New SD mix pre series

[Marco Leavitt]

This seems to be what Dave Del Vecchio is saying, but unless the manual is very poorly written it's not what sound devices literature says. It clearly says that the faders have no bearing on the levels of the ISO tracks. The faders only affect the stereo mixdown tracks.

[Dave Del Vecchio]

This is what Paul Isaacs (Sound Devices VP of Marketing and Product Design) said about this in a another forum:

"You can use channel knobs to adjust your ISO levels. To do this, you would select Custom mode and set Record to Advanced and leave Channel set to Basic. When Channel is set to Basic, ISO levels are post channel knob and when Record is set to Advanced, ISOs can be armed."

The manual is a little confusing. But if I understand correctly, there is a system-wide mode setting for the unit. The system-wide mode options are Basic, Advanced, and Custom. If you choose Custom for the system-wide mode, you can individually change the mode of the different sections of the menu (Channel, Record, etc.)

So if you set the system-wide mode to Custom, you can set the mode of the Channel section to Basic or Advanced. In Channel -> Basic mode, the channel knobs control the levels of the different channels directly, in Channel -> Advanced mode, you can set the gain for each channel through the menu, and the channel knobs operate as faders.

In Record -> Basic mode, only a two-channel L/R audio mix is recorded. In Record -> Advanced you can record a two channel audio mix + each individual channel. The channel level that is recorded then depends on the Channel mode. Since in Channel mode -> Basic, the knobs directly control the levels (and you can't separately set the pre-amp gain and fader level), the channel knobs affect the level of the recorded output. But in Channel mode -> Advanced, you can set the gain separately from the fader level, so the per channel recording is pre-fader, and you can adjust the gain to change the level of the recorded ISO tracks.

At least this is my understanding based on reading the manual and trying to reconcile it with Paul Isaac's comment.

[Steven Digges]

Thank you for the details David. Making devices that are low end consumer friendly is a departure for SD. To add to what you said, I read the Basic mode is simply a full auto mode for those that don't know how to or don't want to control their own settings. You can use basic to turn on and go. Advanced mode is user control. Even with a SD brand on it I can't imagine recording audio in full auto. But I have worked with video guys that would not know how to do it properly with full manual controls. That always blows my mind. But that is a soap box I am not going to get on in this thread ;-)

Kind Regards,

Steve

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Steven Digges

Thank you for the details David. Making devices that are low end consumer friendly is a departure for SD...

Well, if a consumer doesn't know sound they'll have trouble getting all the goodness even a ZOOM H4n can provide.

Can SD span both worlds? Will the new mixer/recorders truly be consumer-friendly in basic mode, and acceptable to pros in advanced modes?

I've used the MixPre-D quite a bit. What a versatile little mixer for all kinds of swiss-army knife applications, not least of which is for a boom op to wear. What a pleasant blend of analog qualities with digital controls!

I really hope the new mixer/recorders go much further with equal pro quality and utility. However, at $900 street price for the MixPre-6 is it priced for the consumer market?

[Marco Leavitt]

Very awesome Dave. Thanks for digging that up. I was just about to call SoundDevices to get the final word on this. I'm glad to hear this information. Definitely going to save up my pennies for a Mix-Pre-6. I agree with Seth that the price may be a hard sell for the consumer market, but that's because they may not appreciate the level of technology they are getting for a dirt cheap price.

[Dave Fisk]

I got some hands on time with these at NAB, and I'll be getting a demo unit soon to check out and make a demo video with.

The mic/line selection for the inputs is menu selectable. It has two operating modes; basic and advanced (I'm not sure if those are the SD words for them).

Compared to something like a 633, there are limitations, but this is targeting a very specific market, and I think these units do the job well. People are excited about it, as the pre-orders I'm getting are showing. It's a SD device, so the name alone carries a lot of weight with it. We already know it's going to sound good, and it's a great way for SD to access the lower cost market and have customers move up to their more capable machines later on should people need to do that.

[Dan Brockett]

I just wrote an article for a magazine/website and my editor was asking if I had heard about a mixer or audio device that could handle streaming audio for Facebook/YouTube Live? Yep, I think SD is going to sell a ton of these recorders, they look amazing for a certain audience and need.