In January 2021, DiGiCo announced New Year New Hope, giving three lucky winners three great gifts - a DiGiGrid MGB MADI to SoundGrid Interface; the first of the newly launched KLANG:kontrollers - Serial Number 1; and a DiGiCo Quantum Range console. What those entering did not know at the time was that this was an opportunity to own one of the first Quantum225 consoles, designed to bring the Quantum Processing power and features in a compact and robust work surface.
Sensitive to the hiatus in the large-scale, live touring market, DiGiCo has designed the Quantum225 to be agile and flexible allowing the system to adapt to the demands of a changing world. Specified with the new DQ-Rack with integrated Dante audio networking and users have a perfect system for AV installation and the demands of an AoIP networking environment. Alternatively, when specified with the MQ-Rack, the same platform offers the familiar MADI connectivity for a touring infrastructure allowing Quantum225 to integrate with existing systems.
The Quantum225 includes 72 inputs channels with 36 busses + Master Buss and a 12x12 Matrix. There are four MADI ports and dual DMI ports for added connectivity, 8 x 8 analogue and 4 AES channels for local I/O, built-in UB MADI, optional optics and Waves SoundGrid, plus dual PSU.
The Quantum225 also incorporates now familiar features from the existing Quantum Range including Mustard Processing channel strips, Spice Rack plugin style native FPGA processing options, Nodal Processing and True Solo.
The console comes standard with a 17-inch, full color, daylight bright, TFT multitouch screen with the Quantum Dark application, seen before on the Quantum338, combined with 41 individual TFT LCDs displaying channel information and metering, bank information, macros and more, plus, 25 100mm touch sensitive faders in two banks of 12, complemented with a dedicated user-assignable master fader with high resolution metering.
But there’s more... The defining feature of the Quantum 225 is the ability to customize the left work surface with a Mounting Bracket. This can be used to mount a laptop for creative control, or a KLANG:kontroller for immersive control. Users can even mount an extra screen to show the KLANG:app, plugin computer, console overview screen, or it could be used even to display the channel screen for the left bank of faders, transforming a Quantum 225 into a dual screen console at an affordable price point.
This custom designed, multi-purpose mounting bracket that attaches quickly and easily to the left-hand panel of the console, can also accommodate a script – particularly useful for theatre applications. The bracket can be installed at two angles with quick release to cater for all preferences or applications.
And despite being a smaller format console, the Quantum225 doesn't sacrifice connectivity, supporting 8 analog inputs, 8 analog outputs and 2 AES I/O (4 channels) as local I/O, plus 2 redundant MADI in/out at 48kHz, which can also be configured as 4 MADI I/O. At 96kHz this acts as 2 MADI I/O with full channel counts. The Quantum 225 also offers the option to add a single or dual loops of Optocore. On each loop, which is 504 channels of audio; there can be up to 14 DiGiCo racks, or a combination of racks and tie-lines around the loop. With dual Optocore loops, that’s 1,008 Optocore channels of audio and 28 racks running. In addition, the engine has a 48-channel UBMADI, so users can connect any laptop via USB and get 48 channels of recording and playback.
The console also offers two dedicated DMI slots to accommodate the growing family of DiGiCo DMI card options. Each dedicated DMI slot provides an additional 64 x 64 I/O. There is also an option to add Waves connectivity if users want to leverage SoundGrid processing.
To complement the console's connectivity, new compact, DiGiCo 6U DQ and MQ racks have been designed from the ground up specifically for new application demands. They feature 48 mic/line inputs, up to 24 analog outputs or up to 8x AES outputs. Clever audio design allows the user to reconfigure 4 of the analog line outputs to be either analog outputs or dual AES outputs. This I/O flexibility and other configuration changes are managed from the racks very own TFT Configuration screen. Standard features include dual PSU and 48k or 96k operation.
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