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User manual for Cantar-X1 & X2  v2.15   2008 March 28

p.7

p.7

Circular screens 

These are the largest, easiest-to-read screens found on any 
audio recorder.  They provide the user with ongoing data 
concerning every aspect of the machine's operation while it 
is operating.  It takes a few hours getting used to them since 
five display  paradigms are used for the many functions they 
handle.  Once you are familiar with these functions, you will 
drive the fastest machine you have ever driven.  
•  input grids.  The six primary tracks graphically display 
their links at the push of a button, even while recording.  
••  output maps.  Thanks to the three screen lay-out emu-
lating the left, both and right ‘ears’, the monitor maps are 
immediately understood.  
•••  progressive pan-pots.  The contribution of each track 
to the mixdown has never been so clear.  
••••  circular modulometers.  Their round shape makes the 
signal level easy to appreciate in a wink.  
•••••  monitoring  physical  status.    Permanent  control  of 
the disks, tracks, and setups.  

• Input grids  

The  available  ‘Inputs’  are  shown  in  each  circular  screen:  
Line-in 1 to Line-in 4, Mic 1 to Mic 5, Digi 1 to Digi 6.   The 
six tracks to which they can be connected are grouped in 
pairs, e.g. T1 T2, T3 T4, T5 T6 on the three screens.  
The method of creating routing-configurations by linking in-
puts and tracks is explained in the section ‘Routing inputs to 
tracks’, p.27. 

With  the  [Solo Mix

 Pan

]  slider  pushed  toward  the  battery, 

the [routing] button (top-left of the swiveling panel) instantly 
displays the ‘inputs to tracks’ grid, even while recording.  
In the picture above  the middle screen displays ‘A4’, the 
routing in use.  Fifteen preset routing grids are stored in three 
banks.  Each of which holds five grids, to help you sort and 
memorize your configurations, e.g.  A1 to A5 for mic only 
setups, B1to B5 when some line-inputs are on duty, C1to 
C5 for complex setups that include digi-inputs.  The [config] 
crown gives instant sequential access to all of them. 

•• Output  maps 

Here is where Cantar's three screen ’mapping’ is at its best.  
Audio signals going to the left ear show on the left screen, 
signals to be listened to in mono show on the middle screen 
and those going to the right ear are on the right screen.  
All inputs 

(recorded or not, very useful in Rec&Play)

,

 and all 

tracks can be monitored along different configurations for 
each of the eight independent outputs channels: 

Ph

 Phones, 

Lo

  Line-out, 

Fb

  Foldback  and 

Do

  Digital-out.  26  different 

‘output  routing’  maps  are  available;  the  black  [monitor] 
crown gives instant access to all of them, see p.29.  

In the example above, the ‘Ph d’ phone routing indicates: 
Track 5 goes to the left ear, Track 1 and Track 2 go to the 
center (both ears) and Track 6 goes to the right ear.   With 
the  [

Solo

 Mix Pan]  slider  pulled  toward  the  operator  side, 

pressure on the [routing] button instantly displays the current 
monitor configuration.   

note: 

the  [routing]  button  is  required  to  change  from  one 

grid  to  another,  it  is  a  protection  against  wild  and  lethal 
changes,  but it is not required to change from one map to 
another in the course of a recording. 

•••  Pan-pots to the mixdown 

Push the [Solo Mix 

Pan

] slider toward the battery side, press 

the [track-solo] button next to the mixer linear fader: the pan-
pot of this track goes under [jog] control and indicates its 
left/right contribution to either channel of the mixdown.  

The spatial position of all pan-pots is visible on the circular 
screens while the dBFS value of the selected pan-pot is dis-
played in the rectangular screen (see next page).  

Description 4, 

    

   

  T1 & T2 left        T3 center, T4 left      T5 left, T6 right 

Summary of Contents for Cantar-X2

Page 1: ...a g i c a u t o s l a t e p 2 3 m i c d i r e c t t o t r a c k 7 p 2 8 w i l d a l l b u i l t i n p d f r e p o r t s p 3 7 e d i t o r f r i e n d l y p o l y r o t a t e p 3 9 s t e r e o m o n i...

Page 2: ...ne out Foldback level p 18 Rec Play rehearsal p 18 PPR Pre Post Record Pre record buffer p 19 Metadata entry p 19 Track names p 19 After recording p 20 File splitting p 20 Last take erasure p 20 Remot...

Page 3: ...a commentary track ADR for hear it say it dialog correction Incremental re recording up to 8 tracks file v2 06 Dec 2007 Talkback Mic sent to Line out and or Foldback left e g boom or right e g direct...

Page 4: ...og inputs plus six linear faders mixdown each entirely devoted to one speci c task are faster to handle than multi function knobs An important consideration for those who work in the desert or on the...

Page 5: ...k in the DVD extractor hole to push the drive out of the Cantar housing see the DVD burner extraction arrows on the picture below Description 2 Firewire Timecode in out Headphones Foldback Mini XLR3 F...

Page 6: ...y on duty shift batt in STOP turns OFF Cantar Headphones 1 4 jack in an isolated compartment The headphone am pli er is powerful enough to drive loudspeakers down to 8 ohms The stored output level of...

Page 7: ...banks Each of which holds ve grids to help you sort and memorize your con gurations e g A1 to A5 for mic only setups B1to B5 when some line inputs are on duty C1to C5 for complex setups that include d...

Page 8: ...d by the mix icon next to the 7 and 8 black squares note the screens are visible in very bright sunlight to save backlight power see TECHSET 03 Backlight p 33 Rectangular screen Operating functions co...

Page 9: ...operator the routing button displays the Out maps on the three circular screens These screens respectively become left both and right ears In REC since the Out maps checking has no interaction with t...

Page 10: ...thumb while the blue shift button may be pressed by the index finger silver in REC insert a marker on the y in PLAY go to operator record marker shift silver in REC trigger AutoSlate detection in PPR...

Page 11: ...mv below the operator entered Batt Alert level both inputs are put on duty This allows the simultaneous use of a 12 5V NiMH battery with alert level set to 10 5V and a 14 4V Li Ion battery with alert...

Page 12: ...of each day and is named for the date e g 20041206 AAD see Calender Time p 13 Because original multi monophonic les sometimes have to be interleaved into large polyphonic les for crippled editing mach...

Page 13: ...st turn OFF Cantar then turn it back ON and answer YES or go to TEST Sync Time At startup you will notice a blinking int c or ext c icon depending upon the master internal clock or slave external cloc...

Page 14: ...00 00 The Cantar record run mode lets you use the pre record buffer without creating TC overlaps For example if the preceding take ends at 01 45 00 and the pre record buffer is set at 35 seconds the n...

Page 15: ...second is the time it takes to shoot 30 frames of NTSC video i e 1 001 Earth second As soon as you enter Camera fps 23 98NDF or 29 97NDF Cantar knows it must work in the slow second world its TCXO clo...

Page 16: ...the phase of a mic input signal a triangle appears below the concerned mic num ber on the middle circular screen High pass filters and line attenuators Click the so fil tom button 2 of a mic to open t...

Page 17: ...e The slave tuning range is 12dBu of its master s value Protecting the balance faders The balances being locked in AUDIO TC 07 the slaved faders are protected against flying fingers a key appears in t...

Page 18: ...dback levels In TEST shift silver opens LVL DELAY 01 The line out level is jog adjustable from 0 to 94dB and Mute A 18dBFS tone delivers a 10dBu line output compatible with HD cameras line inputs LVL...

Page 19: ...ync audio p pick up w wild track a announce n no good This tpwan is select ed with the red button Take two digits An open CCCCCCCC CC template is also available see AUDIO TC 09 ScTk Templt p 31 At eac...

Page 20: ...modifying the native files stored in the internal HDD If you are working in simultaneous mirroring mode these modifications are immediately applied to the external drive files as well But if you are...

Page 21: ...or a discontinuous free run time of day TC No time overlaps are created on the breaks since Cantar waits for 3 seconds to validate the new LTC then goes to REC while splicing the preceding three secon...

Page 22: ...erential delays When a track solo is activated the selected track s modulometer is differentiated from the others by a dashed appearance Track dis arming It is wise to momentarily disarm a track when...

Page 23: ...licks boom noise dialogue slip etc While in PLAY they are accessible with the silver button Rec Play rst read p 45 p 46 As explained in the tutorial two recording modes Live and Clone can be used Live...

Page 24: ...g VTR Reminder when going to PLAY or BLUE PLAY take your time while passing over STOP if the message you were too fast appears go back to STOP for one second Play card creation read p 45 p 46 1 In BLU...

Page 25: ...er is a One drive one title one arbitrary date folder storing files to be played These files must feature a metadata container compliant with iXML v1 50a i e recorded on a Cantar v2 11 or later To upd...

Page 26: ...Save Load Setup 05 Backlight 06 View Fader dB 07 Record beeps 08 Clip detection beep 09 Lack of ext clock beep 10 11 Beep routing level 12 Meter speed 13 Peak hold duration 14 15 BatL BatR alert 16 HD...

Page 27: ...og the cursor through Tracks 2 3 and 4 until you land on Track5 odd tracks are on the outer circle even tracks on the inner circle Go to the pixel opposite Line in1 accept with the black button reject...

Page 28: ...o the last track record ing of an eight track re recording session see RR8 p 18 T7 T8 in grid check In REC to silently check the active in grid PUSH the So loMixPan slider to the battery side and pres...

Page 29: ...to unlink Inputs to outputs Any input even if it is not routed to a track can be directly routed to the monitor outputs While the blinking black cur sor runs on the inner ring of the circular screen...

Page 30: ...EC se lecting a different Out map doesn t affect the integrity of the recording Verbatim Cantar only uses the Solo and Pan posi tions of the SoloMixPan three position slider here is a memotechnic meth...

Page 31: ...sliders guide indentation 06 PreRec Dur 1 to 35 sec Pre record buffer duration Up to 35 seconds 8 tracks 24 bit 48kHz Up to 17 seconds 8 tracks 24 bit 96kHz 07 BalanceLock Unlocked Locked Slaved fader...

Page 32: ...enabled 16 RecRun Init 01h00m00s Time jumps one hour at each rectangular screen bottom line opening Rtc record run is activated for the recording ses sion and stays there until another TC Source is se...

Page 33: ...desired can be saved keep them for later use in the internal HDD Copy them onto a laptop before returning your Cantar to the rental house Next time you rent a Cantar you can re import those Setups and...

Page 34: ...Go to TEST to wake up the HDD it will be up to speed within 3 to 10 seconds the pre record buffer hides this speed ramp up Cantar s cold start from a totally un powered machine to recording is a blaz...

Page 35: ...proceeding 1 Connect a cable to the Cantar Firewire socket while it is unpowered p 5 2 To avoid any power interruption during the follow ing operations ACTIVATE BOTH ON BOARD FULLY CHARGED BATTERIES b...

Page 36: ...RAM Almost identical operations for HDD and DVD RAM HDD erasing formatting auto FAT32 Since Cantar HDDs do not use a proprietary format they are directly accessible by both Mac and PC Each disk must b...

Page 37: ...ens access to file deletion To reduce disk frag mentation file deletion only works on full workdays Use a laptop to perform the not recommended erasure of indi vidual files Select Day to Del The curso...

Page 38: ...he take types t p w a n Wild contains the w takes only The name max 8 char of the report indicates the treatment applied to the files For example 071224AR is made of 071224 the YYMMDD of the calendar...

Page 39: ...s during the next Run Backup of the day It is preferable to use IdleCopy which resaves files that have been updated PolyStore To speed up the end of day Run Backup PolyStore copies on the internal HDD...

Page 40: ...king a DVD takes just as much time as burning it 08 FilesToCopy Unarchived All The default is All Select Unarchived before starting a CD DVD mid day copy this causes the software to look at the Archiv...

Page 41: ...p disk The Sound Report builder adds about one minute to the backup process three files are produced a ready to print PDF a tab delimited CSV for spreadsheet applications an ALE list for editing machi...

Page 42: ...T32 using Windows XP or Vista CD DVD Burners CD DVD burners such as LiteOn tray SW431 SW852S Pioneer tray DVRK14 NEC tray ND6500A good burner but only accepts hard to find 8x DVDs should be replaced w...

Page 43: ...the only on location digital recorder allowing the STEREO monitoring of the complete Sound eld B Format which includes 5 1 with no extra accessories Thanks to its on board mixer sliders it is easy to...

Page 44: ...hots by another means than the user bits that is the DayStamp Reading the following lines give special attention to the difference between the AudioTapeRef which stores the DayStamp into each and ever...

Page 45: ...L performed in BLUE BRWS 01 20 p 25 they become rec play ready play files A B are reserved for the current day of the current project C D E F are reserved for any day of the current project G H I J K...

Page 46: ...in grid RPA p 18 To redo a mixdown under the control of the on board mixer or CantaRem select in grid RPM p 18 in which the Xa Xb mixdown goes to T7 T8 note that you can add a simultaneous translation...

Page 47: ...over the tracks going to the pan pots 4 generating the mixdown input 1c Armed tracks 5 deep blue circled go to the disks and also to the Left Center Right track monitoring switches 6 Analog and digita...

Page 48: ...ic 5 Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 Line 1 2 Line 3 4 Track 1 Track 2 Track 3 Track 4 Track 5 Track 6 Line out Foldback The assigned fader is the one displayed while releasing the key The new assignment...

Page 49: ...click the desired one 4 Connect the latest Cantar ID will show at next connection 5 Status for maintenance engineers Working Screens R can w displays the modulometers prefader and mix er gains plus t...

Page 50: ...e Permanently installed on a video camera its internally adjustable line level LTC out is recorded on an audio track of the camera this bonds the record run Video TC of the camera to the free run Audi...

Page 51: ...he corrupted one Q How to edit DVD RAM discs with a Mac A Apple is not DVD RAM friendly First install SoftArch WriteUDF http www softarch com then if you use a laptop equipped with an E economic Super...

Page 52: ...c2 Mic5 on XLR3 1 Gnd 2 Hot 3 Cold Mic in XLR5 F Symetrical transformer 0dBu 24dBu w pad Mic3 Left or M 1 Gnd 2 Hot 3 Cold Mic4 Right or S 1 Gnd 4 Hot 5 Cold Line in XLR5 F Assymetrical 4 4k ohm 10dBu...

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