DAD Control | Pack
With playback stations emerging in recent years, the demands in live sound has changed, and now low latency, redundancy and reliability across huge channel counts is more important than ever. The new Control | Pack solution from DAD meets all of these demands with channel-based redundancy for playback systems and live processing with manual or logic-based switching and show control. Control | Pack provides native switching between any set of sources to output destinations, providing fast and automated redundancy in playback live processing applications, as well a manual switching of routing preset for show control applications when using Thunder | Core products: AX64, AX Center and Core 256.
“We are excited to announce this paradigm shift in how live sound audio professionals can now integrate our Thunder | Core products on a whole new level,” says Mikael Vest, COO, DAD. “The basic premise of very high channel counts and extremely low latency united in a flexible routing matrix was already in place - and that was a very good starting point indeed. Now, with this additional layer of functionality that directly addresses the specific needs in live sound, Core 256, AX Center and AX64 should definitely be considered full-fledged solutions that are perfectly suitable for any live sound task, including FOH, monitor mix and playback station.”
The routing presets – also referred to as ‘buckets’ – are configured via DADman and natively loaded into the unit. A total of 32 independent buckets can be configured with 4 layers of up to 256 x 256 channels each. Switching of input layers in a preset ‘bucket’ can be done via signal triggers natively in the Thunder | Core interface, manually from DADman or via external control devices. The detector and trigger configuration is handled in DADman but works 100% standalone.
Signal detection on channels can be pilot tone triggers or an AE6 digital trigger. The switch time for a preset ‘bucket’ is less than 2 audio samples with AE6-based switching providing a near-inaudible transition and around 1ms for pilot tone detection. The response time for signal detection/triggers and switching is less than 1ms. When switching manually via DADman or an external control panel the switch time is zero audio samples.
The Control | Pack software and firmware updates are free of charge and is expected to be ready for download from the website below in November 2024.