This week at Prolight & Sound event in Frankfurt, Germany, Midas introduced the “Ultimate Digital Console.” At least that's what the press release calls the new Pro X. The new console is based on a Pro9 surface and features the brand new Neutron DSP engine. We're told the Neutron is capable of routing up to 800 channels, either point to point or in and out of the console for mixing. Moreover, one can change the routing via automation scenes.
Of course, routing audio channels is different from mixing audio channels. According to Midas, the Pro X can mix 168 input channels and provides for either 99 mixes (96 mix busses plus left, right and mono) or 103 output channels. Another 288 inputs and 294 outputs are available through AES50.
When it comes to mix busses, the Pro X will appeal to monitor engineers everywhere. Those 96 mix buses can be displayed simultaneously as 24 mono or stereo mixes on the control surface. What does that mean exactly? I'm not sure. We'll have to wait until we actually get hands on with the console. Regardless of actual implementation, the ability to manage 48 stereo mixes will be a boon to large tours and churches with heavy IEM needs.
Powering this new console is the new Neutron engine. The result of a three year R& D project, Neutron is an advanced FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and MIMD (Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data) architecture that delivers 100 gigaflops of real-time audio processing. If that is Greek to you, suffice it to say it's a lot of processing horsepower. Put another way, it will handle 271 simultaneous processing channels at 96 kHz at 40-bit floating point. For those playing along at home, 271 is 168 (inputs) + 103 (outputs).
The ability to process almost 300 channels now costs just over $40,000. It’s a pretty amazing number—one that is completely unparalleled in the industry.
Read Company's Initial New Product Announcement on the Midas Pro X Digital Audio Mixing Console
This is rather remarkable given that the Pro X is a mere 60 inches wide. The ability to pack this much processing power into such a small footprint is pretty amazing. The Pro X will appeal to both tours and churches alike, given that both are often subject to considerable space constraints.
Where things really start to get interesting is when one considers the price. When it starts shipping at the end of 2014, the Pro X will come with a MAP (minimum advertised price) of $41,999. No, that’s not a typo; with the introduction of the MIdas Pro X, the ability to process almost 300 channels now costs just over $40,000. Now, this is just the console, and does not include I/O. Still, it’s a pretty amazing number—one that is completely unparalleled in the industry.
Because the Pro X is part of the Pro line, existing Pro 3, 6 and 9 users can simply swap certain portions of the control surfaces and upgrade to the Neutron DSP engine to gain all the new features of the Pro X. All existing I/O will be completely plug and play. And, using the Klark-Teknik DN9650 Network Bridge, users can access Dante, Cobranet and MADI networks.
For the last few years, Music Group has been shaking up the industry, bringing incredible mixing power to incredibly low price points. It would appear that Midas has done it again. Competing products with similar I/O and channel count cost two to three times as much. And while the Midas mixing approach doesn’t appeal to everyone, it’s certainly powerful and scalable.
As more and more churches have need to route and mix ever higher channel counts, consoles that would have once been in the sole domain of large tours are now finding their way to church installs. Because AES50 operates on standard Cat5 cable, installation is easy and signal distribution requires only network switches. In those settings, a console like the Pro X becomes most interesting.
Of course we’ll have to wait until we get hands on to know for sure how well all this works. One of the downsides of mixing 168 channels on 12 handles is that it’s easy to get lost, and mixing changes that need to happen “right now” can get missed. With VCA spill and POP groups, Midas has come up with clever ways to manage large channel counts, though it does take some getting used to. Still, assuming the Pro X has the sonic qualities of the Pro 3, 6 and 9, and assuming they can deliver this console at the stated price point, this is a pretty remarkable achievement indeed.
