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Amps Of The Future 2

Acoop

Acoop

Feb 21, 2012
2,679
2,515
#1
So, I thought about all the comments that were left on AOTF1, (Link Below) and started thinking about what we'll be plugging into once at the gig.

You'll arrive at your gig, greet your fellow bandmates then, download all your sounds into the mixer. ... But, this isn't a mixer with sliders and dials. ... It's a Central Station that all the different instruments are loaded into and it is set up to give you your desired front end mix. Whatever you want already loaded in and ready for you to play. Sound like the Beatles, sound the Stones, automatically or just sound like you. ... The Central Station then takes that mix and feds it into the Iphones of every paying customer at the gig. ... Just like your tickets is on your phone the concert, will be delivered to you iphone. ... You plug in and enjoy, there's not a big room full of sound, so, if you need to, you can talk, and not scream. ... Plus, no huge PA to pack in or out.


Amps In The Future
 
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#2
So based on your description, does loading "whatever you want" include the notes you play? Or does this mean each band member has a custom trigger device to play their parts with whatever ergonomics they prefer?

It could result in some interesting hybrid designs like what we have no with the "Jamstik" guitars.

If anyone is going to be at the vanguard of all this, performance-wise, I'd have to guess it would be David Byrne. But that's strictly from a pop-music viewpoint.
 
#3
Acoop said:
You'll arrive at your gig, greet your fellow bandmates then, download all your sounds into the mixer. ... But, this isn't a mixer with sliders and dials. ... It's a Central Station that all the different instruments are loaded into and it is set up to give you your desired front end mix. Whatever you want already loaded in and ready for you to play. Sound like the Beatles, sound the Stones, automatically or just sound like you. ... The Central Station then takes that mix and feds it into the Iphones of every paying customer at the gig. ... Just like your tickets is on your phone the concert, will be delivered to you iphone. ... You plug in and enjoy, there's not a big room full of sound, so, if you need to, you can talk, and not scream. ... Plus, no huge PA to pack in or out.
Click to expand...

That's not the future, that's 2019. There have been headphone shows for a long time. Most wired, some wireless. No iphones needed. And profiled mixes are very much a current technology. Dweezil Zappa has even gone so far as to profile the different studio mixing boards his dad's songs were recorded on and feed that data into the PA for each song. In addition to profiled amps, cab impulse responses, etc.
 
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#4
Again...we're close to that.

The Behringer X32 is a digital mixing console with 32 channels of input (expandable to more) that has built-in limiting, compression, EQ, and effects. It's capable of at least 8 aux mixes and can be connected to wirelessly, and can function as an audio interface or a standalone recorder. Currently, it's common for people to import and export X32 project files for setup purposes.

Not a stretch to think that at some point, digital mixers could support some type of input processing (they already do, really) that could include some type of amplifier modelling, or midi synth modelling (there are more instruments than guitars, bass or otherwise), whether onboard or through an expansion unit. These could be specified on any channel, whether on the input or on a bus channel, as it would just act as another effect similar to compression or EQ. (Line 6's Helix family works this way.) Musicians could opt to use these effects or bypass them. This would probably have a big effect in the large touring act industry, churches, and theaters. (Garage and dad-rock bar bands...they'll cling to tradition, but progress will hit them generation by generation.)

Many digital mixers already support networking and other protocols that run over a network port; audio could technically be routed to a network port connected to a wireless router that people could then connect to. Your ticket would be a passcode that allows you to connect to the router and decrypt the stream. (Networking technically happens now, but over wired ethernet protocols with a dedicated device at the end that handles personal monitoring. It's easier if you can send just the mains as a single stream instead of the full multitrack mix.) Because of a venue's size limitation, you could use wireless protocols that support high bandwidth at shorter distances.

All of this is possible now - there's nothing technically standing in the way of any of this. It just hasn't really been done yet in a single device. I imagine that if something like this were to happen, it would be via expandable modules of some sort; so you might see the return of rackmount systems for some of this stuff. A large venue in the future may have a rack with multiple power conditioners, an X32 rack, some rackmount mixer effects expansions for for the X32 that aren't onboard (or other gear, like a Kemper or a Helix, or something that runs VSTs - or maybe it's included in the mixer itself), a Cisco router and a switch going to multiple access points around the building...

I think this would be pretty cool to see. And yeah - if I, as a band member, could send my modelling settings and with a mixer configuration along with my tech rider and just show up with an instrument, tuner, and in-ears, I would embrace it wholeheartedly.
 

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