XL8 represents a new generation of networked systems, requiring only mics, amps and speakers to provide a complete audio system. However its open architecture ensures that third-party devices can easily be integrated into the system.
"Digital technology has now matured to the point where we can offer a mixing system which will conform to all the classic Midas brand values, and won't be obsolete in a few years," says Midas and Klark Teknik brand development manager, Richard Ferriday. "Saying that, we certainly haven't designed XL8 from a nostalgic point of view. Rather, we have listened to our clients' requirements and moulded today's technology to specifically deliver what they need."
The XL8 has been designed to address the way in which sound engineers approach the task of mixing. A large part of the three-year development project has been to devise a work surface that can be operated quickly and easily - even by engineers new to digital control surfaces. Over the past year, more than 300 engineers and rental company owners from across the globe have visited Midas to provide their feedback and get their hands on XL8, quickly reaching levels of confidence and aptitude without exception.
"There is currently no unified control surface for digital desks, meaning that users are locked into working according to how each manufacturer develops their systems, all of which are vastly different," says Ferriday. "One of our main criteria was that the transition to XL8 should prove painless. This applies to mix engineers who have to date seen no advantage in digital consoles, and also to those who have adopted an existing digital system."
Key to this was the way that engineers use visual recognition to navigate around a desk, rather than memorising channels in numerical sequences. "XL8 has been designed so the engineer doesn't have to think in terms of numbers, pages or layers," says Ferriday. "Users navigate the system and identify channels by colours and groupings, which they themselves create. This method allows an individualised approach to mixing, rather than working within hardware-dictated numerical limitations."
Leading the XL8 R&D team has been console design supremo Alex Cooper, the man responsible for the XL4 design a decade ago. "Since I designed the XL4, it has become the benchmark by which other consoles are judged," he says. "The XL8 will raise the bar even higher because it provides more - and better - control from a smaller control surface; it has more - and more flexible - inputs and outputs; it has an even bigger sound and more, improved, onboard processing. Technology and time have made the next generation Midas Flagship possible, but most important of all, it feels right."
Midas has created a technical support infrastructure to ensure that engineers are guaranteed the ultimate service and backup, regardless of where they are located. A 24/7 service centre router will divert calls to one of the main Level one service sites in the US, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, so that regardless of where the XL8 engineer is, there will be a service centre operating in the same time zone. All five centres will be staffed by technicians who have achieved Level one training: spending a week at the UK factory undergoing XL8 network training, assembly from PCB level, XL8 system configuration, f
