Digidesign Venue Quickies

First an update on my keyboard solution I mentioned a couple weeks ago. This Sunday is my first in the room since I added the mount, and I have to say that I’m loving it. Rehearsal went very smooth with it. I love being able to get at the keyboard whether I’m standing or sitting. The bounce is minimized if I keep a little bit of pressure on the keyboard while I’m typing. Having quick and easy access to the keyboard in this way is going to great for all the concert rehearsals next week. My guess is I’m going to get pretty crazy with snapshots and events.

A couple days ago I mentioned there was a new version of the D-Show software coming out for the Venue. Ordering details should be announced hopefully on Friday, but the feature list is out. There aren’t a lot of new things, but there are two new features that will probably have an enormous impact on the way I setup the console and approach mixing.

The first new feature is the ability to insert blank channels without consuming DSP. This will allow users to use all four banks without configuring a 96 channel show. Now those channels that used to hang out on the far left of the desk on the last bank can easily be moved closer to the center where I sit.

The next feature is the ability to “bank safe” channels. In other words, I’ll be able to “bank safe” my lead singer so that no matter where I bank, my lead singer will sit right in front of me at all times. This is going to be so money. Combining this with the channel blanks will let me create space so that mission critical channels never cover up channels on other banks.

I’m hoping I can get the new software by next Wednesday because these two new features could save me a lot of programming headaches for the concert where I have three bands. Some inputs are shared between all bands while some are unique. I’ll talk more about this in my next “Making a Concert” post.