On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 10:18:59PM +0100, Will Godfrey wrote: > All you need is a full desk size flat screen (at least 8k) with > high resolution multi-touch capability and continuous tactile feedback. I doubt that very much. What made those mixers ergonomic was careful design of the layout of the controls, including their sizes, colours, and 'feel'. Also don't forget that there were actually two mixers in one console, one taking the mic or instrument inputs and mixing them to 16, 24 or 32 tracks for recording, and the second taking the tape inputs or outputs and mixing them to stereo for control room monitoring and to a small number of foldback mixes for the musicians. Switching between track input or output for monitoring was done by the tape machine. It had to be, because when monitoring some tracks while recording new ones, or for punch in-out, you had to use the recording tape head for playback. With only a limited number of tracks available it was quite common to 'pre-mix' mics to a smaller number of tracks when recording e.g. a big band or a large orchestra for film music. Which also meant you had to get this right during recording. Working for radio/TV as I was then this was not a big deal - you were supposed to be able to mix 'live' anyway. On early multitrack consoles there used to be two physically separate sections with the monitoring section usually being quite simple, often without EQ or other effects. For the actual mixdown the recording section was reconfigured to use the tape outputs. Later most designs used the 'inline' layout which meant that each strip actually contained one channel of both mixers. You'd have two faders (the second one being smaller or just a rotary control) and two panpots. These and all the rest (EQ, inserts, AUX sends,...) could be swapped between the two routes. So the actual signal routing was actually a bit more complex than in most DAWs today. For example in Ardour all that remains of the 'recording' mixer is just a one-to-one connection from inputs to tracks without any controls. If you want to pre-mix that requires significant additional work to set this up. Many studios are carefully maintaining these 'legacy' mixers. For example Abbey Road (London) is still keeping some of their 60's and 70's equipment in working order. This means replacing all the worn-out potentiometers and multi-pole switches (you can still find those, but they are quite expensive). They have a full-time technician just for this. Ciao, -- FA _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list -- linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to linux-audio-user-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
