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Cantar...


pvanstry

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apropos metering, i am totally fine with the round modulometer style. it did not take me much time to "adjust" from straight meters on the Deva, PD6 and PD4 - machines i used after the Nagra 4.2 and before the Cantar X2.

The upgrade path from the X1 to X2 had multiple options as per the age of the machine. Yet, i know there are many who still use the X1 effectively and have never upgraded. In the upgrade from X1 to X2 one could send their X1 back to the factory and receive an X2.

When i bought my Cantar in Oct/Nov 2007, it was already an X2 - by then Aaton had stopped manufacturing the X1.

If you see an X1 and X2 you will find it hard to spot the difference physically. The ONLY change was on the hard drive enclosure - the new one had an ethernet port.

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Hi Vin, your an experienced user, I'm merely commenting from the sidelines having never used a Cantar, but assuming that they up the track count to 10 or 12 ISOs, plus a few mix/record busses, a logical target for increased track count, how do they scale the rather odd round modulometer motif? Do they start ganging more meters per round module? The meters would have a constant "angular velocity" but have different actual linear speeds / resolution and in my mind, more difficult to read than a traditional horizontal or vertical linear layout. I don't mean to imply that I feel I have a better solution or recommendation to the design issue, but am curious how they will tackle the challenge of expanded track count and greater metering needs. Also, do they intend to add more faders or perhaps eliminate the faders altogether? With more tracks or even inputs, your talking more trim pots, limited space, and you start to fight for real estate and sizes. An elegant solution would perhaps be to move the trims to the front panel, integrating per channel metering around the trim knob (retaining the round motif), and keeping the fader surface up top? Well, these are the things that I'm going to be wondering about until 2014 apparently.

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Tom, if i had all the answers to your questions, i'd be at Aaton now, doing something else! :)

However, I am very much in India, working on a shoddy American indie film...

I know one thing - ergonomics will be a key to the new design, while implementing newer features. The X2 has been around for a while, and i am sure JP has dealt with so many factors in the new design. I have full trust and faith in him. period.

-vin

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Margus and Filmfreak: thanks for your comments. You might also want to search for Mandy Chang's BBC4 TV programme "The Camera that Changed the World" about the independent challenges in the US (Bell and Howell) and France (Eclair) to produce a small and light camera to film fly on the wall documentaries. It is not a perfect documentary in that it misses some important elements and the problem of sync is only covered as an aside when it should have been a fundamental element. It does however have some brilliant archive footage and interviews sadly one 'last' interview. Part 1 is at www.liveleak.com/view?i=aa9_1325366718

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Hi Vin, your an experienced user, I'm merely commenting from the sidelines having never used a Cantar, but assuming that they up the track count to 10 or 12 ISOs, plus a few mix/record busses, a logical target for increased track count, how do they scale the rather odd round modulometer motif? Do they start ganging more meters per round module? The meters would have a constant "angular velocity" but have different actual linear speeds / resolution and in my mind, more difficult to read than a traditional horizontal or vertical linear layout. I don't mean to imply that I feel I have a better solution or recommendation to the design issue, but am curious how they will tackle the challenge of expanded track count and greater metering needs. Also, do they intend to add more faders or perhaps eliminate the faders altogether? With more tracks or even inputs, your talking more trim pots, limited space, and you start to fight for real estate and sizes. An elegant solution would perhaps be to move the trims to the front panel, integrating per channel metering around the trim knob (retaining the round motif), and keeping the fader surface up top? Well, these are the things that I'm going to be wondering about until 2014 apparently.

Tom: you ask some valid questions. Yes, an increased track count will need some serious thought on metering and I have seen seen the proposal which will work well with more tracks. You have to remember that Aaton is an innovator. Their solution will not be to copy what is done on other recorders but with more tracks. There will be originality, innovation and flair. As you say, you have never used a Cantar but for me, having moved from Deva 1 and 2 to Portadrive and then to a Cantar, I know that I am happy looking at Cantar meters either in the direct sunlight at the Sonepur Mela or at the edge of the set at Pinewood or Leavesden. The backlight is good on the eyes hour after hour in the studio and no searching for shade as I had to for the Portadrive display. As with any recorder, there is limited space for sockets and controls. That is the challenge: getting what you need in the right place. I am looking forward to X3 but still enjoying using #600 - my trusty X2.

Tim

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  • 1 year later...

With more tracks coming, I hope they do something intelligent with the additional metering requirement. I would think that a move to a more traditional metering layout would be warranted, but curious to see what they do.

 

I just hope to god this time, we can do a direct mix track on Channel 1 and then use 2-10 for isos. Not doing that on the original Cantar was the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. And I don't buy the whole "twisted mirror" thing you had to do to create a deliverable disc for post -- just silly.

 

Terrific machine, once you get past the unusual user interface. And I don't dispute that Aaton is an extremely innovative company that has done stuff nobody else has managed to pull off.

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True

 

The whole twisting thing is a little bit unhandy. But, I am using a Cantar now for the last years and have to say, that if you are used to it, it is not a big problem. What would be also great is to have the possibility to do a mono mix only on track 7 (1 if twisted).

If you mix now in mono you need to record the mono mix on two tracks 7 & 8 (1 & 2 if twisted) or use one of both as a iso track. But you can not say "do not record a track 8".

 

But do not forget, that the Cantar was one of the first portable multitrack audio recorders on the market. At this time, the workflow for multi track audio was not clearly defined at this time. Later the editors said, that it would be easier for them to have the mix on track one. The twisting thing was a really good compromise for the existing design of the machine.

 

I really love the Cantar design. You feel like, you are recording on a real audio machine and not on a toy. And I love the slide faders. Makes it so much easy to do a mixdown with one hand. Can't wait for the X3

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"But do not forget, that the Cantar was one of the first portable multitrack audio recorders on the market. At this time, the workflow for multi track audio was not clearly defined at this time. Later the editors said, that it would be easier for them to have the mix on track one."

 

That statement is incorrect. By the time the Cantar came out, I had already done 4 projects with the original Deva. Before Deva, production sound mixers never even used the word "workflow". The move to file based recording was probably the most significant change to the way we worked and was one of the few, if only, change that was initiated by PRODUCTION sound mixers, not post.

 

When Cantar came out, it was one of several machines available (as other manufacturers saw that file-based recording was the way things were going with the Deva) but many of us were well underway establishing the workflow of mix track on track 1 followed by isos on the other tracks.

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HV: " the Cantar was one of the first portable multitrack audio recorders on the market. "

JW: " That statement is incorrect. "

I don't think so...
" I had already done 4 projects with the original Deva. "

you were an early adopter / beta tester, out there pretty much by yourself at that time

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"you were an early adopter / beta tester, out there pretty much by yourself at that time"

 

Now, here is another incorrect statement. I wasn't "out there pretty much" by myself. There were quite a few sound mixers here and on the East Coast that were using the Deva. Sure, we were all "early adopters" but I wouldn't say we were "beta testers" in the traditional use of the term (as it is often applied now when some company releases some new version of a product). I guess you could say we were beta testing the INDUSTRY (specifically the post-production facilities) trying to get as many people on board to this entirely new way of production sound recording. Had we failed, at that time, Aaton, Sound Devices and Fostex might never have even built their machines. My point is, regarding Aaton and the Cantar, they had the opportunity to study the emerging workflow that was rapidly becoming the standard (certainly in "Hollywood") and design their machine with that workflow in mind.

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Not sure if this applies at all, but traditionally in music recording, multi-track refers to the ability to record "overdubs" in playing back previously recorded tracks while laying down a new track(s), which the Cantar does. Jeff, I think your talking about multi-channel recording - sorry if this is not what was being discussed before.

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Not sure if this applies at all, but traditionally in music recording, multi-track refers to the ability to record "overdubs" in playing back previously recorded tracks while laying down a new track(s), which the Cantar does. Jeff, I think your talking about multi-channel recording - sorry if this is not what was being discussed before.

Oh man...this was a question on one of my finals in college:

 

"What is the difference between multi-track recording and multi-channel recording?"

 

No joke. 

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Both Tom and Dave are right, there is a distinction between multi-track recorder and multi-channel recorder, but this is a distinction (or definition) that was rarely applied to the recorders we use in production sound. One of the first major uses of a recorder that could record more than one "track" or "channel" were the Stevens recorders Robert Altman used to record his movies in "multi-track" and the recorders were always referred to as multi-track recorders. Later, the DTRS format (Tascam) which recorded 8 tracks on basically video cassettes, was also referred to as a multi-track recorder. All of this had nothing to do with the distinction whether the recorder had the facility to do over-dubs, punch-ins, whatever. 

 

Regarding this discussion, the post that contained the reference to the Cantar being a multi-track recorder: 

"HV: " the Cantar was one of the first portable multitrack audio recorders on the market. "

I'm fairly sure the poster was using the term "multi-track" the way we have all been using it and there was no intention for it to reference the capability of the Cantar to play and record (over-dub).

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