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Digital Console Benefits


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My niece is getting married next weekend .... so being a good Uncle, I am doing DJ services as our wedding present (although my wife is also sliding them some cash even though they have repeatedly told her no).

 

I am sitting here on this fabulous day in Michigan setting up for next weekend .... virtually speaking ;)

 

I have my mixer (X32 Rack) setup and have created scenes for my keyboard and vocal (I am also singing at the wedding). I have my speakers setup in the basement too.

 

I just learned how to use the ducking feature of the gate. Very cool for the wedding announcements. Also, the X32 has a little blue dot that runs up and down the gain reduction curve so you can not only see how your gain reduction is setup for ducking, but where the background music (at volume) puts the little ball relative to where ducking is going to occur.

 

I have also tweaked in a special vocal reverb for the song I am singing "When I say I do" along with a really nice grand piano patch with some verb on my Juno G.

 

There were lots of discoveries along the way .... like the aux inputs don't have gates.... so I had to move the inputs to DI's from the computer.

 

What I am really geeked about though is the fact that my real band setup that I have worked so hard to get fine tuned, is safely tucked away in a scene.

 

So several things that I didn't even know were going to be useful, have been quite a God-send.

 

 

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The ducking feature would be great. I did a wedding recently and made a small error - I used the "tape in" ports on the mixer (Mackie Onyx series) for the background music iPod. It turns out that is just not possible to route "tape in" to "main out" at the same time as a channel strip....I wound up tapping the break button to make annoucements. Frustrating.

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So it just turns out I'm sitting here with MacBook on lap in Xedit setting up a gig I have next Friday and thought I'd check the forum. Yea OneEng, pretty cool indeed to not even have to fire up the console to start thinking things through. As is common in this little city where I live each of the three musicians in next Fridays gig all play in other projects as well so I copied Jeremy's seven drum-channel configurations from one project and Mike's two guitar settings from another. Sure I'll absolutely have to tweak EQ and dynamics for the venue when we get there but it's really nice to have a starting point, channels named, etc. Yup, a Mackie 1202 could work but this is definitely a step forward.

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My ZED 10Fx would work as well ..... but it wouldn't do it with as much class as my X32 ..... the verbs aren't nearly as nice either..... and I would have to ride the volume knobs instead of using the ducking feature ...... and if I were trying to run my band with it as well, I would have to re-route any analog cable runs that were routed differently and take a picture of the channel strip to be sure I got everything back.

 

Sure, we can "get along" without any of these cool features. Most of us remember a time when WE were the TV remote .... as your dad grumbles from his easy chair "go change the channel for me" ;) As quaint and endearing as that is, none of us would purchase a new TV without an IR remote today.

 

Dave,

 

It is a much different world in pro audio than the one from 20 years ago.... a much better one IMHO. Hard to give up off-line editing once you have had it for a while ;)

 

 

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I guess I'm just destined to be a caveman. I recently purchased a used 32 channel Soundcraft monitor mixer to use with my A&H gl2800 for FOH. For me there is just a feeling of control to look down at any moment and see everything I need to see. I don't debate the convenience of digital, I just don't see a need for it when my analog gear does exactly what I need and the workflow is very direct. If I was doing a lot of theatre I'd probably change my mind.

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The digital consoles (x32 in my case) do just keep on delivering. It is so gratifying trying to do some new setup (like ducking) and finding out you can. Other than having to lug around so much gear, the wireless mixing feature is turning out to be one of the biggest benefits for me.

 

I do find myself guilty of the "heads down mixing" criticism voiced by many seasoned pros. These systems are complex, constantly changing, and there are too many things you can play with during the show. That is no excuse and probably this syndrome is just due to lack of experience. I think my attention was too often on the board and not on the performers even when I used a Mackie 1604 with very little outboard gear.

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Yea digital mixers have their benefits but also have shorter shelf life because the technology advancements is always changing. Here ago might get a kick out of this. http://www.creativeapplications.net/iphone/physical-touchscreen-knobs-iphone-ipad/

I don't see any reason why the digital mixer would have a shorter shelf life than an analog console. Can you elaborate?

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Not a electro/mechanical shelf life but a limited life just as computer advances in technology. A digital console will be more advanced as far as topology chip cooling/firmware and even much higher sampling

and resolution.

 

392hz sampling and 48bit?

Get my drift?

 

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I would agree that with digital mixers, it is possible to add significant value to the work-flow and feature set much more rapidly than an analog mixer design.

 

For that reason, it is also possible that GAS will set in more quickly for those of us that are susceptible to this disease ;)

 

It may also be (as Andy points out), that we are more heavily targeted by marketing in the digital world than the analog one.... thus spurring on our GAS symptoms.

 

I don't believe that the digital mixer as a device is obsolete any quicker than an analog mixer .... and in the case of something like the X32 Rack, it may actually endure longer than its analog cousins since there are very few physical components to wear out, and those physical components are seldom used.

 

Remote control surfaces are also making the actual brain center of the mixer a more abstract piece of equipment which in theory should also extend the useful life of the mixer.

 

Agedhorse .... what happened to your avatar? No horses butt ;)

 

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Not a electro/mechanical shelf life but a limited life just as computer advances in technology. A digital console will be more advanced as far as topology chip cooling/firmware and even much higher sampling

and resolution.

 

392hz sampling and 48bit?

Get my drift?

 

 

Yep this what I was referring to.

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Not a electro/mechanical shelf life but a limited life just as computer advances in technology. A digital console will be more advanced as far as topology chip cooling/firmware and even much higher sampling

and resolution.

 

392hz sampling and 48bit?

Get my drift?

True indeed. Moore's Law shows no sign of being repealed so I'd expect the internals like sampling rate etc to keep advancing and getting more precise -- though I'm not sure I could hear the difference in most live-sound settings I get to work in.

 

However, what I'm really intrigued by is the evolution of the overall system layout, workflow, and visualization of important information and relationships. It just seems inevitable that preamps and (all?) system processing be done stageside with (wireless?) remote control from FOH. While I'm getting ever more comfortable wandering the venue mixing from iPad, physical faders and basic controls still make sense when possible given we're inherently tactile creatures when interacting with the rest of the world. So why not a compact, 10-pound, 17-fader surface with a 11+" high-resolution display? Finding a FOH "base station" location in a venue would be a whole lot easier if the surface wasn't 36" wide weighing 50 lbs and requiring a 1" snake with 32 XLR connectors. Then I'd still wander around with the iPad to investigate edge cases in the coverage. Related: A while back I got "a tour" of the new Presonus AI speakers with wireless iPad control of onboard DPS for individual cabs. As I noted in a post here I don't have a sophisticated enough ear/experience to tune the 8(?) PEQs on each individual unit (at least I didn't hear anything at that time that warranted it) but given the right tool -- something similar to the Smaart room-analysis feature of the SL boards? Interesting indeed.

 

Likewise adding a RTA background to the EQ display on the X32 was something I've wanted since I first started working the SL mixers -- of course now I would like full control of the RTA [like averaging and decay rate] as allowed by the AudioTools app! I also recently got to do a 3-day live-sound workshop using a SC48 focused on mixing acoustic instruments and vocals. The display on the (Wave I believe?) multi-band compressor plugin, for one example, allowed me to visualize which frequency ranges were seeing gain reduction much better than the virtual conceptualization in my brain. Again, very interesting stuff.

 

Now before the old road dogs here jump in and correctly point out that all this new wizz-bang isn't needed as in the end it's fundamentally the ear, talent, and experience of the engineer that really matters and that an analog + rack has worked great for many years let me say I totally agree. I mean I got along just wonderfully for the first 52 years of my life without a cell phone and was planning on being the last on the planet to get one but now have also grown quite reliant on having Siri answer the most trivial question as soon as it comes to mind let alone track the thunderhead bearing down on my mix position or stream music of an artist I just learned about ten minutes ago or finding that fricking paint store that moved locations or... Now am I a better person for it? Wrong question. Will the wizz-bang digital world allow me to become a better sound guy? Hard to say -- but I see no reason to go backwards that's for sure.

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I feel I must chime in here as well. Digital mixers are a wonderful thing and they do change (and often expedite) the way we work. I am a BIG FAN of the digital world in general. With that in mind I'll play devils advocate here. Although digital boards are more accurate than analog boards, there are a few things that they still aren't as good at. For one, festival sound. The ability to quickly remix a complete show quickly & on the fly is still nowhere near as fast as with rows of knobs in front of you. I do a show once a year that is 20+ bands in succession each playing only one song. These groups vary from acoustic world music to choirs, to R&R bands. You name it, it's on that stage that day. It is quite difficult to mix monitors on a digital console under these conditions. Another failing is, a lot of times I work with BE's that want to preset & ring out monitors before SC while I drive. I have guys that ask (in one breath) "do this to the strip, this to the mix graph and spread it around at XX% to mixes 3, 4, & 5". This isn't possible to do quickly on a digital console (I drive an M7CL which is one of the faster, easier interfaces made). The funny part is often before I'm done with the complete instruction set, I get a "That's great, let's move on" :-). The other 340 days of the year, I'm really glad to be operating a digital board.

 

There is a learning curve with every board. Some are easier than others but the way they operate isn't universal. If you get intimately familiar with a particular board you can (within the confines of it's architecture) usually get pretty fast but jump on a mixer you've never driven before........... You get the idea. With so many different good products out there (and many more on the way), there is no way to keep up with all of them (this alludes to the obsolescence discussed earlier). I've worked with major pros that say "stick close as I've only driven one of these a few times and I will have questions". This negates the idea of them increasing our productivity. Once again though "The other 340 days of the year, I'm really glad to be operating a digital board".

 

My .02

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JR, I truly defer to your and others experience. That said, it may have a lot to do with what you're used to.

 

About a month ago I stopped by an outdoor "Patriot Day" show at a local City park to see an acquaintence's new JBL CC array -- a five box VRX932 hang over a pair of dual 18" JBL subs per side. When I arrived he was just finishing running sound for the first act and then asked in a bit of a fluster whether I would run it for his band up next (his arranged SR guy just called with a conflict). Hmmm, I've mixed his classic-rock band several times at my normal venue but this was my first time ever standing at a large-frame analog console (Soundcraft GB8-32) with no idea how things are patched to the two large racks nearby. "Sure" I said -- "What the heck". After a three-minute introduction to the basic layout of the board the band goes on. Things went well enough actually. As you note, no layers or hidden menus so everything was visible though I seriously had to use fingers on both hands to trace individual AUX-send rows across to the higher-numbered channel columns and then bend over and squint through my reading glasses at the little bitty numbers surrounding each. Granted, once I figured out (and eventually remembered) the frequency range of each EQ band as well as the db scale squinting was less needed but even after I got sort of comfortable with the dozen-plus rows of pots of each channel strip the little "pointers" on each pot were not easy for my aging brain to glance at and interpret. Again, familiarity would help immensely and I'm mainly relaying the story to poke fun at myself as much as make some salient point. The only large festival I've watched being mixed is the Targhee Bluegrass (coming up again in two weeks) where the installed FOH console is also a M7CL. The company supplied FOH engineer refers to it as "Guerrilla Audio".

 

I'd welcome the chance to meet you some day JR.

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Good posts guys.

 

For me, there are several gems in digital mixing.

 

The main impetus for my going digital was actually just making my rig smaller and easier to setup, tear down, and carry. Initially, just getting rid of my 22 space rack in favor of a more modest ...... lets say 4 space with slant top was what I was intending. After finally giving in to the idea of going without any physical interface (since mixing from stage I never got to actually touch my MixWiz physical interface anyway), I am now down to an 8 space rack (and looking into a 6 space roller rack).

 

The surprises were things like value, features, multi-track recording, and remote mixing.

 

And while I agree that it is likely that we will see higher internal sample rates in the future, you have a very good point on whether we will be able to hear a difference or not. After all, a 48Khz console can accurately reproduce 24Khz frequencies..... which is higher than the human ear can hear.

 

Of course, there are other considerations in processing other than the Nyquist frequency to worry about (which is why most recording consoles are 96Khz).

 

I do find it interesting that festivals are pointed out as a strength of analog consoles. I would have thought that digital re-routing would have made the task easier on a digital console than an analog one. Shows what I know eh ;)

 

I still have quite a few gems to work with in my X32 Rack. The last major version of firmware gave me access to a multi-band compressor. I have been reading up on the correct usage of such a beast and am planning on working with it with my multi-track playbacks of my band to see what good (or harm) I can do with such a tool.

 

I would also like to mention that I much prefer doing channel eq on my iPad application to using an analog mixer. Being able to pinch the Q and swipe the frequency and gain on any of 4 bands while listening to the effect is really much easier (for me) than on an analog console. Having the ability to high and/or low shelf is also very cool.

 

I haven't quite figured out what to do with the RTA display yet. It does look rather cool, and it is certainly useful for finding frequencies that are feeding back or ringing, but for normal channel eq duties, I prefer just using my ears vs. my eyes I guess.

 

 

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I was checking out the Soundcraft Si Expression

Well thought out and very quick response time for the user as far as "right there"

The big advantage I see for a unit like this is the "tools" available to the user.

This design is well thought out.

Within the next couple years I am considering a well designed tool like the Soundcraft Si Expression.

Bravo

 

 

 

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Just did monitors for Tommy Emmanuel this last year. Yep it was an M7CL. So few channels was easy as pie so I could really enjoy the show.

 

Here it goes OT. Man what a show. That man is an insanely good player. I got a good friend who's an excellent guitarist (reads & played Union pickup bands for years) in to see the show. He said he wanted to go home and burn his guitar. I hope Tommy gets booked again. One of the shows that truly bowled me over.

 

cheers

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I work with Tommy every year and it's all analog at our venue. His FOH engineer is a retired Clair guy and last tome he was throuhh we discussed the relative differences between digital and analog platforms. For some of us, there is a comfort and familiarity with the (pro) analog gear that changes or integrated the mixing into a more organic workflow. It's like the feel of a guitar rather than just considering the sound alone. For those who don't have many years of such experience, you just can't miss it or even comprehend what we are talking about. I have 30+ years of mixing FOH at the more pro level, over these years I have developed a preference for hardware and workflow that makes me appear very quick, efficient and to the point with the acts I work with. This improved the artist/tech relationship and makes for a smooth show regardless of the digital/analog debate. Aside from the user interface, there are indeed some significant benefits to digital consoles however.

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...and we had "pretty good" seats too! fetch?id=31213912&type=large

My son (and I given he was a minor at the time) got to spend fours days with Tommy in a Master's class at Jorma's Fur Peace Ranch a few years ago. Tommy's the real deal -- as authentic a human being as I've ever encountered. His virtuosity on the instrument is easily matched by his sincere interest in sharing his passion for music and inspiring others. It's always good to see him looking healthy and vigorous as inherited heart disease and the lifestyle of a touring musician are not good companions.

 

Andy I hope you and others here take my comments in the context they deserve -- that of a hobbyist with a grand total of almost 3 years experience at SR! I can only assume my perspective would be different with 30 years working at the PRO level. I defer sir.

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