Roland O.R.C.H.A Console (M-5000) discussion

Re: Roland O.R.C.H.A Console (M-5000) discussion

I also think that is true, the audio differences of just the hardware itself, is much more similar currently across different consoles. I find there can be other little, "gotchas", with different digital snake systems though. I'd have to say, the the Reac system is the most robust that I've used; although other systems are nearly as reliable with more careful use.

There is a German mag, can't seem to recall it now, that seems to put out bench test comparison info like that. It seems that the big differences between consoles now, is in the overall design. This console idea is most interesting, because of it's 128 channel, "Inputs-or-outputs-you-make-the-call", design. Yeah, it's nifty that it runs at 96K, but I think it's nicer that it can also run at 48K too.

I'm a fan of quite a few consoles out there, and lots of those can sound good. It just always seems like, "the devil is in the details". I get frustrated with silly limitations in some designs like, you have to give up the comp to use the expander; or other things to make the user interface so complicated, and hard to remember how to get around, that it's not very much fun to mix on.

I'm curious if there is a way to, or perhaps are there future plans, to mirror the settings made to one console, into another console; as a backup?
 
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Re: Roland O.R.C.H.A Console (M-5000) discussion

Art Hays said:
I'm apologize for getting off topic but is there an independent party that quantitatively tests digital boards? Seems like we are reduced to talking about preamps, DSP word length and latency. There's so much more going on that affects sound quality.
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It doesn't matter what tests say. What do you say? Some of the most musical, warm (distorted) gear in the world has crappy specs and sounds great. Heck. Consider V72 preamps. Look at LP. Less than 50dB of dynamic range, less than 30dB of channel separation, a limited frequency response at 50Hz, terrible wow and S/N.
 
Re: Roland O.R.C.H.A Console (M-5000) discussion

Art Hays said:
I'm curious about the internal processing. The M-5000 spec says 72 bit (I assume fixed point). Some newer consoles from other manufacturers make a point of saying the internal DSP is 32 bit or 40 bit floating. The original M-400 mixer spec said 56 bit fixed (Roland literature no longer shows this spec for later consoles like the M-480 or M-200i). How does one interpret this in terms of sound quality and if a particular approach is better?
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The M-5000 has a powerful FPGA and multiple DSPs so to fully explain what is used and why would take a bit of time - (and lots of whiteboard space).
That being said, when it comes to mixing large numbers of I/O, it can yield a very broad dynamic range so to achieve a result with no loss in information required 72-bit linear summing bus circuitry. That's for the mixing engine.

For other processing like effects, we get much better results (i.e., sophisticated algorithms) by using floating point processing.

That plays into other decisions that contribute to aspects like a smooth EQ, for example - instead of using algorithms widely used in many digital consoles, we employed a “state variable filter” algorithm which is more typical in higher-end outboard gear.
All in all we were after a design/cost balance in producing the best sound possible and we have achieved that - and we are encouraged by initial community previews confirming that.

John Broadhead
Roland Pro A/V
 
Re: Roland O.R.C.H.A Console (M-5000) discussion

Distortion measurements are meaningless, because we don't have test signals that are sufficiently complex so as to mimic the music signals that we listen to. Jon Risch has made a little progress with this.
 
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