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OCTAGON |
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Having reported on the introduction of D&R's flagship Octagon film console, Studio Sound now documents the first installation. Zenon Schoepe writes from Amsterdam. |
HERALDED as the only real console choice for those who are out of the league of the digital and digitally controlled analogue film monsters, D&R's Octagon multiformat analogue desk is now shipping. Indeed, the Dutch manufacturer achieved quite a coup with the powering up of its first installation during the course of the recent European AES in Amsterdam at leading Dutch film studio Meta Sound. And this when the manufacturer celebrated its 25th anniversary. |
| Choice of Console. |
The desk is in the facility's newly refurbished Studio C mixing theatre and Meta has also added a Kinoton FP38 high-speed film projector, and a 24-bit, 24-track workstation from Dutch company Augan. Monitoring is by Stage Accompany, another Dutch company. Meta Sound MD Ad Roest is pragmatic about his choice of console. 'Once we had come to the conclusion that the Harrison Series Twelve was too expensive for us we had to look elsewhere,' he says. 'The problem with an expensive desk like the Harrison is that when you can't afford it in the sort of size you'd really want, you start looking at ways of making the desk smaller and cheaper. In the end you leave out all the sorts of things that you liked about the desk in the first place just to get closer to a price you can afford. You end up with a variation of the desk you wanted.' |
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Faced with such practicalities Roest claims that the Octagon was the only real alternative against the super league of film desks. 'It's a slight step backwards from what we would have wanted ideally, but in three or four years time when there is a really revolutionary digital film console for, perhaps, less money we will be in a different position because I will be free to change.'
Roest reminds that the economic pressures he is under are the complete antithesis of those that, for example, impact on a national broadcaster. His market by definition is small and its growth potential is limited.
Meta Sound may well be the leading film mixing stage in the Netherlands but that is the full extent of its influence. 'I can write the cost of the Octagon off in three years whereas with the Harrison I would need probably more than ten years,' he continues. 'The upshot is that I will be able to buy a new console in three years time, but maybe I will keep it for ten.'
THE OCTAGON replaces a 13-year-old Studer 900 Series console from which Roest says they got excellent value for money --the desk has never had a fader, switch or pot problem in all that time. The single blemish on its record was a blown IC in a stereo equaliser. When the desk was bought Meta Sound was operating out of Hilversum, it moved to its present location on the Amsterdam ring road ten years ago to a newly constructed facility. Fortunately the wiring and arrangement of the two sites was similar enough to make the transplant to the new theatre relatively painless. Even so it was a week before the console was up and running whereas the recent Octagon install took four days in total--time down is time without income according to Roest. |
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| Studio C. |
Studio C has undergone some minor renovation with new flooring and equipment pods. More DA-88s have been added, and new Dolby units, including digitals, have been integrated. 'It all works very nicely with the monitoring system on the Octagon. They've thought of a lot of things, they've been very clever. It interconnects really well with the Dolbys,' comments Roest.
The Studer 900 was only 8-group to stereo and Roest admits that they had too few faders even on the very first film that was mixed on that desk. The layout and construction of the console precluded the addition of anymore whereashe points out that the Octagon is not only expandable, but that sections of the desk can be moved around freely if required.
The addition to the Studer of a sidecar Yamaha 02R had recently helped matters, but the alternation between the earthy analogue presentation of the 900 Series compared to the assignability of the 02R was not a comfortable solution. Panning possibilities were also limited.
The multiformat Meta Octagon is 48-channel for 96-inputs, and is fitted with D&R's fullest automation package including digitally controlled analogue switching, both faders are motorised on each channel, on-board software dynamics, and joysticks--a well-featured desk in total. The purchase of the Kinoton FP38 high speed projector will have a significant impact on productivity, according to Roest. The projector is slaved, like everything else in the studio, to Augan master time code.
He recalls that when the facility bought its first DAW, the Lexicon Opus, the fastest video machine was a Betacam, and while the Opus could jump an hour just by typing in the time the Betacam still had to spool.
'For five years the speed of the system was slowed down to the speed of the video machine,' he remembers. 'Now our video is on optical disk, and while they still slave to the audio they're in sync within a second. Sound has always been the master at Meta Sound, and that's a good way of working.' |
| THE FACILITY. |
THE FACILITY has four recording studios, two edit suites plus the Octagon-equipped mixing theatre. All have Augans and video on optical disc. 'The reason we bought the Augan was that the most frustrating thing about the Opus, apart from the fact that at the time hard disks were small and expensive, was that you couldn't move a project from one room to another. Augan was the first manufacturer to work with optical disc, and you can take them where ever you want. We work for Disney, and record in one studio, edit in another, and then we send the disks to Delta Sound in the UK where they mix from it. We have six systems here now, and sound designers can just walk in with a couple of disks and get on with it. 'Another important point is that we've never had a problem with the sound of the Augans and now with 24-bit and 96kHz on the machines it'll be even better,' he continues. 'I have no idea whether 24-96 will be the way we will be working in the future, but at least if somebody asks for it we can do it.' He adds that the Augan performs all the functions of a dubber and that he's considering using it for just that. 'When I started to think about re-equipping the studio I thought we should be able to run ten DA-88s or more, but the trouble is that now we have a high speed projector the DA-88 is the slowest transport. I'm thinking about another stripped-down Augan purely as a replay device. It's really fantastic to have just the one standard and to be able to run the disks from our first Augan production from five years ago on our newest machine. This company has been working for Disney for 15years, we are asked sometimes to work with tapes from 10 or 15 years ago, and, of course, we have them, and we can replay them. Film is very well standardised as a medium.' Roest clearly feels passionately about file compatibility issues and despairs at the number of incompatible options. 'Manufacturers concentrate on all their different solutions, but nobody thinks about joining in with somebody else's format. That's the most stupid thing, and it's been happening ever since we first got computers.' Meta contemplated D&R's Cinemix but deemed it too small for the Netherlands' biggest film theatre. 'Our Octagon has four times the number of inputs of our old Studer, and eight times the number of outputs. Rerouteing is an important consideration in film mixing, and it's easy on this desk. 'It won't do our business any harm,' claims Roest. 'The lack of faders on the Studer was very frustrating for everybody, and clients might have liked me as the mixer, but if I didn't have enough faders then is was difficult for me to do the job for them. The Octagon is so sophisticated in the routeing, panning and grouping. 'There must be a good market for this console because there are so many small countries with small film industries. We're always looking to what's going on in Hollywood and the glamour of the big studios, but the reality for most film-mixing theatres in most countries is far more down to earth, and all about small markets. We're always working with people who have spent the last of their money on a project that they want to finish because they believe in it, and we can't charge people like that 1,000 Dutch Guilders per hour.' That being said, the Octagon's arrival will be accompanied by a room rate increase from 400 to just under 500 Guilders per hour. However, disregarding the issues of investment and return it is as a film mixer that Roest is most impressed with the Octagon. 'You can get this desk to do what you want it to do,' says Roest. 'What I like about the Harrison is the automation, and if you've worked with an 02R you'll know how complicated this can get, but as a mixer you are being paid to mix not program. The Octagon's EQ isn't automated, but that's how they achieve the price, and you have to live with it; although you can recall EQ settings. But the relatively low cost means we can still buy automated digital outboard for when we need that and buy some good reverbs. 'We've created what I think is a really nice studio here, and had I bought a Harrison there is no way that I would have been able to afford a new projector and that was important to me. The Octagon package is a fantastic one for the money,' states Roest. |
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