Digital mixing (layer) analogies

[Arlin]

I am working on a training session for our LS9 mixing console...

In my experience, most people have the hardest time grasping the concept of the layers, and sends on faders. They see the faders moving and think that something is changing, but actually, nothing chagnes, the surface is just showing a different display.

Doe anyone have a good real-world analogy for that? I am feeling geeky and the only thing I can think of is tabbing through windows on a computer...
I want some more tangible.

For instance, I am thinking of describing signal flow through the audio console with through plumbing (pipes, different colors of water representing different signals, shut-off valves for mute buttons, & throttling valves for faders, etc...).

[waynehoskins]

My television remote control has a series of buttons at the top, something like TV, Cable, VCR, DVD, etc. These are delegation buttons that assign some or all of the remote's controls to one device or another for a time. When I press one to switch the remote to "TV" mode, the other devices keep behaving as they were; they don't disappear.

To keep with the plumbing analogy, you started by talking about directly-manipulated valves, where the control surface is directly attached to the valve. With layering, and even most of digital consoles in fact, we have to slightly abandon this, to introduce a remotely-controlled electronic valve with a sensor. We could say these valves have Open and Close electric contacts, to which we can attach pushbuttons, and a position sensor to which we can attach a meter so we can read the position of the valve. Pressing the controls will open or close the valve incrementally. We could say the control panel's wires are fitted in a plug that will attach to a socket on each of many valves we might want to adjust. We delegate the control to Valve 3 by plugging it in, we get a reading, we can push the buttons to step the valve more open or closed as we desire; when it's satisfactory we can unplug it, and the valve will remain in its present state until we decide to plug in the control and change it again.

If we add a mute valve, some flow sensors, and so on, make the control surface the appropriate size, and add a massive A-B switch to delegate those controls to twice as many pieces of plumbing, that might cover it.

[waynehoskins]

Or a KVM switch (do they remember those?)

[Arlin]

I like the TV / Cable / VCR / DVD remote idea.
Keep the ideas coming, if anyone has more.

[Frank DeWitt]

The layers are just pictures in an album. Here is a picture of my wife. Here is a picture of my 56 chevy One is the love of my life.

Frank

[Gracetech]

I generally use the illustration of pages. Here is page "A" and here is page "B". I can write something down on page "A" and flip to page "B" and write something else down. Oh wait now i need to go back to page "A" and change what i wrote down.

If they can't understand that there is no hope.

I've tried to teach signal flow over the years and most of the time they just don't get it until they get it. Analogies make great sense but people still have a hard time applying it against the console. My usual teaching method is to keep the blinky lights happy and to try to imagine a great mix and take what instrumentation you have and try to get there. I find people generally fall into 3 camps. Those of the techy camp and those of the artist camp. Neither are ever going to excel as a sound person but they can operate things in their ability. If you can find a person that sits somewhere in the middle that is the person you want running sound. If you don't have that middle person then pair up a techy and a artist and let the sparks ensue.

I think the best analogy i ever heard about audio routing "flow" was a driving analogy. Basically start by applying the proper amount of gas(gain) and as you are driving along you can take bypasses(auxes either pre or post fader) to get to your destination or you can continue on(main bus). You can even take this analogy to op amp clipping by using the analogy of too many cars on the road can cause a pile up. How about you can color a car just like you can color sound. I don't remember all the illustrations but it isn't hard to figure it out if you have time.

Hope that helps.

crt

[Brad Weber]

I think your audience may also be a factor. Addressing layers with someone who has never mixed might be approached differently than with someone who has significant experience with analog consoles as the latter already have a certain point of view of how a console works. For those with no set reference Wayne's remote control analogy seems like a good one. But for those with experience on analog consoles it may be more effective to have them view it as something like taking the faders laid out horizontally, cutting them into sections and then stacking the sections. All of the channels are always there but you can only see and work with the ones that are part of the section that is on top and selecting a layer is then selecting which of those sections is on top.

Of course, dealing with custom or user defined layers may then take another leap as that requires grasping that the fader and other controls are essentially remote controls and thus you can have multiple of them in parallel.

[daver2]

There are some good ideas here!

Two problems with analogies are (i) not all people may understand your analogy - if they are 'waterly challenged' then a plumbing analogy may not be the best way to go (ii) as you expand the description of the desk there will be a temptation to use the same analogy throughout. At some point the analogy will break down and you will have to change tack.

I try to explain the layers as 'segmenting' a mixer desk with 64 inputs. Imagine the size of the desk with this number of inputs (show picture of a rather large analogue desk). I then explain how much space would be occupied by that type of desk in our Church. The act of 'layering' (or segmenting) the faders on a digital desk means that the physical size can be smaller - but at the expense of having to switch between the different layers to access specific faders.

This then leads on to dividing the faders into neat 'groups' so that they don't span layer boundaries if you can help it.

I tend to avoid mentioning the 'custom' fader layer until I try to extract from my trainees how better to structure the desk once they have become accustomed to the fixed layers - e.g. it would be really, really helpful if we could put some of the often used inputs, groups, subgroups, matrix and output faders on a single layer as it would avoid most of this switching around - "hey presto" we have this facility - it is called a custom fader layer and this is how we configure and use it...

Dave

[wogster]

Originally Posted by Arlin

I am working on a training session for our LS9 mixing console...

In my experience, most people have the hardest time grasping the concept of the layers, and sends on faders. They see the faders moving and think that something is changing, but actually, nothing chagnes, the surface is just showing a different display.

Doe anyone have a good real-world analogy for that? I am feeling geeky and the only thing I can think of is tabbing through windows on a computer...
I want some more tangible.

For instance, I am thinking of describing signal flow through the audio console with through plumbing (pipes, different colors of water representing different signals, shut-off valves for mute buttons, & throttling valves for faders, etc...).

It depends entirely on your audience. If your training someone who has been using an analog mixer for the last 25 years, it's very different from someone looking at a mixing board for the first time ever. The waterpipe analogy would be for someone new to sound systems and mixing in general, they only need to know the basics to run the board. That would mean, pretty much the same thing with the latest digital board as it would with an elderly analog board.

[Tim Padrick]

Analogies are more apt to confuse IMHO (and usually aren't very applicable - like the above car analogy - a car can take only one path at a time, a signal can take as many as the hardware has to offer).

Keep it audio, and make sure that they understand the basics of signal flow, which a lot of experienced mixpersons do not (even some who do a darned good job). This is especially important before they get on a digital console, where (at least with some) the pre-fade auxes can be pre or post EQ, the dynamics can be pre or post EQ, buses can be auxes or groups (which they might have seen on some Yamaha or Ramsa analog consoles).

[waynehoskins]

I like the idea of taking a photograph or line drawing of a large console, asking "how might we make this behemoth smaller?", cutting it into two or three bits as appropriate (master section and two sets of channel sections), and placing the two channel section cutouts on top of each other. Whichever layer is on top at the moment is what's on the control surface. Basic straightforward image, rather than analogy, of layering.

Since on a fully-digital layered console the surface are only encoders to control the digital mixing engine, audio remains within the engine, not on the controls as with most analog consoles; this (along with motorized faders and position-independent encoders) is what allows us to layer. If we had an analog console with the same sort of control-engine separation, we could have layered on an analog console before the digital console era.

[Arlin]

This training IS intended for inexperienced audio beginners (which also applies to many of our volunteers). So, I want to start simple with something that they might relate to more easily than throwing a complete console block diagram in their face.
The plumbing analogy is not intended to provide a complete picture of mixer signal routing. It is only a simplified example that demonstrates some of the primary concepts. I could also use a more electrical analogy (wires, switches, rheostats), but I think the average person can visualize water flow more easily than electrical current flow.
I even made a 'quick' 3D model to help me illustrate this: see attached.

BUT, we are getting off-topic here... I REALLY wanted an everyday example of something that uses layers analogous to digital consoles.
The TV remote was a very good example.
Another example is a computer screen where windows can be running in the background.
I don't really like the book pages analogy... once you turn a page, it could, for all intents & purposes, cease to exist and you would not know the difference. The 'mixer' page, on the other hand, continues to be active... it is just not being displayed to the user.

Eventually, I agree, the operators just need to learn it the way it is and think in real terms instead of examples & analogies.
But, I think it is beneficial to start with something simple that just about anyone can relate to.

Thanks for the help!