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The D5 Live 56 is a 64 channel worksurface and comes with one remote (stage end) DiGiRack, which contains the 56 A/D and 8 D/A converters and is connected to the console via optical fibre. 150m of fibre cable is provided with the system, reducing the length of copper wire between microphone and desk to, at most, a few metres. A second, local DiGiRack (which is common to all models) sits next to the console with a further 56 external I/Os for inserts, effect sends, local monitoring and playback.

The powerful DSP engine is shielded inside the console’s rigid steel and aluminium chassis on a slide-out tray for easy maintenance and provides every channel with full processing and full functionality at all times, so there is no variation in performance no matter how many features are in simultaneous use. To transfer console settings and automation snapshots to another D5 Live, or to edit your console settings on a laptop PC, simply plug in the miniature USB key to a port on the front of the desk. To use the console for multitrack live recording, simply connect your DiGiTracks recorder to the console via the single MADI port.On the rear are the integral dual-redundant power supplies, which are both hot-swappable and auto-switching, along with the modem port for diagnostics and software updates. In the event of a power supply problem, the D5 Live will automatically switch power supplies over without any loss of audio or control status, and there’s no audio interruption, either, in the unlikely event of the console needing to be rebooted during a show. The overall design approach means the desk is extremely fast to set up and to pack away after a show. The console’s small footprint and relatively light weight make it possible for two people to lift it, although four would be more comfortable.

TRULY INNOVATIVE DIGITAL MIXING

Step up to a DiGiCo D5 Live and step into a new world of digital mixing.

Designed from the ground up to bring you superb sonic purity and powerful, instantly accessible control, the D5 Live is a live music mixing system unlike any other.

The D5 Live digital mixing system sets a completely new standard for live sound mixing. Its audio quality, convenience, simple and intuitive operation and cost effectiveness are a world apart from conventional mixing. This complete, self contained system does away with the need for a multicore, splitters, line drivers, dynamics processors and an entire effects rack. You can record live to multitrack using the optional DiGiTRACS hard disk multitrack recorder, and store a complete show's settings on a tiny USB key.

The standard system comprises the console itself plus flightcase, a local DiGiRack, a stage DiGiRack and a 150m drum of fibre optic cable. One glance at the innovative control surface tells you that this console has been designed for sound engineers by sound engineers.

Virtually every feature is there to see at a glance, or at most a single, logical fingertip press away. The four LCD touchscreens present their facilities exactly as you'd expect to find them on an advanced analogue console, with instant access and a refreshing lack of menus to navigate. This thoroughly intuitive approach means that, despite packing in powerful digital dynamics, an effects package, total recall of every function, a 38x8 output matrix, up to 128 input channel s and 40 multi-configurable internal buses, your learning curve will be as short as the feature list is long.

The D5 Live software gives you unparalleled flexibility in configuring your console precisely to suit the show. Whether you choose the 56 or 112 input version, your internal buses can be set up as mono or stereo auxiliaries and mono or stereo surround busses (the console is fully 5.1-ready as well as for LCRS, with three joystick surround sound panners for instant sound placement). And you can instantly select a basic set-up for either front-of-house or monitor mixing. With both types of console sharing the same fibre optic loop, automatic Gain Tracking(tm) allows either console operator to alter input gain without affecting the mix on either console. There's Ethernet support for console mirroring or a remote control PC, and options on the D5 56 include 32 insertable processing channels on an extra slave card and a powerful effects card complete with graphic equalisers.

Three solo modes and two solo busses are provided, along with the facility to 'gang' groups of input faders together for single-fader control. The dynamics package offers comprehensive frequency-conscious gating, compression and limiting with powerful sidechain EQ, and a four-band fully parametric equaliser plus high and low pass filters. Underlining the ease of use, the moment you touch an EQ control the screen displays a real-time EQ curve, with the same instant, highly accurate visual feedback provided for every other feature.

The D5's snapshots facilities have been greatly extended. At any time you can commit the console's entire status to a snapshot memory and as there's no limit to the number of snapshots you can store, you can effectively record a complete show mix settings. Then store it on a tiny USB key and recall the whole show on another continent with another D5 Live. Snapshots can be self-timed, allowing automated sequencing; relative snapshots allow venue adjustments independently of scene changes; and current or master snapshots can be updated with one touch.

At every step you'll find a wealth of clear tactile and visual information. The smooth, long-throw moving faders react precisely and predictably, and the moment you move one an adjacent backlit button shows you the level change in real time accurate to 0.1dB. 24 VCA-style control groups are at your disposal, and you can swap inputs between physical faders and groups of faders to suit your needs in a second.

More innovations can be found throughout the D5 Live. The compact and lightweight rigid frame houses a slide-out keyboard for naming channels and groups on the electronic scribble strips. The powerful bespoke DSP engine runs every channel continuously - giving you the benefit of just 2ms latency from analogue input to analogue output, equal on every channel at all times. The integral LED lighting behind the controls and the touchscreens can be dimmed, as can the elegant white LED illumination over the high resolution 30-segment LED meterbridge.

In terms of sonic performance, this is a true thoroughbred. 96kHz D/A converters provide an impeccable noise floor while 32-bit floating point internal processing delivers pure, smooth, rich musicality. Security modes prevent accidental changes during a live show, and there's failsafe recovery with no audio loss on mirrored consoles.

The design team behind the D5 Live's engineering has 10 years of experience with the Soundtracs family of digital recording consoles, and over 500 digital sales world-wide. The result is not only innovation, but road proven durability and the knowledge that whenever new features are created for the D5 Live, your console's software will be instantly updateable too.

The D5 Live from DiGiCo. A new world of mixing ideas

INTUITIVE USER INTERFACE

The design of live digital consoles in the past has often been dictated by the desire to hide complex functions behind layers of menus and an assignable control surface. With the D5 Live, DiGiCo set out not only to emulate the directness and simplicity of an analogue board, but to improve on it wherever possible.

The first impression is of a blend of the familiar - three input groups of long-throw faders with a row of large illuminated buttons above them, three rows of rotary controls and input trim controls at the top - and the less familiar, in the shape of four large, full colour backlit LCD TFT touchscreens.

The surface is set out into three input sections. The master section screen controls the master and matrix sections, automation and console set-up pages.

All four touchscreens are pressure sensitive, protecting functions from accidental change by the sweat on a hand or a careless brush with a finger: you must press slightly to select a control or change a setting. This type of tactile feedback is consistent throughout the desk, and contributes to the feeling of security and predictability in mixing with it. Each screen shows the settings of eight input channels simultaneously, and provides interactive control over all functions per fader via a combination of LCD buttons and 'real' controls, while an input channel overview can be displayed on the master screen.

Each of the surface screens has an equivalent dedicated VGA video output on the back of the console, which allows you to view a duplicate of each surface screen on an external colour monitor. There's also a dedicated VGA output allowing you to connect an external 'total console overview' monitor.

You can connect any type of VGA monitor (standard, LCD or plasma) and the output provides up to 1280 x 1024 resolution.

The D5 Live provides the facility to create a dedicated external overview screen (not supplied), giving you a 'big picture' of the console at a glance. Using the Layout page, each operator can decide what information is displayed on this screen, according to the demands of the project being worked on. The overview screen has the ability to display matrix outputs and all buss outputs for auxiliaries, groups and the main buss. Again, these show full metering, insert switching, mute and solo, and dynamic fader positions. You can also view the fader positions and muting status of VCA-style fader groups when these are in use. All channel strips can be displayed in full on the overview screen, showing peak LED, full channel metering, insert point switching, gain reduction, gate movement, muting and solo settings, and dynamic, real-time fader movement.

Each screen has an adjacent bank of rotary encoder controls, to allow instant, real-time adjustment of all equaliser and dynamics settings with an accompanying frequency curve display. It's all simple, direct and instantly displayed.

All three groups of channel faders have a row of illuminated, digitally labelled, fader bank buttons alongside them, allowing each fader group to be switched between six fader banks at a touch, the faders moving precisely to their memorised positions as you change banks. Labelling, in fact, is plentiful throughout: with the touch screen keyboard or the full-size slide-out QWERTY keyboard you can quickly assign names to the LCD scribble strip, screens, busses and fader banks.

Metering is comprehensive, while the 30-segment LED meter overbridge displays input level, gain reduction, gate activity, insert send level and direct output level. It also carries a console illumination strip of white LEDs which, in common with the touchscreens and scribble strips, can be dimmed down in steps when working in a light sensitive environment.

The combination of so much visual and tactile feedback, and the small footprint, makes it a very comfortable console to use live, with no need to stretch or crane your head to see the positions of controls or status settings.

The latest software version includes a host of new features, of which these are a few highlights. The enhanced 38 x 8 output matrix allows any channel, buss or physical input to be routed into the matrix, and then routed out to any of the physical outputs. A new session arranges inputs horizontally across banks rather than vertically. All surfaces can change banks with one touch. The LCD multi-function buttons display a tick mark to confirm 'ON' status, and can show channel name only in a larger font. Talkback sources can be from any input signal; and disabled routing buttons distinguish between used and unavailable routes.

INPUT CHANNELS

Each D5 Live input channel has its own analogue input gain and digital trim with Gain Tracking switch and presets for the whole channel, along with phase reverse, phantom power, six-band EQ and a delay function which allows you to add 240ms of delay to any or all of the channels.

Each channel has four bands of fully parametric 20Hz-20kHz EQ, while the upper and lower bands can be switched between different curve types and shelving characteristics. On top of that are dedicated high and low pass filters, and a preset library which allows you to save an unlimited number of EQ presets for instant recall.

The dynamics section for each input channel is called up with another press on the screen, displaying all the settings for the compressor / limiter and gate, and a powerful sidechain equaliser which allows frequency-conscious dynamics. The same press assigns that channel to the group of dedicated dynamics rotary controllers alongside the screen. The sidechain EQ can also be allocated to the compressor, providing a wide range of uses including highly effective de-essing. The section is accompanied by a dedicated user preset library.

Under the screens are three rows of assignable rotary controls, which are designed to give you the option of having the controls you use most often closest to you as physical controls. Functions can be assigned to them as you wish, including auxiliary sends, pans and dynamics controls. Access is available to any of the 40 busses, each of which can be assigned as either auxiliary busses or group busses. Auxiliaries can also be assigned to faders, allowing a visual feedback of aux levels by channel at the master fader section. The console is capable of stereo, LCRS and 5.1 mixing, and three 5.1 joystick panners provide instant sound image control. Assignment can be made either by touching the screen or scrolling to the buss required. Touching the aux on-screen brings up an expanded view of all auxiliary sends, and routing buttons show stereo or surround designations clearly. Input routing displays a warning if the signal is already in use, while the analogue output routing includes a -10dB switch.

The lower rotary control (nearest the fader) can be assigned to a dedicated channel function per input bank, by holding down the Assign button and touching the function you want to lock it to on the touchscreen. The same applies to the assignable button below this rotary, which can be assigned to its own, independent, function.Two more features simplify multiple operations. The All button allows you to apply changes to all channels displayed on that screen. You can, for example, view all aux routings by holding All and touching Aux Routing. Another function of All is to route input channels sequentially: by holding All and routing the first input channel, the console automatically routes the other seven inputs in that input bank to the next seven channels in sequence - a very fast method of routing a complete block of inputs to the console surface. A new group feed button on each input channel indicates mono, stereo or surround busses. The input channel delay also has an on/off switch.

Below these three rows is a row of large, backlit liquid crystal buttons, one at the top of each physical fader. The buttons feed back an immense amount of information about what that individual fader is doing, using a combination of text and backlight colours which change automatically according to the button's status. The button displays channel number, mono or stereo status, whether the button is currently acting as a solo, fader to aux, safe switch, fader gang, and a fader level readout accurate to 0.1dB, which appears the instant a fader is touched.

Alongside the button is the LCD assign button, displaying the liquid crystal button's various functions - Solo, Safe (which removes the fader from a snapshot and turns the button red as an alert), Aux Send to Master Faders, Fader Ganging, Name Only and Revert To Solo. The Gang function allows similar channels to be locked together in a gang so that level, EQ and dynamics settings can be applied to all of them simultaneously, confirmed by a coloured line in the touchscreen. If, for example, multiple channels require the same high pass filter settings, it's simple to gang the channels and make a single EQ adjustment. Multiple gangs can be built within each input section and an individual channel can be temporarily dropped out of the gang for individual adjustment by pressing the Solo button. Fader assign and solo assign are further ways of assigning the channels to the hardware controls.