Studer Vista, Operating Instructions Manual

Page: 569 / 713

Vista Digital Mixing System
8-46 Vista 8 Differences
SW V3.5 Date printed: 05.04.2005
8.6.12 VCA-Style Masters (“Motors Off” Option)
The “Control Group Masters” in a classic sense were implemented in such
a way that all channel faders belonging to a certain control group would
automatically move whenever the master fader was moved. This has the
advantage that you always visually see the audio settings currently active
in the DSP core. However, there are two drawbacks to this behavior:
When the Control Group Master fader is closed, the user cannot adjust the
balance between the member channels, since they are moved down to-
gether with the master fader.
When the master fader is closed, it is still possible that there is some audio
passing through some of the member channels, since their fader is not
completely closed.
With software release 3.4, there is now an alternative way of how the con-
trol group master channels can work, that is very similar to the VCA
groups of an analog mixing console. Sometimes, this new behavior is also
called “motors off”. In this mode, the value set on the control group master
channels (as seen on their scale) is added to or subtracted from all member
channels, and the resulting (audio) level is set in the DSP core. The faders
of the member channels don't move up/down, and so it is possible to have
the master fader closed but still to correct the balance between the member
faders. In addition, the user can be sure that whenever the master channel is
closed, no audio can be heard from the member channels. Since the fader
of a member channel doesn’t represent the real audio value anymore, the
digits below the label display are indicating the
real audio value.
Note 1: If “VCA style” operation is active, you may see member channels change
their fader values as soon as they are added to a control group. This is the
case if the master channel is already set to a value different from 0 dB at
the moment when a new slave channel is added to the group. This behavior
is by intention, in order not to have any audio changing when adding or
subtracting member channels from a control group. Example: You have set
a microphone channel to –15 dB, and you add it to a “VCA” group the
master channel of which is already set to –10 dB. In the moment the mi-
crophone channel is added to that group, the user will see the microphone
fader jump up to –5 dB. This results in no audio change, as requested.
Note 2: The VCA style Control Groups option can be found in the Option
menu of the graphic controller screen. On D950 and Vista 7 it is available
only as long as the console doesn't have dynamic automation active. On
Vista 6 it is permanently available.