The EM Poll

DIGIDESIGN DIGI 002

Apr 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Nick Peck

           

Digidesign’s sleek Digi 002 can be used as a control surface and interface for Pro Tools LE or as a standalone digital mixer.

For years, Digidesign has dominated professional music and post-production with its TDM-based Pro Tools hardware and software. The company has also made strong inroads into the lower-end, project-studio market with products such as the Digi 001 digital audio interface and the Mbox USB audio interface.

With the introduction of the Digi 002, Digidesign aims squarely for the middle ground. The Digi 002 is a high-resolution, portable, host-based Pro Tools system that has robust, flexible I/O and a comprehensive integrated control surface. With four built-in microphone preamps, a terrific suite of bundled plug-ins, and a standalone mode that allows the unit to perform double duty as a digital mixer, the Digi 002 sets a new high standard in terms of bang for the buck.

INS AND OUTS

The rear panel of the Digi 002 has a comprehensive array of inputs and outputs (see Fig. 1). The system is fixed: there are no I/O ports for optional cards to fit your particular system. But the choices made by Digidesign are solid. Input channels 1 through 4 are configured as four mic inputs on XLR jacks, with 48V phantom power, as well as four ¼-inch line/instrument inputs. These are controlled by front-panel selector switches and input gain knobs. Defeatable 75 Hz highpass filters are thrown in for good measure. There are four additional ¼-inch line-level analog inputs, each with individual +4 dBu/-10 dBV level switches.

For added flexibility, the Digi 002 has two Alt Source inputs on -10 dBV RCA jacks. They can be used to route a CD player or tape deck through the system and directly out to the monitors. Selection buttons on the front panel allow you to switch between the standard Digi 002 output and the Alt Source output going to the monitoring section. In addition, the Alt Source can be routed to Digi 002 inputs 7 and 8.

In my configuration, I routed the standard audio of my Mac into the Alt Source inputs. That way, I could switch back and forth quickly between Pro Tools and other audio applications such as SoundApp and Amadeus II, without having to concern myself with the software contention issues that crop up when you route non-Digidesign audio through Digidesign hardware using the sound control panel.

The Digi 002's 12 analog outputs consist of a pair of monitor outs, main outputs 1 through 8, and an alternate pair of main outs. All outputs are on ¼-inch jacks operating at +4 dBu, except for the Alt outs, which are -10 dBV RCA jacks designed to connect to a consumer-level device, such as a tape deck. Monitor level is controlled by a front-panel volume pot. There are also Mono and Mute buttons for the monitoring system, as well as a headphone jack with its own level knob. As a final touch, the Digi 002 boots up with the monitor Mute button engaged, which keeps any nasty pops or thumps from blowing your head off when you first boot up your rig. All in all, the output section is well conceived and well implemented.

Note that the Digi 002 is clearly designed for creating music in stereo. You could conceivably connect outputs 3 through 8 to a 5.1 system, but the lack of control within the hardware (and Pro Tools LE software) for that type of configuration makes such an approach less than optimal.

All analog ¼-inch inputs and outputs are on balanced TRS connections, although unbalanced TS cables may be used as well. The unit I received for review exhibited a marked difference in noise and hum when I switched from using balanced cabling to unbalanced; I recommend using balanced cabling wherever possible.

The Digi 002 supports two channels of S/PDIF I/O on unbalanced RCA jacks, at resolutions from 16-bit, 44.1 kHz to 24-bit, 96 kHz. There is also Lightpipe I/O, which can be configured to accept two channels of optical S/PDIF (running up to 24-bit, 96 kHz), or eight channels of ADAT data, also at 24 bits but limited to the ADAT standard of a 44.1 or 48 kHz sampling rate.

The Digi 002 connects to your computer with a FireWire (IEEE 1394) cable and offers two FireWire ports, allowing you to daisy-chain other devices. In practice, I connected the computer to a FireWire hard drive and put the Digi 002 last in the chain, which worked well. As a bandwidth test, I tried recording and playing back 32 simultaneous channels at 24-bit, 96 kHz resolution to a single FireWire drive. The Digi 002 handled the job without a hitch, choking only when I threw edits and fades into the session. That's mighty impressive.

Rounding out the connections are one MIDI input and two discrete MIDI outputs. That allows the Digi 002 to act as a 16-channel-in, 32-channel-out MIDI interface. An IEC-standard power jack and a footswitch jack complete the scene.

One important connection is missing: a dedicated word-sync input on a BNC connection. While the Digi 002 can slave digitally to the S/PDIF or Lightpipe inputs, many studios have a master word clock that syncs all digital devices, using coaxial cables.

YOU'RE THE TOP

The Digi 002's control surface is organized into five primary areas: input control and monitoring, console/channel control, status and display control, channel faders, and transport/navigation control. The overall look and feel of the Digi 002 is reminiscent of Digidesign's Control|24 control surface, which is not surprising. The industrial design is clean and stylish, with lots of curves, ovals, and circles. Form follows function, though: the layout of the controls is intuitive, ergonomic, and oriented toward production.

Each of the eight channels has a 100 mm touch-sensitive fader, solo and mute buttons, a selection button, a rotary knob, a ring of LED position indicators, and a four-digit LED display. The faders are smooth and work well, but they function best when your finger is firmly touching the top surface; pushing the fader from the bottom, as I sometimes do, doesn't always register.

In the default mode the rotary knob acts as a pan pot for the track, and the ring of LEDs indicates position in the stereo space. The rotary knob can also be used to set send levels for five different sends by pressing the appropriate send-selection button. A Flip button reverses the functions of the faders and rotary knobs, allowing you to set such parameters as pan position using the touch-sensitive faders. The 4-character scribble strips default to displaying the name of the track, but they show other salient parameters when operating in other modes. Although there is no dedicated meter bridge, there is a meter button that allows the LED ring for each channel to act as mono or, in the case of stereo tracks, left or right level meters.

VIEWING AND EDITING

There are four selector buttons above the fader LED screens: EQ, Dynamics, Insert, and Pan/Send. Pressing any of these buttons takes you to channel view, which uses all eight channels to display and edit the chosen parameter of the currently selected track. For example, pressing the Select button for a particular track and then pressing the EQ channel-view selector brings up all the EQ parameters for an EQ plug-in assigned to that track. Those parameters, such as frequency or Q, are displayed in the scribble strips and can be adjusted using the rotary knob beneath it.

Page buttons allow you to scroll across multiple pages of parameters for a given plug-in. Pressing the Dynamics button will automatically bring up any dynamics-processing plug-ins assigned to a channel. Other types of plug-ins, such as delays or amplifier simulators, can also be edited by pressing the Insert channel-view button and selecting the name of the plug-in from the display windows. Finally, pressing the Pan/Send channel-view button allows you to control all five send levels for a given channel simultaneously.

TRANSPORT AND NAVIGATION

The transport controls consist of the standard six controls you find on most systems: Return to Zero, Rewind, Fast Forward, Stop, Play, and Record. Directly above are buttons to select Loop Play, Loop Record, and Quick Punch modes. Pre- and postroll selection buttons would have been nice here, as well. There are also buttons to show or hide the Mix, Edit, and current plug-in windows, which is great for systems with small screens.

Above the transport are the navigation controls, which consist of a big, friendly set of arrow keys inlaid in a large circle. Above the circle are buttons for the three navigation modes: Bank, Nudge, and Zoom. Bank and Nudge change the focus of the Digi 002's faders to different Pro Tools tracks in groups of eight or one at a time, respectively. In both modes, the up and down arrows act as selection in/out keys. Zoom mode allows you to zoom the horizontal and vertical views of the session in and out quickly. Each of these controls does what it's supposed to do and fits well under the hand.

There are three kinds of controls conspicuously absent from the Digi 002: a jog/shuttle wheel, a numeric keypad, and a dedicated Save button. Shuttle wheels are the best way to scrub digital audio back and forth. And a numeric keypad and dedicated Save button are particularly important if the Digi 002 is sitting directly in front of you, in place of a computer keyboard.