sound board

[April Tvarok]

I am looking to upgrade my sound board.  I currently have a Mackie 24-8, but it is in pretty bad shape.  I am thinking about replacing it with an analog board because it is an easier learning tool, but really have no idea where to start. We usually have students run audio for theatre productions.  We do not mic any live music, so we use mics, and cd/mp3s. Any suggestions on a high quality  board?  I am upgrading to a 32 channel board as well.

Thanks!

April Tvarok

TD, Abington Friends School

[Alexander Taylor (Mailing List)]

Hello,

We just upgraded from the same board you have to an Allen & Heath iLive system.  It sounds like that's not what you're looking for, but I'd be happy to discuss why we went with that system if anyone's interested.

I've had good luck with the Soundcraft GB series, as well as most things Allen & Heath.  I think the big question for you, is what kind of budget do you have for this?

I'm slightly confused when you say you don't mic any live music, but do use mics.  I assume you're referring to speeches, etc. then?  What other kinds of things do you run sound for?  You mention you run audio for theater productions, is that wireless mics, or something else?  Do you need all the 32 channels simultaneously, or not?

I hope that helps.

Alexander

Alexander R Taylor
ata...@orcsd.org
Auditorium Technical Director
Oyster River High School

Durham, NH

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[Robert Ullinger]

If you want to go analog, I would suggest the Allen & Heath GL2400 as a tried and true board.  

However, I would not pass by digital boards because of the learning curve.  Kids in school live in a digital world, and they can pick up the concepts of a digital board quite quickly.  Also, for most consoles, you can download software that you can then use in a classroom situation on a smart board, or even just with a projector, for teaching and demonstrations.  And while they are more generally expensive than analog, you can save some by not having to purchase system processing, as most digital boards have onboard EQ, delays, and compression/limiters for  each output.  And a digital snake can cut installation costs as well.

For a school environment, I would suggest the Roland M-480.  This is an board that is way too often overlooked.  The production company that I work for has had 2 in our rental stock for 4 years or more, and they have held up very well, in all types of environments and for all types of shows.  They are rugged, have lots of processing, and are very intuitive to operate.  You can download the software to run on any PC which is great for classroom training, and makes an already easy to operate board even easier.

Hope this helps.

Rob

[Dan Parker]

We just bought a Presonus StudioLive. A very good entry level digital console for the price.

[Alexander Taylor (Mailing List)]

Isn't that the one that has all the digital processing and I/O capabilities, but without the motorized faders?

We've rented an LS9 for our big musicals before we got the iLive system here, and I would cue the show so one person was hitting Go reading the script to (Un)Mute, while the other just had to worry about making it sound good.  Lots of prep-work, but makes the show much less error-prone for us.

I would not recommend a Yamaha digital board, I'm a very technical person and I get really turned around and confused on the ones I have to use regularly.  In the few weeks we've had it, I've been very impressed with the simplicity (and depth behind it) of the iLive.  I don't know what the price point on the A&H GLD systems are, but you might want to look into those as well.

Alexander

[Ben]

Did a similar thing with the LS9 recently at my college. I was on headset with SM and deck technicians while following the script, advancing scenes, and running effects, and the other guy was mixing. Worked out pretty well, and it made it a lot for the person mixing as they can focus more on the sound and let the other person worry about other stuff.

LS9 can get complex fast but after some time with the manual, it’s a pretty powerful board.

— Ben

[Robert Ullinger]

No, the Roland M-480 has motorized faders, and it can also be programed a series of scene that can be used as cues.

Rob

[Alexander Taylor (Mailing List)]

My apologies for the confusion, I was referring to the Presonus StudioLive.

Thanks,

Alexander

[April Tvarok]

Just to clarify, we use our board for musicals (mics for actors, area mics), speakers/lectures, and cd/mp3 playback/sound effects for shows.  We do not mic bands, or mic live music at all. 

Thanks for everyone's input so far!  Very helpful!

April

[April Tvarok]

Alexander, I am curious why you went with that board.  I teach a beginner class on stage sound and lighting.  I am thinking analogue because the students will be able to see where everything is and how it is laid out with out any hidden menues.  I have my students run audio for productions as well, so they need to be able to change things very quickly on the fly.

Thanks for your help!

April

Abington Friends School

Jenkintown, PA

[Michael Heinicke]

I will say that my digital board is less intimidating to new students than an analogue board. Almost every student I've taught panics at the number of knobs and buttons on an analogue, even once I explain that the knobs all do the same thing. The digital isn't as intuitive as far as signal path, but getting a student started on basic operation does seem to be easier.

Mike

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From: April Tvarok <atv...@gmail.com>
To: hst...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 10:50 AM
Subject: Re: [hstech] sound board

[Teqniqal]

I design systems for many school theatres and the direction almost everyone is going is toward the digital consoles.  This is for several reasons, the most important is that is presents a relevant learning challenge towards what they will likely encounter in college or show production outside of the school.  The AVID S3L system (www.avid.com/US/products/S3L-System) is simple to install, and fully integrated with ProTools and AVB digital signal networking.  This allows you to record shows, edit special effect tracks, and seamlessly work with the show.

Another advantage with most digital boards, is that once you get it configured, you can save the configuration to a USB memory stick and keep it in a secure place.  If someone boogers-up the board, just reload the last good saved settings and pick-up where you left-off.  The A&H digital boards are quite flexible, too.

Don't get all caught-up with needing a lot of physical fader channels, once you get used to the digital mixing environment, the fewer the better.  Less clutter in the booth.

One of the best places to mix sound is in the middle of the house, this lets you hear what the audience hears.  Larger boards with larger video monitors can be quite distracting with all the glow and blinky things, so a smaller mixer, or one that can be remote controlled from an iPad, can be quite nice to use.  Remember, if you go fully digital you don't need all those racks of effects gear, CD players, tape decks, etc. to clutter your workstation.

If you get a digital board, consider getting a touch screen monitor with a USB "acts like a mouse" touch interface AND a good track ball like the Kensington K64325 Expert Mouse.  This will make the interface to the screen much more intuitive - some things are easier to poke at on the screen, and some things are easier to point at and click.  Track balls are proven to be faster to target, and the cursor doesn't move after you let go of the ball (unlike a mouse where clicking the buttons can cause the cursor to move inadvertently).

Apple Computers now have an AVB driver for the network port (for the models with AVB capable network ports), so the ProTools can talk directly to the board with all the sound tracks, no need for a special interface, but if you have several AVB devices connected you 'll have to get a AVB compatible network Switch (like the LabX Titanium 411).  Other computer platforms (PC) can be made AVB compatible with special Network Interface Cards (NIC) and a software driver.

[Alexander Taylor (Mailing List)]

Hello,

Sorry for the late response, it's holiday concert season up here...

We went with the iLive system for several reasons.  This is a bit of a long story.

Our theater opened in 2004, as part of a large renovation to the High School here.  The theater is well designed, but the implementation had some bad spots.  We have a dedicated center-house mix position, with all the installed lines we have in the theater split there.  That's 38 XLR lines running there.  The Elco multipin they installed is about 6' short of being able to reach the mix position when plugged in at the floor box.  The conduit from the booth to that box is only 3/4".  A 3/4" conduit stuffed full of 38 XLR lines.  So, surprise surprise, they're intermittent.

The split was accomplished by punching down both the lines from the center-house position, and the lines from the connection in the booth into the same connector on the patchbay, which spreads the fingers out of tolerance.  They also got all the connector plates (multipin, intercom, and XLR wall plate) with pre-made pigtails, and butt-spliced them into the lines they pulled through the walls.  Some of them are intermittent.  Go figure.

So, that lead us to explore the options for digital, as we'd need to basically re-terminate the entire system, and pull everything out of the conduit to FOH and replace it.  The conduit is buried in concrete, if I haven't mentioned.  Since we couldn't fit that many lines back into that conduit, we found we could get 6-8 cat6 lines in it.

At my other job (Part-time A/V tech for the University in town), we have 2 Yamaha 01Vs we use for most shows.  So, we looked at the LS9, M7CL, but this was back before you could get the PM5D without the integrated preamps, so it wasn't seriously considered.  The problem that eventually disqualified this series of consoles, is they all have onboard preamps.  You can buy digital snake systems as add-ons, but all the onboard pres would just be sitting there unused for us 90% of the time.  This made it not make sense for us, paying for all that we wouldn't use.  I also really don't like the layout/workflow for them.  I can get around it, but I find it cumbersome.

We looked at the new Roland digital console system, which included a digital snake system.  I don't remember the specifics for it at the moment, as it was several years ago.  In concept the console looked like it generally fit the bill, but when I was looking at it more and actually got my hands on it, I didn't like it.  It felt too small, limiting, and like a v1 product to me.  I'm sure it's a great system, but it wasn't for us.

At that point, we kept apprised with what was coming into the market generally, but it wasn't until the Mackie we had really bit the dust that we got serious to push for the money we needed.  Then, we got a demo of the iLive system.  I love how the mixrack is completely separate from the surface, they can operate completely independently.  For small shows, I can just use my iPad, or I can rent a big surface if I need it.  I also really like how the processing and channel strips are set up.  I love that I can color-code and label every strip on the desk.  I hit the select button on the strip, and all the processing for that channel is set up in big, easy to use and understand controls at the top of the desk.  We have the T112 surface now, so there's control of the preamp (Gain, pad, Phantom power, polarity), Gate, 4-channel parametric EQ, Compressor, Limiter, and  De-Esser.

I love how these are all spread out with nice big controls.  When I'm showing someone what's going on, it's really easy for everyone to see and follow along.  Everything is of course available to tweak on the touchscreen or remotely via iPad, computer, or another surface as well.  I find this layout much preferable to the single cramped channel strip arrangement on analog desks.

All the routing and mix controls are also very easy to understand after only a brief time, in the few months we've had it, I've grown to like it more and more.  During our bigger shows, when we have enough techs available, we'll have one person mixing the tech/rehearsal, while another person (or two) is on an iPad or computer editor adjusting the channel parameters, completely independent of what's happening on the surface.  When we would do that on the LS9 we used to rent for the musical, it could only handle one user at a time.  We were constantly fighting for control over the channel, as it was all MIDI commands between the editor and console, rather than a native network setup.

We have the T112 surface, which is the largest fixed-format surface, and is just under $10k.  We have the iDR-32 mixrack, which is a 64x32 mixer, with 32x16 XLR I/O, and expandable via the network or cards to it's full 64x32.  We also have the xDR-16, which is a 16x8 XLR I/O expansion box that lives in a little portable rack, that also contains a mini12 and mini6 snake for bands, wireless, etc.  The iDR will live in our main audio rack, while the T112 spends it's time split between the booth and FOH, depending on the requirements for the show.

We're planning next year to building a permanent home for the T112 at FOH, and buying a T80 that will live in the booth.  Then we'll get the smaller iDR-16 and a R72 surface, that can be used independently for events elsewhere in our district, or linked in to the system in the theater enabling the system to handle 96x48 channels, and use the R72 as a sidecar, or for monitors.  So that's 3 consoles, and 96x48 of I/O, and as many users with iPads and/or computers working on the show as we need.  This gives us an incredibly flexible system that addresses all the problems of our venue.  It also allows the iDR-16 we have down in the TV studio to link up to the system if we want to record something.  I simply can't say enough about the power and flexibility that this system provides us.  Yes, it has it's problems, but it's just about right for what we need.

I hope that explains (in way too much detail!) why we went with this system.  I'd be happy to answer any questions anybody has about why, how, or anything about any of this.  If people want pictures or video of any aspects of the system, I'd be happy to get those as well, after the holidays.

I'm sorry if any of this is nonsensical, I've had a long week!

Thanks,

Alexander