Specifications

5.1-Channel Production Guidelines Equipment
4-3
4.1.1 Small Format Console
There has been an explosion of small professional consoles with enough buses to
handle 5.1 mixing. While the implementation of multi-bus panning may be different,
the functionality and setup of analog consoles and the newer consumer digital
consoles are basically the same. Instead of panning in stereo, consoles with four or
more auxiliary sends (in addition to the stereo bus prefader) can be used to place
sounds anywhere in the 5.1-channel soundfield.
The semi-professional eight-bus analog consoles on the market today do not include
surround panners or built-in master surround panners. Panning between buses on
these consoles usually entails using auxiliary sends. There are also excellent
retrofitting solutions available such as PicMix from Otari, (
www.otari.com
) and the
OPS-1 Surround Sound Panner from Omnisound (
www.omnisound.com
). These
panning systems include all the features of a large format surround sound console
using external rack-mounted systems and joystick panners.
Currently, there are several excellent small digital consoles on the market from
Tascam, Yamaha, Ramsa, Mackie, and others. These consoles handle five-channel
panning in different ways, with different features on the various models. Key features
of some of these consoles include:
Yamaha (Current models are 02R and 03D)
1. Center mix level–allows adjustable panning through the center channel.