Nice. I am just starting to look into remote controlled preamps and remote snakes myself. In the past I just ran mic level however long I needed it but I am wanting to check out going the other way-preamps up close to the mics and long line level run to the ADC.

Hey John,

Just when I thought I had a handle on things, this new beast arrives on the market. Can you explain why someone would need a remote controlled preamp(s). I'm really intrigued. For live performances yes?

Basically for live orchestra performances-especially when I have a drop from rigging and am actually in a control room/non concert hall location. In theory it shouldn't matter too much until you start getting into several hundred feet of wire, but the idea is that you push a more stable line level signal through the wire. In my experiences, mic level signals seem to be affected more by distance. I only use my Canare and Mogami cables for classical/chamber. Of course all I do nowadays is classical/chamber.

That said, other than classical I wouldn't worry about it. When I had a PA at the Marine Band we had a 56 channel stage box with Elko connectors and a transformer split for the MON board. We always used the board pres or outboard pres at the FOH location to power up any condensers and also for recording splits (onto DA88's, or early on the 2-bus into 1/2" tape). We had two snakes. One was 75m and one was 150m. I hated the big snake. It sucked big oestrich eggs to drag that over grass. The recordings all worked out fine.

Cool, I'm heading more and more into chamber/classical so this really interests me even more. Okay, let me get this right.

instead of just running 150 meters of cable right from the mics, you use this between the run? And this "Anima" would go on stage and then you remote the voltage and/or boost including 48 volts for the condensers to get the best level?

What do you use to RC it?

I've never heard of this until now. How long have these types of boxes been around?

Right. For instance you would hang a Decca tree or drop three mics in the same pattern from rigging. Run those right into your mic preamps. So far the mic level signal is only traveling about 25'. Now at line level you can run further with less drop off back to your rig.

The Anima has a remote control software program that is available for Mac OS 10.?. You'd also need to string some cat5 with your lines from the control point to the preamp. Fortunately cat5 is dirt cheap compared to star quad.

Millennia and Grace and a few others have preamps controllable via similar methods. The Grace actually has a physical remote unit.
Millennia HV-3R
m802 remote controlled microphone preamplifier
http://www.crookwood.com/
http://www.aphex.com/1788A.htm

This sounds like a great product for the applications you mention.
But my two questions are:
Why the need for 259 programmable presets? And how much of that is built into the cost?
Otherwise, this seems fantastic.
I am just curious if John could explain that feature to me (the link didn't give much on it specifically)?

Joe H or Tom Bethel or Cucco are probably better equipped to comment directly on this stuff. I'm small fry comparatively but as to the computer portion of the design I can make a guess. I'm sure the presets are saved to a flash memory chip. The chip is probably a standard available size and that chip probably happens to hold 259 presets. The advantage to presets of course is for those that record the same or same type of shows in the same venues all the time. For instance you could have a preset for acapella choir and a different one for wind ensemble, one for string orch as opposed to a Mahler size orchestra, another yet for orch w/piano soloist.....it's endless.

In practice the only preset I use is the default session in my DAW. And I've been known to screw that up. Like tonight's choir festival when I plugged the lightpipe into the 1-8 i/o of the HD24XR. That sounds ok for a 6 mic set up. Until you realize I always record 88.2k and you only get 4 channels per pipe at that rate. Oops. No wonder there was no meter traffic on 5 and 6. Sure glad I'm always double or triple redundant. One hot swap later into 9-16 and everything was perfect. I doubt I'm going to use the piano mic's anyway.

John's on the right track.

Our HV-3R remote pre allows you to store your session on your computer. Having the pre closer to the mics reduces the cable loading on the mics too. Distant access is a nice feature.

When I was at AES NY talking to a client, he excused himself because he had a session to manage in Seattle. His rack of HV-3Rs was connected to his studio computer and was available on the internet. He was going to his hotel to get his notebook online to control the Millennia HV-3Rs in Seattle from NY.

Thanks for chiming in. It's easier for you to tell us why your box does what it does than me to speculate!

Hi Joel,

Thanks for chiming in. This is simply amazing. Joel, I have more questions now.

Can you tell us more about this? What type of productions are using these?
Is the HV-3R Mac, PC or both OS?

If you aren't at the venue, it doesn't matter? There is no need to be hearing it live?

soapfloats, post: 344219 wrote: This sounds like a great product for the applications you mention.
But my two questions are:
Why the need for 259 programmable presets? And how much of that is built into the cost?
Otherwise, this seems fantastic.
I am just curious if John could explain that feature to me (the link didn't give much on it specifically)?

Hello! Sorry for coming late to the party... I work for Prodigy Engineering so maybe I can answer the preset question.

About the 259 programmable presets: We opted to give users the ability to store as many presets as possible. Are most users going to use all 259 presets? Probably not. Still, it seemed like including the option would be more helpful than imposing a 100-preset limit (as an example) just to produce a nice, round number. The EEPROM chip that's used to store these presets is roughly $1 so it's not adding to the cost of the unit.

Personally, I'll store a preset for each of my on-going sessions. Particularly if I'm recording to something other than a MIDI or ethernet-equipped computer (which would allow me to store my settings as RCU sessions or directly within Pro Tools). This way I can use the preamps for whatever comes up and quickly recall the drum settings from day one should the need arise.

Thanks for the questions!

Nate Pauzenga
Technician
Prodigy Engineering

Good info. Welcome to RO! Stay around and contribute.

TheJackAttack, post: 346009 wrote: Good info. Welcome to RO Nate! Stay around and contribute.

Hey I second and third that! Welcome to RO and please stick around and contribute!

re

JoelSilverman, post: 344242 wrote: John's on the right track.

Our HV-3R remote pre allows you to store your session on your computer. Having the pre closer to the mics reduces the cable loading on the mics too. Distant access is a nice feature.

When I was at AES NY talking to a client, he excused himself because he had a session to manage in Seattle. His rack of HV-3Rs was connected to his studio computer and was available on the internet. He was going to his hotel to get his notebook online to control the Millennia HV-3Rs in Seattle from NY.

I still can't get my head around how you could effectively use these in another city/ location to where the actual live performance is taking place?

Thanks guys!

At least on the Anima and our 500 series version, the Bella, I see the DAW/computer- controllable thing as a convenience that would allow you to keep the pres closer to the mics (as an example). That and the immediate recallability of opening your session and having your preamp settings recalled.

That's really cool though that one of Millennia's users is using their pres across state lines! I'd also like to hear more about that.

Nate Pauzenga
Technician
Prodigy Engineering