Trident Di-An

Born out of London's Trident studio (1967) and then the manufacturer Trident Audio Developments, the Di-An (a contraction of DIgital ANalogue) was unveiled in 1986 as the brand's first digitally controlled console. The principle: keep a 100% analogue audio path, but replace every direct pot and switch with encoders that translate each gesture into binary, sent to the audio circuits through digital-to-analogue converters. The result: full automation of every parameter, compact surfaces, and configuration memories where classic analogue desks only offered automated level mixing.

Technically the Di-An was crammed with forward-looking ideas: an automatic gain setting (one button, musicians play loud, each input sets itself 3 dB below clipping), a fully parametric 4-band EQ + 2 filters with 4 memories A/B/C/D, a monitor section with its own EQ copyable to the channel, 24 aux sends per path, 32 group buses, 512 memorizable configurations (128 per mix) named via keyboard, two floppy drives, and rearrangeable panels on the surface. All of it came with no video screen whatsoever, against the grain of the SSL 4000 and, later, the Euphonix.

But boldness was not enough. Malcolm Toft, then head of Trident, himself called it 'vapourware': 'we made a number of fundamental errors, the major one being that we couldn't bring it to market in time.' Software-update problems (early on, you couldn't mute two faders at once), laborious on-site installations, only 32 buses in the age of 48-track DASH, and a baffling interface meant only a handful of units sold worldwide. It could not prevent Trident's sale to Reylon plc in 1988, nor the historic brand's disappearance in 2002.