ProAudio Review - December 2008 - (Page 26)

www.proaudioreview.com very easy to read and very cool. Any input can be routed to any track. Multiple inputs can be routed to a single track or any combination of tracks via four female XLR inputs and four TA3 inputs for balanced or unbalanced mic or line-level analog audio. The eight digital inputs enter through a single DE-15 (DSub) connector. Each input gain pot is surrounded by an exceptionally cool and innovative LED light ring that glows green to indicate signal activity, red for the approach of clipping, yellow to indicate input limiter activity, and flashing yellow to indicate an unlocked digital input. The green and yellow LEDs increase in intensity as the level increases. The six analog and digital outputs are parallel, so whatever goes to analog output 1 also goes to digital output 1. On the right panel, there are four male TA3 active, balanced analog outputs, and a 3.5mm unbalanced stereo analog output for outputs 5 and 6. In addition, there are two male TA3 connectors for digital outputs 14. Digital outputs 5 and 6 exit through the DE-15 connector on the back panel. The 13-segment green, orange, and red output meters, which also operate when recording, have nonlinear resolution and are small. The three red output LEDs fire between -3.0 dBFS to 0 dBFS. Personally, I think it would be better if red meant “over.” The brightness of the LEDs is continuously adjustable for operation from full sun to total darkness. Headphone amp gain is more than sufficient and also has a peak light of its own. Monitoring multiple inputs and outputs with one set of stereo headphones can be challenging. The 788T headphone output control supports the monitoring of each input and output, various selections or all, regardless of input and output routing assignments. In addition, the headphone circuit can also decode MidSide inputs to L/R and derives a stereo signal from the W, X, and Y channels when working with the 4-channel Soundfield B-Format. Recording starts manually by pressing the REC button or from External TC-Auto Record or External TC/cont-Auto Record. The REC button stays red, so you can quickly see that you’re still rolling. If you’re wandering around the menus when the director calls “action,” just hit the REC button and you’re recording. One very nice touch, the 788T Pre-Record Buffer can be set to record a full 10 seconds before the Record button is pushed, except when in Record Run mode or in any of the four external time code operation modes. In Use During recording, I found that once in Record, subsequent presses of the Record button can be programmed to do nothing, or add a cue marker to the file being recorded, or to start a new file. The 788T records both Broadcast Wave and Poly-Wave files with additional metadata in the file’s header, BEXT (Broadcast Audio Extension) and iXML data chunks. Poly Wave files are recognized by some nonlinear editing systems and for those that don’t, Sound Devices offers free Wave Agent software, its file conversion utility for Windows-based computers, that will convert WAV files between 26 ProAudioReview | December 2008 http://www.proaudioreview.com http://www.rolls.com http://www.rolls.com http://www.rolls.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ProAudio Review - December 2008

ProAudio Review - December 2008 Contents Technically Speaking New Studio Products Opinion: Mastering Matters Review: BIAS Peak Pro XT 6 Review: Zaxcom Fusion ENG Mixer and Multitrack Recorder Review: Sound Devices 788T 8-Track Digital Audio Recorder Review: Universal Audio UAD-2 Solo DSP Accelerator Review: Chandler Limited Germanium Compressor Review: RME ADI-8 QS A/D-D/A Converter Feature: Converters and Clocks: Engineers on Their Choices New Live Products Opinion: From the Road Review: Yamaha IM8 Series Mixing Consoles Review: NTI Digirator DR2 Digital Audio Signal Generator Review: Sencore SoundPro SP495 Audio Consultant Test Set Single Slice

ProAudio Review - December 2008

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