Blackmagic Design today announced its acquisition of Fairlight, which creates professional digital audio products for live broadcast event production, film and television post production, as well as immersive 3D audio mixing and finishing.

Fairlight has an impressive history of designing and manufacturing integrated audio control surfaces and software that are renowned for their speed, flexibility and exceptional sonic quality. Fairlight Live products feature consoles that are designed for the most demanding on-air and live productions, giving customers leading edge audio processing and control surfaces that range from 12 to 60 faders, along with audio I/O interfaces with full redundancy for mission critical work in broadcast facilities, outside broadcast trucks, performing arts venues and houses of worship.

For post production solutions, Fairlight creates everything from compact desktop audio post systems to large format mixing consoles with dedicated controls. Fairlight audio engines can deliver up to 1000 tracks which lets customers create complex productions without premixing, along with a massive 64 channels of monitoring.

Fairlight’s editing software and fully featured audio post consoles give customers complete tactile control along with unique features like time compression and expansion that allows audio within a single clip to be precisely aligned to picture. Designed for the film and television post production markets, Fairlight also creates immersive 3D audio workstations so customers can deliver 3D sound in formats such as 5.1, DTS MDA, Dolby Atmos, NHK’s 22.2 and more. Fairlight’s 3D audio workstations are large format mixers with complete support for both 2K and 4K video playback.

“Fairlight creates the world’s most powerful digital audio software and hardware for video production,” said Grant Petty, Blackmagic Design CEO. “The exciting part about this acquisition is that it will add incredibly high end professional audio technology to Blackmagic Design’s amazing video products. We look forward to working with the Fairlight team to build even more exciting new products for our customers!”

This is a transcript of a Blackmagic Design press release.

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Fairlight has an enviable name in post production mixing, but you rarely find one of its consoles in an OB truck… more likely a Calrec, Digico or Lawo. But that may all change soon. Fairlight will be taking the EVO.Live console to this year’s NAB exhibition. As you’d expect, the surface is compact, making it well suited to tight situations like the OB vans, or indeed performing arts centres, churches or broadcast facilities. The console is available in different chassis or table-mount configurations from 12 to 60 faders. The ergonomic control surface design with touch TFT monitors offer immediate access to all critical live functions with excellent visualisation.

Fairlight’s interactive control surface includes something it calls Picture Keys which self-label instantly for each task performed, displaying the right commands and functions at the right time. In addition, Fairlight’s new iCan (Integrated Control Across Network) technology provides the operator with an easy to use editor to design fully customised layouts.

The console incorporates complete Dual-Operator functionality allowing each audio engineer to independently access their own set of faders, solos, channel selections and monitoring controls. Audio processing takes place in Fairlight’s FPGA-based Crystal Core audio engine ensuring high channel and bus counts, low latency and purest sound quality — aspects that have never been an issue with Fairlight hardware. Comprehensive Mix-Minus, advanced comms, extensive metering and flexible bussing are meticulously implemented. The compact 2U Live Audio Processor includes an extensive range of built-in I/O. Adding a second hot-swappable FPGA-based engine with dual-input power supplies guarantees reliability.

Australian Distribution: www.fairlight.com.au

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It’s another step forward in the world of large-format digital consoles, only this time the price steps back.

Text: Michael Gissing

Being the happy Fairlight Xynergi user that I am, I’ve been more than curious to set eyes and ears on Fairlight’s new EVO console, so when the opportunity finally arose to check one out at Fairlight HQ during a recent trip to Sydney, I jumped at it. With EVOs marching out the door as fast as they can be built and tested, it’s been difficult to organise some quality face-time with the console, so intense has the pressure been to get them out the door and into the hands of eager customers.
As many AT readers may already be aware, the recent success of the current range of Fairlight products has fundamentally been about the development of its revolutionary Crystal Core, which packs tons of power onto a single FPGA card and draws only a tiny amount of power to deliver hundreds of tracks of audio and bus processing. Having already stolen a considerable march on most of its competitors with the Crystal Core technology, the Fairlight team has recently concentrated its efforts on finessing the control surfaces and software that drive it. The latest of these is the EVO.

HIGHLY EVOLVED

Part new hardware configuration and part software development, the EVO is a bridge between the Fairlight Constellation console and the desktop Xynergi. Constructed using the same physical framework as the Constellation, and incorporating a Xynergi controller into the centre section, the EVO allows for up to five console bays, made up of four 12-channel fader packs and a central control panel. Along with the Xynergi, which features self-labelling keys, transport controls, jog/data input wheel and numeric keypad, this centre section allows space for three small additional panels – but more on that in a moment.
A most obvious new feature of the EVO console is the in-line panel (ILP) that sits directly above the fader panel, adding four touch-sensitive continuous rotary pots and four buttons per channel. This fundamental addition to the console is the result of extensive user feedback – the consensus view apparently being that the modern virtual console “needs a few more buttons and knobs,” hence the inclusion of the ILP, along with a matching display on a 20-inch computer screen that sits above each panel. There are no legends written on the ILPs themselves, which at first looks a bit odd, but the reason for this is simple. Each controller’s functionality can vary greatly depending on whether you’re looking at EQ, dynamics, auxes, or plug-ins etc, or indeed dedicating the whole panel to a single channel. Ergonomically, the combined depth of the fader and in-line panels are still within easy reach of ‘vertically challenged’ operators such as myself, and the overall layout creates a nice channel strip effect familiar to both old-school and next-gen mixers.
The ILP also offers a way to swipe values from one channel to multiple channels. While holding a value on the pot of one channel, transferring this value across to others simply involves swiping the finger over the adjacent channels with a horizontal movement across the tops of the pots. This is not as elegant as the way in which a Smart console swipes values perhaps, but it’s certainly an improvement on the way Fairlight channel values were previously copied and pasted to other channels.

GREY & MISERLY

The EVO also moves on from the Constellation aesthetic by going for a grey, low-reflective colour scheme. Again, user feedback has been dutifully considered here. Gone are the shiny silver panels that reflect distractingly under studio lighting, replaced by darker and less reflective surfaces. This is particularly noticeable in the changes to the skin of the edit and mix panel screens, which also share this matching dark grey aesthetic. As an added bonus, this change plays a significant role in further enhancing Fairlight’s already ‘green’ reputation (established by the Crystal Core card which is a dead-set miser when it comes to power consumption). The darker screens use far less power than they did when the GUIs were predominantly white. I remember reading
with astonishment the global power savings that could be achieved if the Google search engine’s default screen was simply black, not white. But frugal power consumption isn’t the only reason why Fairlight’s new-look interface appeals to me. It also evokes memories of the old dSP screen livery… though this is more than mere nostalgia: the darker screen is much less fatiguing on the eyes.
The fader panels have also undergone several significant developments. Firstly, the OLED displays in the new panels are higher in resolution, offer faster refresh speeds and now sport full colour. These new displays include metering, automation status, fader value and panning. The new OLEDs are brilliant and can be read from any angle. Being colourised, they offer particularly good visual feedback of many user functions, particularly automation. Secondly, the buttons that flip fader sets and control various other functions are now down the left-hand side of the panel, while the surround pan joystick has been removed from it entirely. This joystick now sits more comfortably above the Xynergi controller. All this trimming has enabled the panel to be reduced in depth and allow the new ILP to sit within comfortable reach in the frame above. Fairlight is also currently working on a dedicated monitoring panel that will sit above the Xynergi controller. The idea will be that the user can arrange these panels wherever he or she pleases within the three-panel space.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Metering and track naming is now everywhere on the Fairlight: in the edit page, on the fader panel, on the ILP display and also on the Fairlight Mix Control (FMC2) page. The FMC2 page is essentially a graphic overview of the mixer and here Fairlight has changed from its older, ‘quirkier’ display, to a more familiar mixer layout that shows a classic channel strip configuration with yet more metering. On top of the extensive bus and main metering, the company has added three new metering displays that have again found their way into the design courtesy of user feedback. First up is the PPM display, which accurately shows the classic BBC analogue PPM metering. Personally, I find this more of a curiosity than anything else, but others will no doubt be far more thankful for its inclusion. The next two meters, although somewhat controversial, are fast becoming an important requirement in broadcast environments – LEQ and LU meters. This metering represents an attempt to quantify ‘apparent loudness’, weighted to program dialogue levels and based on an internationally published spec. Since the most common audio complaint by TV listeners is variable loudness, and given the propensity of broadcasters to streamline presentations, studios are being lumbered with the task of homogenising program loudness. This is both a good and bad thing but I won’t venture into a rant about my views on apparent loudness here.
The intent of LEQ metering is to display a dBFS value of the average dialogue loudness over a 10-second cycle and the LU meter does the same over the total duration of the program. Deliveries to broadcasters like Discovery now insist on LEQ and LU metering so I’m grateful to Fairlight for including this measuring and metering set, saving me and many others the unnecessary expense of buying an external box to measure these values.

V3 SOFTWARE AUTOMATION

One of the huge advantages of the combined panel and screen displays is the flexibility to make ongoing improvements and to implement new features. There’s considerable development in the version 3 software that comes with the EVO, which is soon to be available to Xynergi and Constellation users as all systems are based around the Dream2 software. Full backwards compatibility is also maintained; something that other disk-based editing companies should look at more seriously.
There’s a host of new improvements and features in version 3 of the software, but the most exciting of them (to me at least) relates to the automation. Automation can now be quickly written via touch-sensitive faders and pots in any jog-forward speed, and will write until the transport moves backwards. You can hear audio when jogging of course, so allowing this capacity provides the power to accurately make slow motion fader adjustments while hearing the effect, thus mostly negating the need to mouse-draw fader values. It’s more intuitive to grab the fader than a mouse and draw with the combined left hand on fader and right hand manipulating the jog wheel. Unlike a mouse, multiple fader or pot changes can also be made in this jog/write mode. Another nice idea is that automation values can be written by simply touching a fader or pot and jumping or locating to any forward position, and then simply moving the transport backwards. By performing this sneaky manoeuvre, values will be written from the touch point up to the backwards move. Of course, a whole set of values can be set while stationary and then it’s just simply a matter of jumping – say to the end of a set of clips – to write them over that range. This is also a great way to trim a lot of relative values within a scene.
The other big improvement is that automation is now an undo function like any edit. This means that multiple automation passes can be undone unlike the previous limit of one pass. To see what you’re doing, it’s also possible to open up the undo dialog box to show the list of all previous events that can be undone including clip edits. There have also been improvements in the way clips and automation can be cut, copied and pasted together, which basically brings Fairlight up to speed with other systems. The total automation package
is significantly improved and hopefully paves the way for clips plus full automation to be edited between projects – a feature we all desperately need in this age of re-versioning and changing of edits during mixing and tracking.
There are dozens of other new features, including improved plug-in handling, video file codec compatibility and AAF export/import. There’s also a fabulous new feature that allows you to find and add the missing tracks of a multi-track broadcast wav file. This is a common problem when a video editor has deleted a few tracks by unlinking a multi-channel broadcast wav file in an edit sequence. Fairlight now makes it possible to locate and restore all the missing tracks to the timeline.

D-EVO

Although Fairlight has been making big improvements in the functionality of the Dream2 family – and particularly with
the EVO console – the Australian company hasn’t altogether forgotten its roots. For all the music people out there who might imagine using this fantastic sounding, powerful editing and mixing system for music, Fairlight has a final big announcement with its pending version 3.1 software release: as well as hundreds of tracks, a powerfully configurable mixer and embedded editable video, Fairlight has finally added MIDI tracks! The implications of this announcement goes way beyond music production and all the way to event control, including large-scale undertakings such as the Olympic Games. As they say, the plot thickens.
Overall, the EVO build is solid and looks great. By using the same frame as the Constellation, the upgrade path for Constellation users is cheaper and simplified, while the In
Line Panel is a smart extension that helps to create a more traditional channel strip configuration. The hardware improvements like the colour OLEDs are excellent and the software developments are further icing on the cake. As the name suggests the EVO is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and goes a long way towards further cementing Fairlight’s position as a high-end yet affordable film, broadcast post and – once again – music system.

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DTS (originally Digital Theater Systems) and Fairlight have collaboratively announced the release of Fairlight’s new 3DAW, a 3D audio production platform with native MDA mixing and format support. The first of its kind, Fairlight’s 3DAW enables sound designers to truly mix object-based audio in unrestricted 3D space, monitor on any configuration, and output in DTS’ proposed future specification—MDA. Additionally, Fairlight’s 3DAW will feature the ability to mix soundtracks for DTS Neo:X, a channel-based audio solution designed to support up to an 11.1 speaker system (yes, 11.1). The MDA specification is currently being proposed to international standardisation committees as an alternative to today’s closed proprietary solutions. MDA allows every sound element of a soundtrack to be mapped in 3D space, storing all of the spatial and behavioral information of each sound element as metadata. Mixing audio with MDA as opposed to other surround sound platforms allows a soundtrack to maintain the exact spatial characteristics of the audio as intended by the mixer. The new Fairlight 3DAW is available as a turnkey solution based on Fairlight’s Crystal Core Media processor and software.

AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR: Fairlight www.fairlight.com.au

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Fairlight has reinvigorated some innovative Australian IP to provide a complete post powerhouse in a single PC.

Text: Michael Gissing

When Australian company dSP ceased trading some years ago and Fairlight purchased their intellectual property, few people knew that dSP had been developing a new disk editing system with integrated video, designed to run on standard PCs using Windows.

Not so long after, Fairlight released Pyxis, a video device with basic editing functionality, designed to integrate with a Fairlight QDC system, but running on a separate Windows PC. To people like me, who had been in a close beta testing relationship with dSP, I recognised that Pyxis was the first offshoot of that dSP IP.

Now with the release of Xynergi, the integration of that IP plus the amazing developments Fairlight has been working on over the past years have blossomed into a product that certainly gets me excited. Having patiently clung to my aging dSPs for years, the release of Xynergi has prompted me to immediately order two systems to replace the dSPs and move into the 21st century of DAWs.

NEW CENTURY

Most DAWs are still last century – lethargic and energy hungry – either using native processors or dedicated DSP chips. Fairlight has developed a new processor card that brings a phenomenal amount of ultra low-latency processing with an almost unbelievably low level of power consumption. The heart of the new Xynergi system is the Crystal Core (CC-1) card. On a single PCIe card, using FPGA processing (see Issue 54 for more on the CC-1, FPGA et al), one card supports a 192-track editor with a mix engine capable of processing 230 channels, supporting 220 physical inputs and outputs (MADI), 72 buses, onboard video (in HD or SD) with EQ and dynamics on all channels plus third-party plug-in support. All this with a total latency of less than 0.5ms! If that isn’t enough to blow away most systems, the fact that Crystal Core does all this processing with a mere 12 Watts of power consumption makes this card a total revolution. Fairlight estimates that to do the same processing with conventional DSP chips would consume over 600 Watts. That’s a massive power reduction with latency that’s impossible to match. Heat is also reduced by a whopping 98%.

FPGA processing deserves its own story, but in a nutshell the CC-1 is a card with one big processor that can be programmed for a variety of tasks. While mainstream computer processors are embracing multi-core technology, the Crystal Core is using an impressive Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to get over 8.6 gigaflops of processing power. Unlike conventional DSP chips, which lock in 32-bit floating point processing, the FPGA approach allows processing to be scaled to task. Fairlight uses this to scale some mix processing like EQ up to 72-bit floating point and less rigorous tasks can be scaled back to 32 bits or less. This makes the system very much software driven without the typical limitations of older DSP processing and their energy hungry requirements. The Crystal Core is the first real breakthrough in 21st century audio systems. If you want, high sample rates of up to 384kHz are available.

A standard Windows PC with a dual-core processor is all that’s needed to get going with Xynergi. A video card like Decklink will also add SDI video in/out options plus composite or component video for using an external monitor or video projector. But enough of the under the bonnet stuff – exciting as that is to me, the business end of operating the Xynergi is where the fun really begins.

HERE’S THE XYNG

The edit controller of the Xynergi is a combined qwerty-style keyboard with extra buttons for transport control, jog wheel, edit buttons, a numeric keypad, monitor and talkback section, plus a screen with eight touch sensitive rotary pots and 16 buttons that vary with the mode displayed. The whole keyboard is made using a patented in-house design, which can be programmed to display almost any image – even moving video. This makes the keys change from a standard qwerty display to dedicated menu and control buttons. Next to the jog wheel, four main edit buttons change modes depending on how you’re editing. Using your left hand to select the edit mode, those buttons let you trim head, tail or region. Select copy mode and those buttons now display copy to head, copy to tail, copy region etc.

The fact that all the keys can display anything also means that power users will be able to get into amazing macros and assign self-labelling keys. Compared to the common keyboard with either a tacky cardboard overlay or the memory of a herd of elephants to remember the Shift/Alt/Ctrl variables of each key, this keyboard changes display so that keys are clearly readable based on the editing or mixing mode you chose. The keyboard also lets you run the rest of your computer’s software. Want Kangi characters? Cyrillic? This keyboard will display anything.

CLIFF’S EDGE

To perfect the keyboard and the practical operating of the Xynergi, Fairlight has employed Cliff Jones, a long-time Fairlight user who formerly ran Soundmonsters in London. The use of an experienced engineer to develop the interface has meant this system is operator driven. Anyone who’s familiar with Fairlight or dSP products can immediately get their heads and fingers around the keyboard. For those that come from the world of modified sequencers, there is a mouse. You should learn to avoid it, but it is there. I found it handy to open a project, then left it to gather dust.

After a demo Cliff left me to play and it wasn’t hard to get into a rhythm of editing. My OMFi (Open Media File) loaded blindingly fast. Operating was easy, with jogging and editing logical, ergonomic and with all the expected waveform and clip overlaying. Important issues like networking and sound library management are very good (and getting better). Pyxis video integration is perfect. Anything that needed explaining was sorted without a single glance at some convoluted PDF manual. (Let’s face it, manuals are like a Phantom Agent’s gun – last resort and a sign of weakness.) The Xynergi has a built-in help and tutorial system called ‘Xplain’. Press the Help button and suddenly the display walks you through a process using the actual keys and workflow. You learn by doing the task using the keys in front of you. This is a revolution in self-help.

FACTORY MODS

For the toy mongers amongst us, Fairlight has included a 64-channel bridge so that third-party plug-ins can be used at the clip and mix level. The in-built display plus the 16 buttons and eight pots around the display make it easy to control plug-ins, EQ and dynamics. The main edit and mix functions are displayed on external computer monitors. A built-in patching and monitoring system enables very comprehensive signal routing both internally and externally. A basic Xynergi system comes with a breakout box, the SX-20, that gives analogue and digital I/O, nine-pin machine control, LTC I/O and video sync, including tri-level for HD work. If more I/O channels are needed, Fairlight has MADI-to-AES or analogue breakout I/O boxes (SX-48) in 48-channel lots. For mix controllers, Fairlight has mapped the Mackie HUI, plus a Fairlight 12-fader sidecar mixer option similar to the fader panel on its Constellation large format mixer.

POST PRO POWERHOUSE

The combination of disk editor with integrated video plus full mixing with total automation means that Fairlight Xynergi is a complete post tool in a single PC. This is not a first, but the sheer grunt, the elegance and future-proofing of hardware and control surfaces means that the Xynergi is really going to make inroads. Xynergi also packs the power of AVTransfer into its system with OMFi, AAF and multi-file format handling for both audio and video.

I have never been more impressed with a product for review. The price is amazing, power saving extraordinary. Video/audio editing and mixing integration is the best I have seen, with a controller and processor that are extremely powerful and functional, plus there’s enormous scope for further development. There is so much more I’ve glossed over to keep the word count reasonable, but a visit to the Fairlight website is highly recommended.

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