'Hey, Joe!' A New Era In Multi-Channel Audio Capture (Pt. 2)

JoeCoRemote has seen the company adapt its output to suit the proliferation of tablets such as the iPad. Has the popularity of these devices created an imperative within the industry to utilise their capabilities?

It certainly seems that every manufacturer has been busy producing apps for a range of tablets. However, JoeCo has firmly stuck to the iPad with the specific aim of offering better monitoring and remote control facilities for its products. Our reasons for going there were, again, largely driven by customer demand, as opposed to simply deciding to utilise the capabilities of tablet technology because it's there. This is also why we have confined ourselves to a single platform, although we have received a few enquiries as to whether JoeCoRemote will move onto other platforms.
Together with our dedicated hardware interface, the JoeCoRemote app offers engineers a practical wireless or wired control solution for use in a range of environments, especially those with more limited lighting such as OB trucks or theatres, or situations where the BlackBox isn't immediately to hand. It's particularly useful for monitoring our 64-channel systems, providing individual channel metering and instant opportunity for creating monitor mixes using expandable channel strips and a range of parameter controls such as mute, solo, pan, PFL etc.

What can you tell us about the aforementioned BlackBox BBR1MP, due for release this year?

This is a really exciting development for JoeCo. We love the challenge of fitting as many facilities into a 1U housing as possible, which made the original BlackBox Recorder so revolutionary. The BBR1MP is a 24-channel recorder with 24 high quality, in-house developed mic preamps (operating at up to 24bit/96kHz) integrated into the 1U housing.
It's not the first time that our development team has been involved in mic pre design, but the actual inspiration for this product came from our broadcast users. Many engineers have already taken JoeCo recorders out in the field, along with several strips of mic pres, culminating in a heavy rack of up to 10U. This somewhat negates the purpose of the BlackBox, which is to provide a compact audio acquisition solution, hence their "wouldn't it be nice?" request for a set of integrated mic pres within the housing itself. The concept of course isn't new, but fitting 24 mic pres into a IU rack space along with a multi-channel recorder is, we believe, potentially pushing the boundaries.
The BBR1MP offers various connection options including individually switchable mic/line inputs and balanced outputs, video sync, time code and word clock inputs, as well as optional MADI or Dante interfaces. An optional 2U breakout panel provides XLR inputs for use on a location cart, for example. The recorder can also be remotely controlled via the JoeCoRemote for iPad, which reconfigures itself automatically. It offers a dedicated control window for the mic pres including level, mic/line, phantom power, hi-pass filter, limiter and phase reverse controls.
The Monitor window enables a separate stereo monitor mix to be set up and simultaneously mixed down while recording, for an instant 'rough mix' of the location audio. As with all our BlackBoxes, audio is recorded to external USB drive in BWAV format.

The article is also available in Broadcast Film & Video online.

(IT/JP)