advice on buying studiolive 24 digital mixing console

[bharat]

hi all,

 

I have a sound company and tour with a band . band is pretty hot but works fine with 24 channel gb4 . wanted to buy a new mixing console for the other rig (maybe soundcraft gb4/8).

 

or

 

shall i buy a presonus studiolive 24 .4 for the older rig as upgrade and use older gb4 for other rig?

 

I know there is big difference in price from other big digital consoles .

 

Is it worth buying a studiolive for sound quality? or shall go with an analouge now and wait for a yamaha or midas later . please tell any issues or experiences with studiolive 24.

 

thanks,

bharat

[samkokajko]

I am a bit of a digital fanboy but I wouldn't really even look for a new analog board (I would look at used though depending on budget).

 

In that price range the benefits of analog don't compete with digital for me. I need it to have a good interface and fill my needs regarding channel count and such. If it has that it's going to win because of functionality vs price vs size etc.

 

If we were talking a lot more money I might start looking at analog for the sound quality but you have to have a serious amount of cash before that really becomes much of a derermining factor. The studiolive and the other low price digital consoles sound fine for most jobs.

 

The other major reason to go analog over digital is the walk-on user friendliness. Are you going to have guest engineers walking up to this console for the first time? Will they be able to use it?

 

If it's just you, go digital.

[TheDoctorMo]

StudioLive benefits short list:

 

Allows you to reduce, or eliminate, outboard processing gear.

Save/recall settings for specific uses/venues.

Firewire recording interface.

Can be chained to other SL mixers to increase the channel count.

Excellent sound quality (In my opinion).

Remote mixing ability.

[trmckenz]

can't beat the StudioLive as far as "bang for your buck" is concerned. so many options, it's smart, expandable, and sounds fantastic. i highly recommend it!!

[Craig Vecchione]

Your post is all over the map with questions about different consoles, but you did ask specifically about sound quality. You need to determine what you actually need the new console to do.

 

Based on your post, you're going to get a lot of "yeah get it!" replies from people who have digital consoles. But I don't know if moving over to digital is going to make any difference.

 

If improved sound quality is the only criteria, then no, don't count on any improvement from any of the consoles you've mentioned over your existing GB4. You'll need to spend way more than you want to get a noticeable improvement, if any.

[Mutha Goose]

I'd have to agree with Samkokajko. Now that I've had my StudioLive 16.4.2 for a few months and have had the chance to really kick the tires, I'd miss the functionality and configurability of the digital board. And I really like the performance of this board.

But, it does have a learning curve. If you're going to have the same person/people on it night after night, I'd say go for it. But if you're hoping that any experienced guy could just come in off the street and get themselves up and running without a walk through, you may run into some problems and will need to plan for it.

[agedhorse]

Reliability has not yet been proven. We'll see in a few years how reliable these consoles really are.

[Crownman]

 

Reliability has not yet been proven. We'll see in a few years how reliable these consoles really are.

 

 

That's the one major thing that is always on my mind with the digital boards at this level. For myself, I much rather have an anolog board and outbaoard gear. If the board goes out I'm not completely screwed. If the digital board goes out, you're {censored}ed.

[Chickentown]

um...so you carry a backup for your analog mixer, but you wouldn't for your digital one? Wouldn't *any* piece of critical gear that dies mess up your show, digital or analog.

 

Why is the failure of analog gear easier to cope with mid-show?

 

I have a Mackie CFX that backed up my MixWiz+outboard before and backs up my StudioLive now. Aside from having to mix on that turd of a backup...how am I more F'd now?

 

Maybe your point is about servicing???

[bharat]

i think must go for a gb8 now because not sure with studiolive's reliability and other issues like sound quality, latency due to heavy processings etc. Later can go for real pro gear like m7cl or xl8 or venue

 

thanks for reply everybody

[6Imzadi]

I wouldn't just dismiss the Presonus as "not a real pro gear". I have been using minr now for over a year. Almost every weekend. No issues with the mixer. Only issues I have are with the computer I connect to it. It's used and not really built for what I'm using it for.

 

Just replaced the CMOS battery this last weekend and had to move the firewire card from the IDE slot it was in. Seems the slot stopped working. It's ok, I have 5 more slots to choose from.

 

point is that the mixer has not failed once at any show I used it. I would call it reliable.

[abzurd]

 

i think must go for a gb8 now because not sure with studiolive's reliability and other issues like sound quality, latency due to heavy processings etc. Later can go for real pro gear like m7cl or xl8 or venue thanks for reply everybody

 

 

The way you've written this reads as if there are quality and latency issues. Please cite the sources you have for these "other issues". If you're questioning whether these things are issues then please state it as a question, otherwise you're just spreading misinformation about the board.

[agedhorse]

 

i think must go for a gb8 now because not sure with studiolive's reliability and other issues like sound quality, latency due to heavy processings etc. Later can go for real pro gear like m7cl or xl8 or venue thanks for reply everybody

 

 

Sound quality and latenncy are not real issues IMO, I don't think you could actually identify that this is the case compared with any other digital (or analog) console product.

[Axisplayer]

I am not a Presonus fanboy, but I think you would be hard pressed to fault it for any issues mentioned, with long term reliability being the only question. I also don't expect any issues there but who knows.....

 

Most gear that golden ear types love loses it's edge when put in the trenches of combat audio. The weakest link theory tells me that few people who invest in a Presonus or 01v96 have good enough transducers to discern the difference if they upgraded to a H3000 or a PM5RH. What you can measure or even hear in a controlled environment seldom matters in the world of 110 db FOH, puke covered clubs, with 4-500 screaming people. Of course, YMMV but mine doesn't.

[bharat]

 

The way you've written this reads as if there are quality and latency issues. Please cite the sources you have for these "other issues". If you're questioning whether these things are issues then please state it as a question, otherwise you're just spreading misinformation about the board.

 

 

i don't want to spread the misinformation about the studiolive . I really appriciate its features for price available and that's why i am interested in buying or comparing to old analouge mixer.

 

Thanks

[Craig Vecchione]

 

The way you've written this reads as if there are quality and latency issues. Please cite the sources you have for these "other issues". If you're questioning whether these things are issues then please state it as a question, otherwise you're just spreading misinformation about the board.

 

 

 

The way he wrote his post stated that he wasn't sure about those issues. I didn't see him stating anything as fact. Keep in mind the language issue.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

um...so you carry a backup for your analog mixer, but you wouldn't for your digital one? Wouldn't *any* piece of critical gear that dies mess up your show, digital or analog. Why is the failure of analog gear easier to cope with mid-show? I have a Mackie CFX that backed up my MixWiz+outboard before and backs up my StudioLive now. Aside from having to mix on that turd of a backup...how am I more F'd now? Maybe your point is about servicing???

 

 

The concern is that an analog console is just the mixer, while the digital includes a boatload of processing that's normally peripheral. A digital mixer failure takes out the entire FOH, which would be difficult to provide backup for all components.

[Chickentown]

 

The concern is that an analog console is just the mixer, while the digital includes a boatload of processing that's normally peripheral. A digital mixer failure takes out the entire FOH, which would be difficult to provide backup for all components.

 

 

Thanks for the clarification, Criagv. Wise to consider failure and recovery when buying gear, but if the "oh-{censored}" moment happens my life isn't *that* much easier because I have a rack of outboard gear sitting next to the hole where my once-functioning analog mixer was. Given my (non-existent) budget for redundant gear in the the trailer, the show is going to be about compromises from the moment my main mixer pukes.

 

I've got a driverack and deq830 in mixer rack anyway, so I'm pretty confident I could ride out an evening on the backup Mackie sans comps/gates. Crownman may be in a different class of gig where the backup solution *cannot* be a compromise.

[Phil Clark]

 

Why is the failure of analog gear easier to cope with mid-show?

 

 

I think what you would have to do is carry not only the digital board, but an analog board with a rack for all the processors etc.... so that if your digital board dies, you have a full analog backup to go with.

 

The advantage is that as long as your digital board stays active, you don't have to load in an extra rack. In addition, mixing monitors from the digital board you can treat the monitor sends as if they were from a separate board, so you can tweak the parametric EQ for the monitors and not affect your main mix.

 

And many boards also allow for wireless control from a mobile device (Laptop, iPad, iPhone) so you can wander the room, or even wander up to the stage and tweak monitors while standing with the performer. Pretty cool capability.

[samkokajko]

It's a very good point that if you digital board goes down it kills your processing (comps/gates, verb and FX and maybe even graphic EQs).

 

Though I would say that if my board takes a dump on me during soundcheck or god forbid during a show the last thing I am concerned about is reverb or compressors. Graphics are another issue though. If I'm flying through trying to bring a show back to life after a mixer goes down I could definitely use some analog graphic EQs for their speed and ease of us.

 

It's not the same show if the mixer goes down and I lose all my processing, however the only way to have it be the same show would be to either have a cue sheet for an analog board with a duplicate analog board and try to make the settings or to have a duplicate digital board and be able to move over your show files to bring it back.

 

Just my thoughts, they are pretty scattered and don't really say something in this particular case but it's something to consider

[StratGuy22]

I'm considering the studiolive. I'd also need 3 powersmps, since my current board is powered (yorkville powermax16) I have a buddy with a 20 channel analog board (can't remember the brand, it was half decent and worked well, brand new) he's pretty good at letting me borrow it if I need it.

 

Maybe my solution is to get the studiolive 24.4.2 and then rent or borrow his to have on standby as a backup, until I can buy an analog backup of my own.

[bharat]

 

The way he wrote his post stated that he wasn't sure about those issues. I didn't see him stating anything as fact. Keep in mind the language issue.

 

thanks for support craigv and other friends on thread

 

gudluck