Three years ago at London's PLASA show, Midas introduced the PRO6. Last year, they brought the PRO3 and PRO9, with full compatibility and an upgrade path. At that time, Midas also released the fixed-format DL251 stage-box, the heart of the PRO3, offering the functionality of a Heritage 3000 at a cost-effective price point. This year, Midas introduces the PRO2 and its more-compact cousin, the PRO2C, bringing near-PRO3 functionality down-market, using the same 100-meter 48 x 16 AES50 digital snake.
An Expanding Family
The 28-fader PRO2 unites most features of the 29-fader PRO3's console and mix engine into a unified, compact processor/mix-surface, and the PRO2C is even more compact. Essentially the same console as the PRO2, the PRO2C simply has eight fewer faders and a smaller frame, just 30 inches (75cm) wide. Indeed, files written on any of these desks will open on any of Midas' bigger 35- or 51-bus digital consoles.
The DL251 stage box has 48 inputs, plus there are eight more on the PRO2's control surface, for a total of 56 mic/line inputs with Midas preamps and 64 mix channels. There are 27 mix busses, counting Left, Right and Mono, eight of which are matrixes in FOH mode, with LR&M provided on dedicated control surface XLRs, along with eight more control surface output XLRs and two stereo monitor outputs.
The Control Surface
Depending on model, whether PRO2 or PRO2Compact, the control surface has one or two banks of eight channel faders, with familiar yellow and red solo and mute buttons above and 11-segment LED metering conveniently beside them. Just above are the famous backlit color-assignable LCD buttons. The neighboring eight VCAs can have input channels spill over into them, and the inputs "scroll" left and right in Midas fashion.
Below the daylight-viewable 15-inch TFT screen are eight assignable rotary controls that map to controls on the screen. To the screen's right are comprehensive, dedicated selected-channel controls, including swept high- and low pass, automation safeties, processing order, side-chain, dynamics and EQ, pan and so on, with an aux-send strip alongside. Everything you'd expect from a Midas super-channel.
Further to the right are three rows of eight output controls with the same solo, mute and LED metering as the inputs, plus select and talk buttons for 24 mix busses. Below these are the advanced navigation buttons, including fader Flip and FX contribution, as well as GEQ and MCA, which we'll get to later.
The standard Midas PRO2/PRO2C system consists of a control surface and the same 5RU DL251 I/O unit used by the PRO3, connected by a Cat-5E audio and data network. The network carries both proprietary control data and open architecture AES50 digital audio, and uses standard CAT-5E or CAT-6 cabling and connectors.
Due to shared AES50 infrastructure, the PRO2 is network-compatible with all other Midas digital systems and I/O devices, like the DL351, a 7RU configurable 64 x 64 stage-box that can be fitted with a range of 8-channel cards, including the DL452 "D" card with 4 AES/EBU I/O pairs.
The PRO2 has 32 analog outputs – 16 on the DL251 stage box, eight more on the control surface and two stereo local monitor outputs, plus dedicated left, right, mono and a talk output. The control surface also has two pairs of AES3 outputs and inputs.
Other Features
Like the PRO3, both PRO2s have six multi-channel effects engines, just two fewer than the PRO6 and PRO9, presented on screen as a virtual rack. Reverbs are based on Klark Teknik's classic DN780 and include standard algorithms, such as Hall, Plate, Room, Chamber, Non-linear and Reverse, plus a couple creative ones like Infinite and ALIVE! Other effects include a multi-band compressor, a pitch shifter, 8-channel dynamics, delay with precision tap tempo, dynamic EQ and flanger.
For monitor applications, the PRO2 is capable of up to 28 Klark Teknik DN370 31-band graphic EQs. These GEQs are accessed either from the control surface faders, or the optional KT DN9331 Rapide fader remote can control them.
The PRO2 has eight VCA (Variable Control Association) groups and six POPulation groups, which is just two fewer VCAs than the PRO3, PRO6 and PRO9, and the same half-dozen POP groups. We're all familiar with VCAs by now, but Midas' unique implementation brings all members of each VCA group to the fader bank at the press of a button.
The POP groups do the same, but without having an actual master VCA fader, bringing POP-grouped channels to the faders with a single keystroke. Front of House and monitor engineers can use this in different ways. An FOH engineer might assign channels to POP groups by type of instrument, while monitor mixers might use a group for each musician's inputs so they can quickly pull up individual mixes. This powerful functionality allows an engineer to quickly focus a smaller number of faders to the task at hand in a very customized fashion.
FOH, MON and "Advanced"
The PRO2 can be operated in normal "FOH" and "MON" modes, but it also has an innovative "Advanced" mode helping engineers easily and efficiently mix large numbers of inputs and outputs on a compact control surface. Advanced mode enables the MCA (Mix Control Association) groups. MCAs – which are the same physical faders – operate similarly to VCA groups, but are specific to the selected bus.
With MCA navigation engaged, MCA faders control the contributions of their members only to the currently selected bus. Up to192 MCA (Mix Control Association) groups are possible, meaning each of the 24 auxiliary mixes can have eight MCAs for each mix. Combined with the "hide unassigned channels" feature, the PRO2 is a unique, powerful mixing tool, placing it in a league of its own.
Look out all you little digital desks, there's a killer on the loose.
