Cantar X3 Overview – A Journey to the Industry’s New Flagship

by Glen Trew

A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to Europe, and while there visited Aaton’s headquarters in beautiful Grenoble, France to better get to know the company that makes the new Cantar audio recorder. Aaton President, Jacques Delacoux, met me at the Grenoble train station. We walked to an historic part of the city where, in the same well-seasoned brick and wood buildings that produced the famous Aaton 16mm motion picture cameras, seeming almost out of place was the ultramodern, precision-built, nothing-else-like-it, Cantar X3.

 

Aaton President Jacques Delacoux (L), Glen Trew (R) holding the Cantar X3

Trew Audio is happy to be representing Aaton in the US and Canada, and will soon have factory service training to support our Cantar customers. Keep in mind that there is a delivery backlog, so contact your favorite Trew Audio location to hold your place in line.

The Aaton Digital company, restructured two years ago under the new leadership of Jacques Delacoux, has a refreshing approach of focusing on the needs of the market. Aside from the similar unique appearance and layout shared with the X1 and X2, that is why the Cantar X3 is a very different machine.

The two-day visit with Aaton was relatively short, but my journey to the Cantar X3 actually began about ten years ago…

Aaton’s first Cantar recorder, the X1, started making its way into the US market around 2004. It had a striking and unique appearance that instantly made it intriguing, received the respect of all, and was embraced by many, but even ten years ago I found its reliance on traditional hardwired controls and routing to be limiting at a time when microprocessor-based mixer/recorders were available with functions that could evolve (improve) with a user-installed firmware revision. With the advantage of hindsight over the last ten years, it’s clear that “future proof” microprocessor-based, digitally controlled design was, indeed, the way to go. The Cantar X3 is future proof.

A universal comment about the X1 and X2 was that it was difficult – if not nearly impossible – to remember the sequence of wheel turns and button holds needed to accomplish even commonly needed tasks. But if that is what the name Cantar conjures up for you, it’s time to let it go… The X3 is sensibly laid out and fast to configure. Its wide display shows the settings, levels, and routing in a way that they are easily seen a glance. It even has a “help line” at the bottom of each screen to describe how to select various functions of that screen. The Cantar X3 is intuitive. 

Spending most of the very pleasant second day at the Grenoble facility, I received a thorough tutorial by Pierre Michoud (Aaton sales and customer support) and met the engineering and assembly team.

Click for high resolution image

 

Briefly:

The Cantar X3 is a 24-track file-based recorder with timecode. It has a built-in mixer with 10 vertical faders, 8 high quality mic pres with rotary gain controls, 4 additional line inputs, 2 AES42 inputs, 8 AES/EBU inputs, 8 analog outputs, 8 AES outputs. It is waterproof (within reasonable limits). A port is available for an optional Dante module, giving it up to 64 additional channels. It can record simultaneously to four storage devices: An internal removable SSD drive (256G included), two SD cards, and a USB drive.

The three monochrome displays of the earlier Cantars have been replaced with a very nice large, bright, high-resolution color display that easily tilts for best viewing position. The display size makes it ideal for a touch screen, though it is not. The decision was made to go with a non-touchscreen so the X3 could fill the market demands now instead of delaying delivery. Touchscreen technology does exist for the display, so I predict that a touchscreen will be available in the future when there is time to write touchscreen software. The display is easy to remove with just a few screws, so in the event a touchscreen becomes an option it will be an easy change. An external 12-fader control surface called the CantaRem-2 is in development, as is an Aaton designed carry case (with a very different approach), both of which should appear before the end of this year.

When first holding the Cantar X3 most will be surprised by how lightweight it is. This is primarily due to the fact that the aluminum chassis is now machined (the older ones were cast) and the new lithium batteries (two, hot-swappable). Another surprise will be how smooth the 10 vertical faders are. While using the same magnetic linkage as the X1 and X2, the fader control surface on the X3 has less friction, and therefore much smoother. The knobs on the 8 gain controls (think of them as input trim) are amazingly smooth, and should remain that way for life because they are actually riding on steel ball bearings pressed into the chassis. These rotary controls have no mechanical connection to the circuit. Instead, they have an embedded magnet positioned above a sensor on the circuit board. The sensor detects the orientation of the magnet to determine the position of the knob. Nothing to wear, nothing to get dirty, nothing to get noisy. Genius.

There are many more details about the operation of the X3 that we will cover soon in a thorough review and video tutorial. Until then, possibly the most important feature that should be emphasized about the Cantar X3 is that it is a microprocessor-based digitally controlled device. This basically means that all of the buttons, knobs, faders, meters, and lights, display, as well as the input and output routing, are controlled by its internal computer. So, as needs change, or as better ideas are thought of, every one of these functions can be altered with a firmware revision. To a large degree, this makes the Cantar X3 future proof, extending the useful life of this important investment. And you will want to use this amazing machine for a long time to come.