AES 2022 sees DiGiCo reveal the latest in its range of theatre targeted Quantum consoles, the all-new Quantum338T. With ‘in the box’ mixing reducing the need for outboard equipment and a lightweight control surface, the addition of the most recent theatre specific software features makes the Quantum338T perfect for regional and touring theatre productions.
Building on the outstanding audio performance of the Quantum338, the Quantum338T offers theatre sound designers and mixers a programming and operating workflow that enhances the cue system with DiGiCo’s renowned Auto Update and cue data management tools.
Auto Update allows designers to establish intricate inter-cue relationships, with changes made to channel settings automatically propagating to other related cues. Character variations, often a result of costume and prop changes, are handled with the Alias function, and cast changes are easily managed through the Players function.
Quantum338T’s channel processing and mixing functions are identical to its live focused Quantum338 counterpart, but the crosspoint matrix gains individual nodal delays and matrix aliases. This enhanced matrixing system plays a hugely important role within complex theatre output processing and this is all achieved without compromising any of the Quantum338T’s general processing capabilities.
Quantum338 is based on seventh generation FPGAs and includes 128 input channels with 64 busses and a 24 by 24 matrix, all with full channel processing. There is a new look and feel dark mode application and three 17inch 1,000nit, high brightness, multitouch screens, allowing both the metre bridge and soft quick select buttons to be displayed on each screen. There are also 70 individual TFT channel displays and the floating Quantum chassis features 38mm by 100mm touch sensitive faders laid out in three blocks of 12 fader banks, plus two dedicated user-assignable faders, each complete with high resolution metering.
A new level of local audio connectivity and performance comes via the ‘Ultimate Stadius’ 32-bit ADC and DAC conversion, which are built in to Quantum338 as standard, alongside six single or three redundant MADI connections, dual DMI slots and a built-in UB MADI USB recording interface. Mustard Processing, Spice Rack, Nodal Processing and True Solo, all launched last year for the Quantum 7, are also standard on the Quantum338.
Mustard processing is a set of channel processing strips that work alongside standard Quantum channel processing. Each Mustard processing strip provides a choice of two pre-amp modellers, a four-band EQ (including all-pass filters), four different boutique style compressor models and a gate/ducker. Quantum338 is equipped with 36 mono Mustard processing strips which can be used on any channel type.
The Spice Rack, meanwhile, supports plugin style native FPGA processing options, allowing you to build a rack of up to eight insertable processors. The first of these is the Chilli 6 – a six-band multi-band compressor which allows full control of all parameters, including DiGiCo’s unique, patented, release shape control, which means Chilli 6 is perfect for shaping vocals and instruments as well as focusing on problem frequencies.
DiGiCo’s theatre specific software extension, already familiar to users of the Quantum7T, SD10T, SD12T and SD9T, can be added to any Quantum338; a simple unlock code can be entered to enable the theatre features on any Quantum338 console.
