Cranesong Egret

CraneSong Egret | 8-channel D/A Converter and Summing Mixer

The CraneSong Egret D/A Converter and Summing Mixer is the newest product from uber-boutique Cranesong designer Dave Hill. The Egret is designed to be connected as an 8-channel D/A (which also does Sample Rate Conversion!) which feeds through each channel’s independent discrete Color circuits which add 2nd and 3rd order harmonic content to taste. Each channel also sports an effects send as well. While the channel sections add all kinds of “tape-esque” flavor to each element, the summing section of the mixer is extremely clean, leaving you with total control over the elements and with a beautifully blended stereo mix.

Egert is a highly flexible workstation back end. It contains 8 channels of high quality D/A converters and a stereo line mixer with color options to help bring analog summed digital mixes to life.

The stereo mixer has a level control, a cue send, a color control, and a pan control on each channel. Each channel also contains an analog / digital source button, and solo – mute buttons.

By using the balanced direct outputs and the balanced analog inputs you can insert analog processing into individual channels. The built in cue bus with its master level control can be used as an effects send. A balanced stereo effects return is built into the system.

The master bus level control, a stepped attenuator, has 1 Db steps for most of its range, Thisallows for accurate gain control, repeatability, and stereo gain matching to better than .05 db.

The headphone system allows a monitor mix to be created when Egert is being used in multichannel location recording. Thus providing fail safe knowledge that all channels being recorded contain proper audio.

The D/A converters support sample rates up to 192K and have sample rate converters on each channel for input jitter reduction. There is a front panel switch to disable the SRC for cases where lower latency is required. The system is built so that the converters and the interface can be upgraded as the technology changes.

The standard interface supports AES single wire to 192KHz, ADAT, and S/MUX to 96K. The converters can also be independently operated, even at different sample rates.

Egret is built so that the stereo and cue buses can be chained together to create a multiple input system. With a special cable Egret’s stereo bus can also be tied to a Crane Song SPIDER as a way to sum additional analog inputs while working in a mix mode.