Numerous manufacturers of high-end live sound consoles have offered scaled-down versions of their finest mixers to make these products available to a broader group of potential buyers. Midas is no exception, with its new Pro Series consoles—namely the Pro9, Pro6, and now the newly introduced Pro3.
Midas introduced the Pro6, the first of the Pro Series, with much fanfare in mid 2008. The Pro9 and Pro3 were both introduced earlier this year at the InfoComm event in Las Vegas.
The Pro Series boards are not quite in the same league as Midas' flagship XL8 digital board, but they offer quite a bit of power, high quality audio, and they are priced to put them in reach of more churches than ever before.
Among the things I really like about the console is the addition of some very powerful volunteer-friendly conventions like VCAs and POPulation groups. The more time I spent with the Pro3, the bigger the smile on my face.
Pro3 Attributes
Like many digital mixing consoles, the Midas Pro3 system separates the control surface (the board) located at the front-of-house (FOH) mix position with the DSP engine and input/output (I/O) interface residing on stage. With a standard Pro3 package, a DL371 system engine resides on stage, along with an audio interface—most likely the DL251—a simplified interface offering 48 mic/line inputs and 16 mic/line outputs, along with MIDI out and thru. The more sophisticated DL351 is also available, rendering a maximum complement of 64 inputs and 64 outputs, configured by the choice of I/O cards in eight-channel blocks, with various analog and digital options available. Two internal processors run in parallel to establish redundancy.
Additionally, Midas chose the Linux operating system due to its legendary stability.
A high goal for Midas is to keep the show running under all circumstances, and to that end, if the control surface loses power (unlikely with its two parallel power supplies), the on-stage audio engine continues with the last instruction it received, allowing audio to pass.
Every component in the system, including each power supply module, has its own IP address, and operational information is supplied via network to the control surface, indicating whether proper operation is being achieved. The on-stage box is connected with the interface at FOH or monitor world via Cat 5E cabling.
The system's interface, or what would appear at first to be the console, is an attractive affair with a lot of color and two computer displays that can be used for external devices via a built-in KVM switch…handy for loudspeaker management or network software and other such things. Midas touts the computer displays as “daylight viewable,” and I did indeed find them very bright, vivid and clear. At the far left of the control surface are found 12 “fast” channel strips, each with the expected complement of fader, mute, solo, and pan controls, along with selection buttons for routing, EQ, dynamics, and also gain stage controls. The faders are motorized P&G units, and there is a channel-select button/scribble strip display that indicates channel name and pan information, and can change color to reflect routing or other attributes. At the top of each of these 12 “fast” strips is a metering section, and to their right is found a single full channel strip with controls for EQ and dynamics, among other things.
Below the full channel strip is a section with several very clever conventions for determining which 12 channels are represented by the “fast” strips located to its left. To the right of the channel strip are found 16 output “fast” strips, and below them the POPulation group and VCA select button/scribble strip displays (works better than masking tape) that indicate which POP or VCA group is currently represented by the 12 faders directly below them.
To the right of the 12 “fast” strip section is the interface's master section, followed by another channel strip and another section of four “fast” strips. The channel strip and fast strips together are collectively known as the “B Area.” This could be used a number of different ways—for instance, to focus on four key inputs (principal mics—pastor, soloist, etc.) or to allow a monitor engineer to work alongside the FOH mixer at the same console—and the monitor mixer could work at the 12 faders on the left with FOH on the right, or vice-versa. This is very powerful. And although other consoles can facilitate custom assignment of faders, this is the only system I've ever seen that very deliberately sets up a secondary work area on the control surface. Very powerful indeed.
What's Customary, What's Unique?
Midas uses two other conventions in the Pro3 to facilitate custom workflow—one common to other consoles, and the other unique. Nearly all modern digital live consoles offer some pretty powerful VCA (Voltage-Controlled Amplifier) options, but the Pro3 goes a step further with its POPulation groups. These facilitate setting up literally any combination of faders you'd like, in any order you'd like, to be represented on the 12 main faders at the left side of the console. An example would be a worship scenario in which you need to ride gain on a couple of particular vocal mics, while also fading a music cue, and perhaps wanting to mute an input or two. Say you then immediately need to spontaneously get to a group of accapella vocalists to re-balance their blend because the tenor and alto are not holding their mics close enough. You could have a POP group for the initial scenario, and then with the push of a single button, pull up the POP group for your vocalists and quickly fix that balance. If those vocalists refuse to cooperate, you could even then incorporate their channels into your original POP group so you could balance them from right there at all times they're singing. I find this very impressive, since it's endlessly configurable to work exactly the way one likes.
Midas makes a couple of accessories available to further enhance the operation of the system. First is the DN9331 Rapide, which is a moving-fader automated control surface used to control the Klark-Teknik (Midas's sister company) graphic EQs in the system (up to 28 can be instantiated)—this is very useful to monitor engineers in particular. There is also the DN9696 digital recorder, which integrates with the system with an absolute minimum of configuration (as opposed to third-party recording solutions). I spoke with a FOH engineer who has used this system and he reports that it is really helpful in terms of virtual sound check.
Midas has definitely put a huge effort into maintaining the audio quality. The audio quality did sound absolutely incredible to my ear, and I was also very happy with the way that the EQs reacted while I mixed. In particular, I was also truly impressed with Midas digital compressors. They have modeled five different analog compressor topologies, and this simplified the mixing process for me. I could dial up the compressor topology that accomplished exactly the goal I wished to reach with that particular compressor.
To date, Midas has shied away from implementing software DSP plug-ins, but my sense is that they're not completely averse to eventually doing so. The saving grace is that the DSP built in to the console sounds incredible. They also have a time-alignment process so external processors can be used with no latency issues.
The Midas Pro3 is a very sophisticated console that can enhance virtually any mixing situation that can be dreamed up by a highly experienced engineer. But at the same time, it can be configured so a very inexperienced volunteer can be quickly trained to push the right buttons and move the right faders to accomplish a church's mixing requirements. Its role as a less-expensive alternative to Midas' flagship products is perfectly fulfilled. It's priced such that many more churches can now consider Midas, and I strongly recommend they do so. The new Pro3 is powerful, sounds great, and can be made very volunteer-friendly.
Company: MidasProduct: Pro3 Live Audio SystemList Price: $63,999Phone: 866-814-4434Website: www.midasconsoles.com
