S6 panel for TMC-1

The TMC-1 has joined the PD-1 by being available in a Avid S6 Module, the PD-1 is in a S6 Fader size module, the TMC-1 in a S6 knob size module.

Connecting the TMC-1 GP inputs to the S6 GP Outputs you can connect the S6 talkback controls to the TMC-1 and enable auto-talkback  alternatively the TMC-1-Penta will emulate a XMon for control from the S6 or D-Command.

TMC-1-Penta-S6 (Click on image to enlarge)
I kept the controls at the bottom of the panel for two reasons

• To keep them as close as possible to the operator
• To allow space for the connectors at the rear

7.1.4 using the TMC-1 and DAD-AX32 or Avid MTRX

This week I installed the TMC-1-Penta with a Dolby RMU, although there were one or two problems the system worked correctly. I will be modifying the TMC-1 software to provide more elegant solutions to the problems found. My to-do list has become bigger!

The last problem was interesting, as you can see from the signal flow diagram below there is a 10dB loss in the signal passing through the RMU to allow headroom for the speaker equaliser. This causes a problem when switching from 7.1.4 from the RMU to 7.1 or 5.1 from Protools.

7.1.4 and 7.1/5.1 Signal Flow (Click on image to enlarge)

10 dB of gain is added to the RMU return to make up for the 10dB attenuation through the RMU. The TMC-1 originally configured the Penta 720 with unity gain for 85 dB spl, to ensure that the speaker outputs do not clip a 10dB loss is inserted in the NTP Penta Output, This will also allow for internal summing and where digital outputs are used external equalisers.

Stress testing the TMC-1-Penta, The New D-Command Interface

Stress Tests
Last week I went to see NTP at Copenhagen in order to stress test the TMC-1-Penta Ethernet connection to prove that the connection between the TMC-1 and DAD AX32 would remain working under high load conditions. I am happy to say the the TMC-1 performed well. Even when I forced a disconnection the  TMC-1 reconnected gracefully and continued working.

The New D-Command Interface
On my return trip the flight was delayed (as usual) I used the time to prepare the software required to connect the TMC-1 as an interface between the  DAD AX32 and the Avid D-Command console or even S6 console. I finished and tested the software this week using a TMC-1-XMon to emulate the D-Command. There are no tallies in the X-Mon protocol but the meters are visible on both and all commands from the D-Command work as expected. A Tx-Rx Invert cable is required to link the 15pin 'D' connectors on the D-Command and the TMC, I will a add the details to the TMC-1-Penta Manual next week after I have installed this system in a 7.1.4 room at Pinewood.

Requests for more user functions on the TMC-1

First an apology: There was a bug in the initial postings of the latest TMC-1 software. This has now been corrected, it was only up for a few hours.

As soon as I increase functionality on the TMC-1 or any other product I get requests for even more. I am not complaining though, I am happy that customers are using the unit and are providing feedback. Owen who runs The Bridge Sound and Stage has provided me with good feedback on using the TMC-1 in a stereo music environment. As I have not worked in music studios for 30 years I needed it! Below is a screenshot from the TMC-1 configuration tool showings Owen's current keyboard layout. Hopefully I will be able to update this in the future - Owen has also promised photo's of his studio.

RM-6 - Print Master function and TFT Remote

The RM-6 is an established design and it is unusual to make major upgrades after over 13 years.

The Print Master function was added to the PD-1 after about 1 year, the function is simple, define one or more stems as a Print masters. If any stem enters record the printmaster stems also enters record, the Print master stems go out of record when all other tracks drop out of record. Thus any modification made to a stem is also recorded on the print master stem.

Not all consoles include the print master function in their Pec/Direct panel, to overcome this problem I added the printmaster function to the RM-6. At the same time I had to add a Printmaster macro to CBServer, CBServer3, and the new TFT Remote control for the RM-6. To enable/disable the printmaster setting is very simple.

To Enable:
1) Stop
2) Arm the print master tracks
3) Depress the Print master Macro Key
 the Print master macro key will illuminate and  the armed tracks will turn off.

To Disable
With no tracks armed depress the Print Master key

TFT Remote
We have now supplied 7 TFT panels 5 to upgrade existing RM-6 installations and 2 with a new RM-6 installation. The TFT-Remote is very versatile and can be used with existing remote panels, with CBServer and CBServer3. Multiple remotes can be used with the RM-6. The panel below includes 18 TFT keys, there advantage is that not only can the text displayed be changed with function but the illumination intensity and colour are also prograable.

TMC-1 major s/w update

When showing the TMC-1 to possible customers it became evident that there were many different requirements from a stereo music studio,  7.1 and even 80 channel Atmos and Auro.

To cope with this we have made the TMC-1 keyboard and display more user programable as well as providing a new Mac/Windows programming tool. The reaction from beta testers is very favourable.

Here is the new meters screen, all 8 of the keys below the screen are programable, their function is displayed at the bottom of the screen. `you cam also see the new input selection indicator.

Here is the Mac/Windows user key and naming screens

USB422 Latency and Yosemite III - Solved

Today I posted on the USB-422 web page signed low latency drivers for Yosemite.

The certification from Apple arrived when I was on holiday and it took a while before I could update the software. I checked the driver on the Yosemite macbook air that I purchased for testing. I certified the driver on a separate computer so that I could be sure that the driver was certified for all computers.

The hardest part of the installation is to be sure that the Low Latency driver is being used. Please read the MacLow installation notes! You can use the Latency check program that I wrote to be sure.

You can see the two versions installed below.

 Please let me know if you have any problems!

Yosemite and Latency II - More Problems

Last week I had a customer report more problems with Yosemite so I tried to replicate my last results - and failed! I then re-installed Yosemite from scratch and still failed!

To help make tests I wrote a small test program which measures the total time to send and receive a message.
 http://www.colinbroad.com/cbsoft/usb422/latency-mac.zip
Note: It is the maximum time that is of interest.

On investigation I discovered with the help of others that Yosemite requires signed drivers, if you rename the kext files or edit the plist file it disables the signing and the driver will no longer install.

I am now waiting for certification from Apple which will take 7 - 10 days assuming that they approve my application. If I get certification I will build a certified driver.

There is one alternative if you need it now, you can run a uncertified driver by disabling the gatekeeper which will then allow uncertified drivers to run. Wolfgang at SMM has confirmed this works.  Note: this allows any uncertified program to run with out confirmation.

TMC-1 User Interface

You may have noticed the change in the description below the title. I have worked on the TMC-1-Penta design since the beginning of the year and I am now happy to release it on our customers. In the process I have updated the User Interface for both versions of the TMC-1 (XMon and Penta) a number of times.

I have to thank Owen Curtin at the Bridge Soundstage for his feedback, Owen was the first person to order a TMC-1-Xmon about 6 months ago. Although I have not always implemented his suggestions they made me look at his problems and come up with my own solutions. Owen also came up with solutions to two of the limitations of the X-Mon - Monitoring the Studio Loudspeakers in the control room and playing back into the Studio from a different source to the Control Room.

I hope that my existing users will find the time and patience to upgrade to the new user interface and will like the changes that I have made.  If there is anything that I have removed that you want back or anything else that you need, let me know and I will try and work out a way.

Unless I have an urgent request or bug fix I hope that this will be the last User Interface upgrade for a while.

The picture below shows the new Meters Page with the Sum source indication, user defined names and Meter layout, you can also see one of the new user key functions [SLS A/B].
Note: I disconnected XMon to stop the Meters.

Yosemite and USB-422 Latency

Having updated Mavericks for USB Latency I was still getting a few emails from customers about Yosemite.  Because I use my macbook as my main machine running Mac, Windows and DOS and do all my work on this computer I was reluctant to upgrade just in case of problems.

Whilst in the USA for NAB I bought a new macbook with Yosemite pre-installed I can now use this machine for trying out new programs. I followed the posted instructions and disabled the Apple driver. You can use the 'ls' command to check that the driver has been disabled (Renamed). I then went to the FTDI web site where I discovered that FTDI had posted a new driver for the Mac that very same week! Version 2.3 2015-04-15. I installed the new FTDI driver, used KextDrop to add the low latency driver and restarted the computer. Everything worked OK and the port was discovered correctly.

I had to wait until I got back to my office to measure the latency, as you can see below it measures at 1mSec s expected. The Yellow trace is the command from the Mac via the USB422 and the Blue trace is the reply from our RM-6 synchroniser. They are both set up to send a message immediately after receiving a message. The USB runs a 1mSec poll so that there is approximately a 1mSec delay on the Mac. The embedded software reacts a lot faster as it is not limited by the USB Poll.

TMC-1 Mechanical Switch Noise in Talkback

I received a report that the mechanical switch noise on the TMC-1 when switching was annoying. Initially I assumed that the problem was switch On (easy to fix with a short delay) but the problem was that the noise from the switch release was too loud.

 I have tried to reduce the mechanical coupling on the panel by using a grommet and thin wires. The pictures show how to cut the grommet and glue to the front panel. The grommet Internal Diameter is 10mm and fixing hole is 12mm . We are supplying future units with this modification.

This reduces the noise but does not completely remove it. There are two alternative approaches you can try.

1) Use an external microphone and connect directly to the X-Mon or Digital system. You can then use the switches on the TMC-1.

2) Use external switches to Enable/Disable the internal talkback on the TMC-1. I have just added Int T/B 1 and Int T/B 2 as options to all the User GP inputs on the TMC-1.

Note this is not a problem with the External talkback microphone and switches.

Let me know how you get on, I am always available and welcome ideas to improve products. 

TMC-1-Penta and Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and 9.1.2

Today I revised the specification of the TMC-1-Penta to cope with 12 channel Stems. To increase the channel count from 10 to 12 it was necessary to remove one of the stereo cue outputs. The revised specification for the mixer is as follows.

Stem/Input Summing - 12
Four Stereo Cues  - 8
Mono/Stereo main mix - 2
7.1/5.1 Downmix - 8
Stereo Downmix - 2
Total = 32

Here is a revised block diagram of the monitor system

TMC-1-Penta Details

The TMC-1-Penta monitoring is based on a enhanced  TMC-1-Xmon, the changes have involved an increased channel count and removing some limitations of the Digidesign XMon hardware. The block diagram below shows the current design of the system. I expect that this will be modified to respond to users requirements.The main features at present are as follows

• Up to 64 channels on the main monitor path
• Alternate Output (8 Channel)
• Mini Output (8 Channel)
• Five 10 channel wide alternate inputs/stems
• Input and output trims
• Two Listen back Inputs
• Two Talkback Inputs
• Two Talkback output feeds
• Five Cue Outputs
• Three stereo cue inputs
• Stereo Downmix Output
• 8 Channel Downmix - 7.1, 5.1
• Meter Outputs

The complete Digital I/O and Monitoring Solution

CB Electronics (www.colinbroad.com) in cooperation with NTP Technology (www.ntp.dk) have developed a digital version of the TMC-1 monitor controller TMC-1-Penta which will be launched at NAB 2015. The TMC-1-Penta communicates with a Penta 720 or DAD AX32 over ethernet using its native protocol either directly or over a network. The software is based on the XMON version of the TMC-1 with a number of enhancements including the ability to control up to 48 channels on its main input/output and an 8 channel wide Stem Mixer. The flexibility of the NTP Digital interface allows the incorporation of extra features that are not available on Avid’s XMON.

The DAD AX32/NTP Penta combines direct connection to Pro  Tools HD/HDX/HD Native systems with superb A2D/D2A converters,  Madi, AES and SPI. The combination of the DAD AX32 / NTP Penta with the TMC-1-Penta provides a cost effective digital I/O and monitoring solution for any studio.

The block diagram below shows how to use the TMC-1 and NTP Penta 720 or DAD AX32 for digital monitoring and DAW I/O. The Penta 720/AX32 provides all the I/O routing with 16 AES I/O channels, Madi and direct connection with Pro tools as standard. Also available as optional cards are Analog I/O, Dante, SDI and other interfaces providing up to 976 input channels and 976 output channels.

§

Visit NTP Technology on the Sanken/Plus 24 stand  at NAB - C4051 Hall C.

Mac Latency, TMC-1, TMC-2 Penta,TFT Remote Control

I had not realised that so much time has passed since my last post, good intentions does not get it done!

Mac OS X Mavericks and Yosemite Latency

Apple have added their own FTDI driver which has a 16milli-Second Latency, this must be disabled before the modified low latency FTDI driver can be used. See the USB422 product page for details.
http://www.colinbroad.com/cbsoft/usb422/usb422.html

TMC-1

We have now shipped over 10 TMC-1's and they have been received well. Almost every time I demonstrate it the clients give me new idea's. I have incorporated as many as possible in the latest TMC-1 software that I posted last week.  There is a prototype hardware for the TMC-1-S6 mounted in an S6 console at the BVE next week.

TMC-2-Penta

The TMC-2-Penta is a digital version of the TMC-1 that drives the NTP Penta 720 via ethernet. I am working on this at the moment and should have beta units at the end of March. The functionality will be similar to the XMon but more flexible with the main inputs and outputs up to 48 channels wide and where XMon has 2x 7.1 inputs and 4 stereo inputs the Penta version will have 1x 48 channel input and 5x 7.1 inputs.  The TMC-1 can be upgraded to the TMC-2 by adding the ethernet board.

TFT Remote Control

After testing on the prototype at Twickenham we supplied 7 TFT Remote controls (See the earlier post Tuesday, 9 September 2014). One for a DFC console(Twickenham), two for a Harrison MPC4 console (Lenfilm), four for Lawo consoles (ORF). 

TMT Cologne - TMC-1 Analog/Digital Monitoring

The TMC-1 controller for the XMon is now shipping. We will have a S6 version early next year.

Whilst at the Tonmeister Tagung we agreed with Digital Audio Denmark to produce a version of the TMC-1 which provided multi-channel digital monitoring using their Digital interfaces. One advantage of the digital version is that the number of channels is only limited by the DAW so that formats like 7.1+4, 10.2,, 22.1 or larger are all possible.

I still believe that the PD-1 provides the best stem monitoring control by keeping the stems within the DAW (Currently only on Protools or Pyramix but open to others).  One of the major advantages of this approach is that the track and stem names are read from the DAW and do not need to be entered again on the mixer.  We will include this function in the digital monitoring solution so that track and stem names are copied from the DAW to the DAD network.

The PD-1 is currently limited to 8 stems each with only 8 tracks. The next s/w update will increase this to 16 stems each with 16 tracks over two pages. Let me know if you need more!

Film Archive - TC-5, BS-1 Biphase Generator - Lock to Wordclock

It may be news that we still make the BS-1 bi-phase generator, however there is a small archive market that we still supply.

Archiving often requires the transfer of many small segments of audio, it is inefficient to transfer these individually. Multiple segments can be spliced together using an editing table. The TC-5 can be connected to the bi-phase output of the editing table and be used to mark the timecode or feet and frames position of each join.

The BS-1 controls the film machine to transfer the film accurately to audio files with timecode. It is important that the film speed is locked to the audio wordclock or the join locations will not be accurate. In the past video syncs were used to lock wordclock, timecode, and film speed to video syncs.

Many audio transfer setups do not have a video sync reference, only wordclock. We have modified the External reference input on the BS-1 to provide a 24/48Hz reference from 48/96KHz wordclock. This modification is available as an upgrade on existing BS-1's or MC-1's.

PD-1 and Protools 11.2.1

Bill Ritter from Electric Entertainment reported some problems when using the PD-1 with Protools !!.2.1which were not present on Protools 10 as follows

After going into record and then dropping out of record there is no output when switching to Input!

As I am in LA after the AES I went to investigate. The protools screen indicated that the PD-1 was switching the tracks to input but the only way to hear the input was to switch between playback and input on protools.

After some investigation I found that the following sequence of commands from the PD-1 will solve the problem

1) Switch to record
2) Switch to input monitor
3) Switch out of record
4) Switch back to playback monitor

A unexpected benifit of this command sequence was that some monitor glitching on Protools was reduced.

I will add a option to the PD-1 software for this with a variable delay between steps 3) and 4), when available I will update both the PD-1 web page and this blog.

It has been over two years since the last PD-1 software update, if there are any other requests now would be a good time to make them as it will take some time to get back into thr software and test it.

I did get one request at the AES show - to switch any channel not in Record Safe to Input Monitor when stopped, I can implement this as a option at the same time.

Optimising XMon Performance

This week I have been setting up our new Monitor Remote (Now called the TMC-1) on the XMon.  I have heard some bad reports about XMon so I wanted to be sure that I knew how to optimise the setup. 

XMon cannot be considered in isolation but as part of a monitor system that consists of the XMon, Power amps and Speakers.

The main gain section of XMon uses digital gain control to provide a gain range of +31dB to -95db.  As can be seen on the chart below to optimise the signal to noise it is important that XMon is run at between 0dB and +10dB gain for normal levels.

The Speaker trim section of the XMon provides a gain range of 0dB to -63.5dB in 0.5db steps. As can be seen in the chart below the signal to noise remains the same for the first 4dB of attenuation but then the noise floor levels out so that the signal to noise degrades as attenuation is increased.

The factory default settings of the TMC-1 XMon controller are as follows 

Main Gain Section +4dB gain.

Speaker Trim -4dB

Overall gain 0dB

Speaker trim range is restricted to +/- 4dB

Input makeup gain +20dB to -10dB

The default setting provides 5dB of analogue headroom above the digital clip point when set in this mode (XMon clips at approximately +25dBm).

New TFT Monitor Remote for XMon

I have now returned from IBC where we were showing our new TFT based remotes. The new TFT Monitor Remote generated some interest.

Designed originally as a remote for XMon CB plan to interface to other monitor systems including our own digital unit. There are 4 easily accessible main screens arranged in pairs and include: Input/output selection, Meters/Solo, Cue selection and gain, Talkback/Listen Gain.

This unit has the same profile as the PD-1 and sits conveniently on or may be sunk into a desk.

Using an embedded processor the unit communicates directly with XMon via Midi. and controls the full functionality of XMon.  No other computer is required. The remote is fitted with a talk-back microphone and headphone jack and uses the same 15 pin connector as XMon. A GPI port is provided for Hardware Mute, foot switch input and PFL/AFL switching.

The USB connector provides power and allows for software updates. The USB Midi connected to Protools or any MTC source can be used  for Auto-Talkback (or even a Timecode display).

The 4.3" TFT display is fitted with a touch screen in case required for the future, the XMon interface does not use touch.

For the future

we are designing a digital audio monitor system that will use the same remote, We are also looking at other applications using the same technology, one suggestion is as a digital microphone remote.

The photograph below is of the prototype unit and a selection of un-retouched displays.

.