up to do. Has it

finally come out in the lead?

PAUL MAC previews the new

XL8.

‘XL8’ is the name of a
complete system, not
just a board and a hunk
of DSP – open the box
and find everything
that you need to rig an
FOH or monitor position
from stage to stereo.

AMSR

04|06

a power supply or the computer in any of the
five mixer bays does not cause a problem for the
audio and you can run the entire system from any
one bay if necessary.

Another standard part of the system is the
Klark Teknik DN9331 Helix Rapide. In this case
it provides control for the XL8’s graphic EQs via
its 31 motorised faders. Indeed, when during
the preview experience I asked if the graphic EQ
plug-ins could be controlled from the faders, the
answer was no: “Our VCA faders are VCA faders
and nothing else; our output faders are output
faders..” You get the picture. The console screens,
however, can do anything you want them to.

So what does all this hardware buy you in terms
of channels and busses? Well, as you’d expect we
have to separate connections from capability. The
mic splitters give 96 mic/line inputs and three lots
of 96 channel mic splits. The five local I/O units
each house three I/O modules, each with eight
analogue channels or 16 digital channels (eight
in, eight out). Therefore a standard system has 504
XLR connections, which can be expanded to 720
with extra DL541 I/O modules.

In ternally, c apabili ty start s w ith a fu ll
compliment of 96 input channels, 16 auxiliary
inputs, 32 auxiliary mix busses, 16 matrix busses,
and 12 VCA groups (as these are ‘virtual’ Midas has
re-designated the acronym as ‘Variable Control
association’. The complicated middle ground is
filled by those aspects which use I/O resources
depending on your specific needs, such as insert
sends and returns, effect sidechains, direct
outputs, and direct inputs.

Getting Around

It’s worth stopping here to examine the Midas
philosophy on console navigation. In short, you
can get around by channel numbering if you
want to, but because colouring scribble strips and
grouping instruments is generally more intuitive
– that’s the way the navigation system works.
First, ‘layers’ are a thing of the past. It’s a small
distinction, but the basic way of dealing with
more input channels than faders is to scroll the
channels across the console.

Next is the channel grouping idea – in Midas
terms, the ‘population group’. This is basically
a surface assignment of channels with its own
population group button. Hit the previously
user-assigned ‘drums’ button and a bevy of red
drums channels appear in front of you. And,
good gracious, there’s a red VCA channel that
just happens to group the drums. In practice,
that drums button might bring the bass up on
a channel nearby (coloured blue?), and maybe
stick the brass section (yellow?) right down one
end where they can’t do any harm to anybody
but themselves. Another population group might
configure a set-piece mix beneath your fingers, or
spread the vocals and acoustic parts across the
physical channels – all neatly colour-coded and
labelled in cahoots with the VCAs.

As you can tell, if you put the effort in at set-up,
the gig should be pretty straightforward.

Strip Show

The Midas solution to dealing with extensive
channel strip controls is not new: have one
detailed Channel Strip pe r bay t hat gives
comprehensive access to the selected channel,
while putting ‘essential’ controls in line with the
physical faders. It’s the implementation of this
‘assignable’ solution that distinguishes one maker
from another. In the Midas case its fader strip (the
‘Fast Zone’) begins with a gain knob. This can
be either actual remote pre gain or digital gain,
though whichever it is, the Channel Strip will be
the other. Next are HP and LP filters, safe switches
for automation isolation, and direct output level
(plus mute, solo, and source). Single knobs for
compressor threshold and noise gate threshold
come next, then insert control, EQ navigation
buttons, and then onto two auxiliary bus controls.
Obviously you simply assign these to be the two
most important auxiliaries for that channel, and
their colours match the output fader colours.

The Channel Strip on each console bay is a
detailed representation of everything available on
a console channel. Interestingly, the actual fader

N EW M 7 H EA D S X L 8 Q U EU E

Frankfurt ProLight + Sound exhibition visitors
were n ot surpri sed to hea r that Mid as had
already got orders on its books for the new XL8,
but they we re surpr ised by the nature of the
first sales.

Seven major UK rental companies (Britannia
Row Product ions, Canegreen, Capi tal S ound,
Concert Sound, Skan PA Hire, SSE Audio Group,
and Wigwam Acoustics) jointly announced the
formation of a new rental company: M7 Audio
Ltd. T he comp any has been formed after the
seven members reached “a shar ed cons ensus
that joint ownership was the best way to launch
the XL8 into the UK rental market.”

M7 has already placed orders f or an initial
eight systems, worth over one million pounds.
The idea is to create a rental struc ture that will
maximise the use of the systems and offer all UK rental companies and end users the option to rent from any of the individual
M7 partners, as well as providing in-house training and service facilities for the new console.
www.m7audio.co.uk

T HE S ON Y ST O RY

One o f the prot ocols th at sits at t he hear t of the XL8 ’s
technology is the audio network – this forms the backbone
of any XL8 sy stem. T he ‘trun k route’ for the s ystem is th e
Sony Oxford Technologies group HyperMAC technology, which
can carry up to 384 bi-directional channels, plus 100Mbit/s
Ethernet traffic on CAT6 cable, or fibre. The local networking
for the system uses the Sony imp lementation of the AES50
standard (SuperMAC), which c arries up to 48 bi-direc tional
channels plus 5Mbit/s of Ethernet traffic.

John Oakley, in a Sony press releas e, comments: “ In live
sound applications, we are confident that the AES50 approach
has si gnifica nt advant ages over oth er techno logies – in
particular, the open standard, exceptionally low latency, and
robust error correction which will assure us of the high quality
and reliability expected of our products.”

www.sonyoxford.co.uk/supermac

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The UK's SR elite gathered in Frankfurt.

The DL431 system splitter - Three mic amps per input for three splits.