Master/My Fader V3 Wants and Speculation

[sam.spoons]

TBH I love my DL1608 but I wouldn't recommend one to a mate just now  If they get a good one, as most do, it'll be great but I'd be seriously embarrassed if they got one of he few duff-uns. Not sure where I stand but I still have confidence in my own DL, for now at least.

[Keyboard Magic]

I agree with you Sam. If I may quote you?

"I wouldn't recommend one to a mate just now  If they get a good one, as most do, it'll be great but I'd be seriously embarrassed if they got one of the few duff-uns."

The school, where I run the sound for, has a new DL1608 and it works flawlessly. I really like using it. Good sound, the whole 9 yards. But until they work out the bugs, I would wait and check out the other offerings out there. If a new version of Master Fader does happen, it may just fix these issues.

Oct 1st: I sure hope Mackie puts up the revised Master Fader on the App Store soon. It would be nice to play with it. 

[Kev tyler]

I try to be a glass half full type of guy, but I think with a new dl product on the cards, a new pre sonus product now shipping according to thomann and a berry x18 dl killer possibly around the corner from the back of beyond, mackie will not be concentrating on fixing the dl1608.

Call me a cynic, but.

Kev

[gerenm63]

This may sound a little strange, but I'd like the ability to stack effects. Specifically, I like to be able to send the delay return to the reverb send, so that everything sounds as if it's in the same "space."  I'm used to "wasting" channels for proper returns on an analog board to do this, as I usually bring my outboard effects back into the mixer on channel strips as opposed to the returns, and it should be relatively easy to do in DSP without wasting channels or aux sends. I know there's some danger in this, like being able to set up a "runaway" effect loop, especially if you're able to feed an effect right back to itself, but I think there's also a nice benefit to it.

[soundog]

I have a new DL806 and sent Mackie support an e-mail asking a feature (or lack of) in Master Fader. Two days later, the response was terse and impersonal. No "sorry, that feature is not currently supported." No "here's how to request a feature" or "that's a god idea; we'll add that to our list of requests."

I just found and added requests on their Feature Request webpage, but it looks like there are a lot of people asking for a lot of things. Still, there have been minimal enhancements (more like adding stuff that should have been in V1.0) to the app since it intro'ed in June 2012. You would think adding features to an app would be a huge priority for them, especially basic stuff which should have been there initially.

I just put in an order for a Behringer XR12. I'll compare the two mixers when it arrives, and the loser goes to the auction block.

[RoadRanger]

Here's a list of 36 items slated for 3.0 or will be DL32R only :
http://mackie.uservoice.com/forums/97035-dl-series/status/12717

Woo!

[robbocurry]

Here's a list of 36 items slated for 3.0 or will be DL32R only :
http://mackie.uservoice.com/forums/97035-dl-series/status/12717

Woo!

This is impressive stuff RR, good job Beno!
Can't wait to try this out

[Jkowtko]

So MF3 is the answer to all our prayers ...

Except for multi-track recording, it looks as though the DL1608/806 will benefit from most of the new features.

I ultimately want a rack unit for a mixer that has no hard control surface, but MF3 will give my DL1608 a much longer lease on life now ...

[soundog]

Wonder how long it will be before we see a Mackie DL16R and DL8R to compete with the Behringer XR18 and XR12? This is going to get interesting!

Snakeless "stageboxes" communicating wirelessly with a remote controller (iPad, computer, etc) are obviously the wave of the future.

[sam.spoons]

Ultimately I still want a physical control surface to go with the mixer hardware stage rack (so I'm not paying for loads of mic preamps I don't need at the mix position). Allen & Heath already do it with the iLive system but at a huge price and Fostex had the LR16 in 2009 (with a built in 16 track digital recorder). Both are wired using Cat5 but I want to go a stage further by having the remote surface on WiFi with a few audio inputs at the mix position, one mono for talkback and a couple of stereo plus a stereo return for PFL (if WiFi can cope with 1080p HD video a few audio streams should be easy).

The problem for the manufacturers as I see it is that the physical controls are the most expensive bit of a digital desk but many people would baulk at paying as much for the control surface as they did for the rack 

[Jkowtko]

I agree with you -- powered or non-powered fader options for physical control surface.  Make it modular (i.e. banks of 8?) so you can buy what you want.  I bought a BCF2000 to use with my Yamaha01v96 a while back ... worked okay for me, but the setup was a pain.  I would be nice to have something that was a good level up from this.

I don't know that any of the current systems are set up for that other than MIDI controls though ... and is MIDI that reliable or is a newer protocol needed?

[redwood]

Culled a bunch of beno’s replies on the Mackie feature request forum, and MF 3.0 is gonna rock.

Unfortunately no support before iOS 7.1, but check out the good stuff

- it adds 4 subgroups and 4 VCAs to DL1608.

- the new mix selector shows custom names for Aux Sends.

- adds Overview to see all input and output channels at once.

- adds a recording level for DL1608 and DL806.

- adds a new input routing screen above the EQ allowing to easily adjust all routing from a particular channel.

- new Preset menu has reset button.

- adds exporting of presets and shows to email and Dropbox.

- adds a digital trim to all input channels.

- shows the last recalled snapshot in the navigation bar.

- allows flexible routing of the record source for DL1608 and DL806 (ie record from auxes).

- makes the color change for the selected mix much more prominent making it easy to differentiate the selected mix.

- channel colors have been added

- allows channels to be unassigned from the LR.

- adds improved navigation between mixer view and channel view.


oh and last but not least:


beno (Admin, Mackie) commented  ·  October 16, 2014 2:38 PM

Fingers crossed, white noise is fixed in 3.0.

[ijpengelly]

I like the idea of a physical control surface and agree that Wi-Fi would be more than capable of supporting it (though its the latency rather than bandwidth that's the challenge for real-time applications). If it allowed you to dock your iPad to provide the visual overview and then interface with the application that would probably be the best approach, so as to allow a manufacturer to create something that could be used with devices other than just the DL series. I am not all that clued up on MIDI, etc. but some kind of industry standard would probably have to be adopted so that the desk manufacturers application can easily interface with the hardware faders (not dissimilar to keyboards I guess).

If Mackie (or other mixer supplier) were to make such a device, I can't imagine it would be cheap. What would you be willing to play to have a hard interface?

[sam.spoons]

There are a few conrtol protocols out there, Mackie's own HUI is probably the most used. If Mackie would include HUI control in Master Fader, I could plug a surface (Berry BCF2000 for example, cheap too) and assign the faders to channels, MF is fast enough to work like this (surely it would respond as quickly as it does to a move on another iDevice?) so the slight extra latency would be virtually unnoticeable.

[ijpengelly]

Ahh, ok. Wasn't really that aware of that. Is that from the DAW market?

I am surprised we don't cross path's Sam given what a small world it is. Only last night I engineered for a duo acoustic act and the guy knew me from when I did an industrial placement at Arup in Manchester about 16 years ago!!