Topic: Anyone starting encounter digital mixers in the wild?

[runonce]

Starting a new thread based of this one...

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=163766.0

 - and my experience last weekend.

I do sound/lights for a local country music variety show. The show owns their own theatre...so the show is always set on stage.

And, mostly I just turn stuff on and off and do some rudimentary mixing. We have a Mackie 24/4 channel board.

We do occasional road shows - and we always contract out the sound. I knew the fellow providing the system - and knew he had the same Mackie console we have.

Show up at the gig - and there's a Yamaha LS-9 Digital Mixer! Luckily my boss had decided to work this show...the guy who provided the system probably could have set me up...but that potential "Oh Shit" moment is stuck in my brain.

I know digital mixers aren't totally new - but I've only seen them a big shows. Recently, I've seen the 16 channel LS-9 go on ebay for less than 3000 bucks - which makes me wonder if we'll be seeing them soon in the club/bar band scene?

For sure - this was not the most taper-friendly mixer - nothing but XLR analog and RCA digital outs. And you pretty much have to ask the soundguy to setup/activate some outputs for you.

Of course - XLR > 1/4 TRS was the only cable I DIDN'T have...so I had to get signal from the XLR - and route it too my mixer XLR ins. It was nice to be able to dial in the LS-9 outputs just where I only needed a touch of gain from my mixer to get a good signal.

But - disappointing to find I could have recorded to a USB stick! (and I had a blank 8 gig in my pocket!)

http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/global/en/products/mixers/ls9/lineup.jsp

[page]

I know digital mixers aren't totally new - but I've only seen them a big shows. Recently, I've seen the 16 channel LS-9 go on ebay for less than 3000 bucks - which makes me wonder if we'll be seeing them soon in the club/bar band scene?

Behringer makes one now; the x32 is in the budget category and retails for somewhere around the same. One of our local bar venues has one.

For sure - this was not the most taper-friendly mixer - nothing but XLR analog and RCA digital outs. And you pretty much have to ask the soundguy to setup/activate some outputs for you.

This is really my only beef with it. I'm now competing for general outputs as there aren't any DOs, you just program the channels on the fly and that requires more time and attention from an already loaded crew. From a venue standpoint though, I totally get why they went that route.

[achalsey]

There are a few here in Asheville.  There are two Behringer x32's; one at the indoor stage at Pisgah Brewing Company (which they just bought a few months ago), and at least one is owned by Stewart Sound, who are a local mobile company that do a lot of the outdoor shows around town.  I'm also pretty sure the Asheville Music Hall has a digital board but not sure what kind (though I could be mistaken about that).

You are right though, I think it does seem a little less straight forward to get a patch if the sound guy is not familiar with the board yet, since you have to specifically designate the matrix out to certain channels.  I'm sure you can save the settings to have certain channels always be matrix outs though, but one of the first times I encountered the X32 the guy running it wasn't totally familiar with it so it took a little while for him to run through menus to find how to assign the matrix out to specific channels.

[runonce]

I guess Behringer bought Midas - and all that came with it...?

I've heard good things about the new Behri mixers - despite being in the budget category.

If we end up with one at our theatre - wouldn't be surprised if its a Behringer.

We have an old Yamaha O2R - but thats more a recording console I think...although we did use it for a big show at the Toyota center in York PA.

[page]

You are right though, I think it does seem a little less straight forward to get a patch if the sound guy is not familiar with the board yet, since you have to specifically designate the matrix out to certain channels.  I'm sure you can save the settings to have certain channels always be matrix outs though, but one of the first times I encountered the X32 the guy running it wasn't totally familiar with it so it took a little while for him to run through menus to find how to assign the matrix out to specific channels.

now that you mention it, it would probably be beneficial to read the manual for future reference. If nothiing else, to help a less than ready crew member.

http://www.behringer.com/assets/X32_P0ASF_EQSG_EN.pdf

[kcmule]

We've started using the Soundcraft SI Expression 3 consoles.

[yousef]

There are a couple of the Yamaha ones in use in Manchester at the moment. Really hate the "omni out" set-up - once the main outs and monitors and whatever else are hooked up, you're basically left with two (maybe three) outputs and, as has been said above, you have to rely on the soundguy to configure them correctly - and presumably make sure they remain set-up similarly for each 'scene' if there are multiple bands playing.

I've no doubt that those big Behringer desks will soon become ubiquitous, for better or worse.

[0vu]

I probably see more digital consoles than anlogue ones on the shows I work on. Last weekend it was a Digidesign Venue Profile (horrible thing!) but mostly it's DigiCo or Midas or on smaller shows one of those unpleasant sounding Yamaha MC7/MC9 things. If it's one of the MC's I prefer to take analogue mic splits and sort out my own premaps/converters. If it's a DigiCo or Midas they're usually ok to take a digital split of some sort.

Here's a few snaps (Sorry if they're too big - I'm not sure how to make them re-size smaller)

DigiCo D1 Front of House


And same show, same venue different date. (This show now uses an SD something or other but I haven't got any pics of that yet.)


DigiCo D5 (bottom) driving Front of house and D1 on recording duties


Same show...different angle (D1 with SADiE LRX2s foreground and back right doing 64 track records)


One you don't see often - Yamaha PM1D (left and some kind of expensive looking lighting console (right)

[rhinowing]

beautiful venue in those first two photos. where is that?

[0vu]

It's the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK. http://www.royalalberthall.com/ Home every summer to the biggest music festival in the world, the BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (aka The Proms) which I think is in it's 119th year this year, and used during the rest of the year for everything from classical concerts to rock/pop concerts, big name comedians, corporate conferences, exhibitions, ice skating, tennis, boxing, even Cirque du Soleil shows. It's a great venue. Though being a circular building with a domed roof the acoustics are a little ...er... challenging.

The venue for pics 3&4 is pretty good too (though you can't see it in the pics) if you like big churches. It's Westminster Cathedral (below in a long shot from the same show). The three domes in the roof make for an interesting acoustic but it's great fun to record there. The DigiCo desks shown above were positioned in the rear right hand corner behind the block of seating just starting to be visible in the bottom of the pic below, so out of shot beyond the bottom right of the pic).

[John Willett]

And the last photo (the Yamaha PM1D one) in 0VU's post is the Cadogan Hall in London, round the corner from Sloane Square. 

[0vu]

Certainly is, John 

Here it is from another angle. (This was taken during the de-rig as I'd forgotten to take any pics before the show. We'd already struck all the stage mics except the solo and wind spots and were about to start on the hanging stuff.)

[yousef]

Those are some beautiful rooms. So tempted to post some pictures of the more, er, esoteric venues that Manchestertaper finds itself taping or running sound in... This weekend: an ex-squash court in the basement of a snooker club with a Mercury Prize winner headlining 

[IowaClint]

I run a Roland M-480 with all the bells and whistles.  Nice piece of gear.  What you all are talking about is the assignable outputs from the back of the board.  If the soundguy isn't up to speed on that console good luck getting a patch.  The Gui's on these boards are sometimes ridiculous and makes it a pain to setup outputs and Fx's on Aux's.
~Clint

[bugg100]

We've started using the Soundcraft SI Expression 3 consoles.

Yeah, my main club has one of these. Seems nice for the FOH staff, but it totally made my HD24 obsolete. Worst thing? The multi-digital output card isn't available yet, even then it means taping with a laptop. Not my idea of fun.....

Joe