Step up to a DiGiCo D5 Live and step into a new world of digital mixing.

Designed from the ground up to bring you superb sonic purity and powerful, instantly accessible control, the D5 Live is a live music mixing system unlike any other.

The D5 Live digital mixing system sets a completely new standard for live sound mixing. Its audio quality, convenience, simple and intuitive operation and cost effectiveness are a world apart from conventional mixing. This complete, self contained system does away with the need for a multicore, splitters, line drivers, dynamics processors and an entire effects rack. You can record live to multitrack using the optional DiGiTRACS hard disk multitrack recorder, and store a complete show's settings on a tiny USB key.

The standard system comprises the console itself plus flightcase, a local DiGiRack, a stage DiGiRack and a 150m drum of fibre optic cable. One glance at the innovative control surface tells you that this console has been designed for sound engineers by sound engineers.

Virtually every feature is there to see at a glance, or at most a single, logical fingertip press away. The four LCD touchscreens present their facilities exactly as you'd expect to find them on an advanced analogue console, with instant access and a refreshing lack of menus to navigate. This thoroughly intuitive approach means that, despite packing in powerful digital dynamics, an effects package, total recall of every function, a 38x8 output matrix, up to 128 input channel s and 40 multi-configurable internal buses, your learning curve will be as short as the feature list is long.

The D5 Live software gives you unparalleled flexibility in configuring your console precisely to suit the show. Whether you choose the 56 or 112 input version, your internal buses can be set up as mono or stereo auxiliaries and mono or stereo surround busses (the console is fully 5.1-ready as well as for LCRS, with three joystick surround sound panners for instant sound placement). And you can instantly select a basic set-up for either front-of-house or monitor mixing. With both types of console sharing the same fibre optic loop, automatic Gain Tracking(tm) allows either console operator to alter input gain without affecting the mix on either console. There's Ethernet support for console mirroring or a remote control PC, and options on the D5 56 include 32 insertable processing channels on an extra slave card and a powerful effects card complete with graphic equalisers.

Three solo modes and two solo busses are provided, along with the facility to 'gang' groups of input faders together for single-fader control. The dynamics package offers comprehensive frequency-conscious gating, compression and limiting with powerful sidechain EQ, and a four-band fully parametric equaliser plus high and low pass filters. Underlining the ease of use, the moment you touch an EQ control the screen displays a real-time EQ curve, with the same instant, highly accurate visual feedback provided for every other feature.

The D5's snapshots facilities have been greatly extended. At any time you can commit the console's entire status to a snapshot memory and as there's no limit to the number of snapshots you can store, you can effectively record a complete show mix settings. Then store it on a tiny USB key and recall the whole show on another continent with another D5 Live. Snapshots can be self-timed, allowing automated sequencing; relative snapshots allow venue adjustments independently of scene changes; and current or master snapshots can be updated with one touch.

At every step you'll find a wealth of clear tactile and visual information. The smooth, long-throw moving faders react precisely and predictably, and the moment you move one an adjacent backlit button shows you the level change in real time accurate to 0.1dB. 24 VCA-style control groups are at your disposal, and you can swap inputs between physical faders and groups of faders to suit your needs in a second.

More innovations can be found throughout the D5 Live. The compact and lightweight rigid frame houses a slide-out keyboard for naming channels and groups on the electronic scribble strips. The powerful bespoke DSP engine runs every channel continuously - giving you the benefit of just 2ms latency from analogue input to analogue output, equal on every channel at all times. The integral LED lighting behind the controls and the touchscreens can be dimmed, as can the elegant white LED illumination over the high resolution 30-segment LED meterbridge.

In terms of sonic performance, this is a true thoroughbred. 96kHz D/A converters provide an impeccable noise floor while 32-bit floating point internal processing delivers pure, smooth, rich musicality. Security modes prevent accidental changes during a live show, and there's failsafe recovery with no audio loss on mirrored consoles.

The design team behind the D5 Live's engineering has 10 years of experience with the Soundtracs family of digital recording consoles, and over 500 digital sales world-wide. The result is not only innovation, but road proven durability and the knowledge that whenever new features are created for the D5 Live, your console's software will be instantly updateable too.

The D5 Live from DiGiCo. A new world of mixing ideas.