Sony DMX-R100
Two years after launch it was already Sony's best-selling console ever - and the people who bought it weren't buying a spec sheet, they were buying a sound.
Overview
Sony's own advertising for the DMX-R100 leaned hard on testimonials. Grammy-winning engineers were quoted saying the company "broke the mold," that the R100 was "the best small-format console ever," that what goes in comes out. Marketing copy is not a verdict, and collectors discount it. But the independent press largely backed the advertising up. Mix (February 2002, p.92) reported that within two years of its introduction the DMX-R100 had become Sony's most successful console ever, with more than 1,200 units in use worldwide - far past the company's own sales projections - and a TEC Award along the way.
That puts the R100 in an odd spot on the used market: too digital to be a "vintage" analog console, too old to be current, and yet working engineers still keep them in service. The pitch was multitasking. Studio Sound (November 2000, p.77) framed the R100 around a scenario every engineer recognizes - the guitarist wanting more in his cans, the singer wanting last night's mix, the client asking for 5.1, the producer watching the clock - and positioned the console as the thing you rely on when all of that lands at once.
The console carries 99 snapshots per title, letting a user memorize and recall the state and values of essentially every mixer function. It also has comprehensive dynamic automation covering faders, cuts, pans, EQ and filters, dynamics, and aux sends. The automation is touch-sensitive. One studio owner quoted in Sony's materials specifically praised being able to erase or turn off a bad automation move without grief. There is a full input module with a knob for every key function, and a high-resolution touch screen that becomes, in the company's phrasing, an extension of the operator's hands.
Surround was built in. Version 2.0 of the console software added 5.1 surround mixing, and the hardware included a built-in MS decoder on linked stereo inputs plus surround panning done by touching a point in the picture. EQ Magazine (March 2000, p.99), in a first look at launch, described Sony entering the small-format digital console market with a unit positioned between the existing small-format digitals and the high-end desks - a niche the magazine clearly found worth watching.
Carnival Cruise Lines bought one for building its live revue shows. The console was shipped to Helsinki, installed in the main lounge of a new ship, and put to work producing shows during the Atlantic crossing to Miami, functioning as the centerpiece of a portable rolling studio. The company's audio supervisor reported the board could run the R100 while simultaneously burning master CDs, printing rehearsal cassettes for dancers, and backing up to ADAT. He singled out the onboard EQ and compressors as genuinely good. A separate user, Seattlemusic, borrowed a second R100 from a Sony rep and cascaded the two boards to record a 100-piece orchestra, a 24-piece choir, and an organ for a theme-park film score. He reported a minimal learning curve, intuitive routing for a digital mixer, and superb sound quality.
The internal patch bay only shows its value after months of use. One composer noted that even after adding a great deal of outboard gear to his room, the R100's internal patching had actually lightened the load on his digital patchbay - the console was doing most of the routing for him. The R100 was designed for people whose day involves tracking, mixing, pre-production, and post, often in the same session.
It is not a synth. Anyone arriving here from the synth index should know that the DMX-R100 is a digital audio mixer, not an instrument. It lands in this archive because it is a piece of serious Sony studio hardware from the period, and because the people who own them tend to own a lot of other gear too.
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