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Recording engineer and blind producer facing studio crisis. Can someone please help?


EdRedfern

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I have placed a copy of this message in the wanted items column so please forgive me if this causes any problems.

 

Hello All,

 

My name's Ed, I'm from the UK, I'm a fully blind professional audio engineer and music producer relying on adapted technologies. I'm trying to reach out in the hope that someone can rescue me in a situation of crisis. Back in June 2014 after 14 years of being in Pro Audio, either on the road recording bands, installations, touring as a musician or sound design work, I fell victim to a pro audio company's con. their offer was to upgrade my vintage blind friendly setup to a more compatible Protools HD11 based setup which went horribly wrong. Long story short, after legal action and recovery of £7500 out of £40,000, It's been a battle. In the end I produced an article on Sound on sound explaining everything. from there, amazing help has come through to get the studio to a point of basic operation. Some sponsors are involved in helping with equipment but there's a way to go.

 

there's two links. first is the main article, the 2nd is regarding this request.

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1127269&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#1127269

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1133066&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=365&fpart=1#1133066

 

I'm asking for help where possible please. my situation concerns having received donation of an Apple G4 MDD with Protools outboard consisting of a series of 4 888 interfaces, 1 882/20 and 1 882 interface, 2 Y cables and 4 digilink TDM cables, Protools TDM 5.13 which I have always relied on for accessibility with a screen reader under mac os 9.2, a stock of plugins and other software, etc.

 

The problem I'm facing is the lack of the mix core and mix farm cards needed to run protools with as the donor had sold the cards on before he passed the system on to me. I'm trying to find anyone who may have these cards who would be willing to help with donation of these. ideally 1 PCI Mix core and 1 or more mix farm pci cards with the ribbon cable, as well as any tdm cables, etc. this is to get a tdm system back up and running.

 

I have to explain that I can't move to ProTools HD unless it was HD11 and by that time it would cost over £100,000 in a setup to achieve because of the specifications of outbouard needed, an accessible console, etc. Sad fact in this is that AVID don't want to get involved and have abandoned me as a customer.

 

Can anyone please help? I've tried everything to find these cards, contacted ebay sellers, etc explaining this and been insulted or time wasted.

 

if you or anyone you know can help, please message me for more info.

 

Many thanks.

 

​Ed

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I can't stress this enough. Protools is the ONLY full blind friendly system and TDM is the way I have to work because of relying on a screen reader that speaks out information to me and gives me full control from the keyboard. screen readers are not magnifiers, they speak and produce braille via an external braille display. If I could move to logic pro and use it fully, I would but unfortunately 70% of the interface does not recognise voiceover under OS X, hence having to go back to mac os 9.2, 3rd party screen reader software and ProTools TDM. I don't have a choice in this.

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For a blind person, wouldn't a REAL mixer with real sliders and knobs be easier to use than a system with VIRTUAL knobs and sliders? Do you have a real control surface for PRO TOOLS ?

 

Dan

 

If you read my articles, you'd realise I use a soundcraft ghost 24 as my master mixer with full 24 track routing, patch bays for all sources, etc. the whole point of protools is to use as a digital tape / editor. nothing is mixed within the box directly, only used as DSP / edit / record system.

 

As I say, I've 14 years professional experience behind me doing this, worked with various different environments, so I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've used my previous protools system on tours and at client's studios to record their projects, to then bring them back to my base to edit, mix and master the entire jobs ready to burn to media. I know what's accessible to a screen reader environment and what's not.

 

here's an example or two:

 

Specification 1:

PowerPC G3 / G4 mac maxed to support Protools TDM 5.1.3,

Mix core card x 1

(for G4 MDD spec) Mix farm card x 3,

SCSI SCA80, 15000rpm HDD's X 3 inside MDDG4,

3 x 888/24 outboard,

3 x 882/20 outboard,

Sync via wordclock to all units,

multicore patch bay and loom setups all loaded in transit case.

Power regulator installed to transit case.

 

NOTE: above setup is similar to what I had running before loss. this is what I'm recovering because of overall accessibility requirements.

 

Specification 2:

 

Protools HD11 based system:

1 x Apple Macbook Pro (I own this already as this is what I'm using for paperwork),

1 x AVID Protools HD11 OMNI master unit,

4 x AVID 192 or similar units,

1 x Sync,

1 x AVID S6 48 custom or SSL AWS 9048 / Duality system as master console.

 

This specification was supposed to be what was needed and provided for my work, sadly that didn't happen. This is what I planned as a design because protools 11 hd has better voiceover based accessibility and with a digital console such as specified above, direct control and spoken control of each element needed without relying on the mac's keyboard and 3/4 hour having to faff around arming and editing tracks on the laptop itself.

 

Please forgive me for what I'm about to say, I'm asking for help here trying to find someone who owns these old digidesign tdm mix cards who would be willing to donate them, etc. I'm not asking for daft comments, etc. I know exactly what works, what doesn't as I've spent my life researching this work in the hope of finding something better. Trust me when I say this, New technology is amazing, but when it costs a fortune, a company robs you blind and AVID, the company I've been with for 14 years drops me as a customer because of legal action against the dealer they were with, doesn't that say something?

 

sorry.

 

ed

 

 

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