Output to monitoring is again 6.25mm jacks with –10/+4 switching. Beside the Control Room level pot are dedicated buttons for mute and monophonic monitoring. A nearby ‘external source’ button throws the monitoring to the second input. These inputs can then be monitored via the top panel control room level pot. Each has a dedicated button to swap between –10 and +4 settings. This consists of two sets of inputs on 6.25mm jacks. The Command 8 also features a rudimentary analogue mixing section courtesy of the longtime Digidesign partner, Focusrite. Connection to the controller is via USB, plenty of bandwidth for the control information and the Command 8’s ‘one-in/two-out’ Midi interface. The Command 8 sprang to life immediately, and functioned as you’d expect. I simply booted LE after a restart, selected the Command 8 as a Midi controller under the peripherals menu and proceeded to use the system. The iBook was running OSX 10.3.3 for which 6.4 is now compatible. So armed with a borrowed MBox and my new 14-inch iBook (oh okay, my wife’s new 14-inch iBook) I launched into the task of setting up the Command 8. HD owners will be ever so pleased to know v6.4 includes automatic delay compensation – saves getting the calculator out when you least want to.Īt the time of writing, the only version available to me was LE 6.4. The timeline display has also been improved with a constantly visible transport and the ability to set the ‘zero feet+frames’ point to anywhere within a session. SMPTE frame rates of 24 and 23.976 are now supported for those working with HDTV formats along with hierarchical plug-in menus (about time) and track position numbering. This feature does in fact give the faders a more ‘analogue’ feel, in that it is more closely in line with how an analogue console performs. Apart from the Command 8 and Icon (HD only) support, fader gain has been increased to +12dB and is selectable at the creation of a session between +12 and the previous +6 standard. Admittedly, this is sad news for 001 owners but then there are a number of additions to the software that should keep them happy for a while to come. Currently only these systems will support the use of the Command 8 but, according to Digi, an upcoming version 6.4.1 will support D24 Mix systems – these being the last upgrades to support D24/Mix and the last to support the Digi 001. The Command 8 is essentially the control surface from the Digidesign 002 with the ability to control any flavour of ProTools TDM and LE above version 6.4 – a free upgrade to v6 LE owners… HD and Mix owners must pay an upgrade fee. They obviously had a pretty good idea as to what was waiting in the wings. At the time of its release, the first question I asked the Digidesign sales reps was ‘would the 002’s control surface drive a normal TDM system’? A very definite ‘no’ was the answer. The 002 was (and still is) a new kind of hardware – with control surface, audio interface and Midi rolled into the one box. Digidesign heeded this high sample rate call and released the Digi 002 – a control surface utilising technology derived from the Control24 but folded into a home studio-sized Firewire-based production station. Soon 96k became the new buzz specification and all of a sudden any piece of equipment that didn’t offer this magical spec was apparently stuck out the back with all the old NS10 drivers (strange thing is, I’m yet to meet a studio that runs at anything other than 44.1k). Time marched on, and so did people’s expectations as to what was an acceptable sample rate. After years of being the posh digital system, Digidesign now had the market covered from bedroom through to final production. With this end of the market secured, Digidesign turned its focus to the Control24 – a virtual mix surface designed to run with TDM rigs but no doubt to also take on the countless creations born from the 001. Even smaller 16-track facilities could enter the fray as the 001 could easily record 16 tracks at 24-bit – at a very modest price. I’d propose that the 001 was responsible for a large degree of further ProTools market saturation. For the price of a professional DAT recorder (a technology that was fast becoming obsolete) you could jump into the ProTools arena confident your work could be easily transferred to a studio running the more expensive TDM systems. The 001 made a big splash when it first appeared a few years back. While its high-end TDM systems are often criticised for being exorbitantly expensive there are the ‘entry-level’ gateways to running the industry standard ProTools software. It can’t be denied that Digidesign is the market leader in digital recording systems. 30 September 2004 Digi takes command with this motorised fader controller.
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