Cantar - Text 1
The Cantar was a multi-track digital sound recorder which grew out of the Aaton InDraw, a sound digitizing device for post-production, designed by the company. Jean-Pierre Beauviala’s main goal with Cantar was to join harmoniously very high-level technical performance with the thought behind human gestures. For him, “the hand must place itself naturally on the machine, which is its extension.”[1] He believed that no manufacturer of digital sound recorders have taken this into account. Cantar’s design thus derived from an ergonomic approach entirely different from that of its competitors, filling a need expressed at the time by many operators who were disillusioned with the digital recorders on the market.
This need to join technology and the human element goes back to the beginnings of Jean-Pierre Beauviala’s work, meaning to his projected film on Grenoble, which he wanted to be “multi-channel” by using several Nagra III sound recorders connected to the camera. Cantar should be seen as in keeping with the question of the relations with the body found between operator and machine, which Beauviala tried to advance throughout his career, mainly in the field of photochemical film cameras. This human thinking and the importance granted to the ergonomics of the machines were very important for many sound recordists, who dreaded a machine “not made with people in mind.”[2] Beauviala designed Cantar with sound recordists and modified it with their collaboration, making Cantar the result of collective labour capable of meeting the most concrete needs of the various film professions concerned.
A Device of Very Great Technical Quality
Cantar was known for its great technical quality and the reliability of its material elements. The microphone preamplifiers were very carefully prepared – Jean-Pierre Beauviala and Jean-Pierre Charras worked a great deal on this particular point. The hard disk is located in the centre of the device, protected from shocks by both a patented suspension system[3] and by other less fragile components such as the internal power supply and the batteries, providing real security for the sound recordist, but also for the film director and producer. The mixing panel was watertight, making it possible to work outdoors even in difficult weather conditions. It was possible to record on eight tracks simultaneously.[4] At the time, the Nagra V could record only on two tracks simultaneously,[5] and the Zaxcom DEVA II on four tracks (Zaxcom being the standard in the United States).[6] The number of inputs (14) was also higher, as the DEVA II had only nine (including a single analogue microphone input) and the Nagra V had five (including only two analogue microphone inputs).