Midas Pro 1 vs DiGiCo S21 vs Allen and Heath GLD

[Oliver Chilton]

I am currently choosing a desk to hire for a musical I'm designing and mixing. I've been looking around and in my budget I could get a Pro 1, an S21 or a GLD.

Just wondered if anyone had any preference out of these three for mixing musicals!

Oli Chilton

[John Evans]

I cannot claim to have mixed a musical on the Pro series or yet on the S21 but have mixed several musicals with full VCAs and other events on the GLD80 and GLD112. I really like the GLD as a console - it's a very nice general console with solid hardware and decent software. It isn't intended as a musical console, however, so there's no advanced scene automation like on the SD-T series, but it's perfectly capable of doing VCAs "properly", changing mutes and members without recalling fader positions. The iPad app is a bit confusing, if that's important for you, and sometimes the way the stageboxes have to be put out is a little annoying in terms of where sockets end up (I've always ended up running a couple of analogue ways between the digital stageboxes to get the right number of ins and outs onto the analogue multicores to band/RF.) Also make sure your CAT5 cables are well terminated - we had an issue with a tiny flaw in the termination punch causing dropouts.

I've only seen the S21 once so far and I think it looks very promising, but there's no theatre specific stuff in there and I haven't checked how much of the scene automation has been implemented yet - the software still seemed a little rough around the edges last I saw it (which was some months ago to be fair.) GLD and Pro1 are much more mature platforms however.

Thanks,

John

[Joseph Foley]

I really like the Pro1.  I rented my pro1 to a theatre for their first musical in a while.  Upside, it has a nice scene recall, and a good amount of power.  The greatest problem Ive seen time and time again, is not enough programming time, and also not enough knowledge of the console can cause the scene programming to go poorly for an operator.   If you are interested in talking more about the Pro1, I am happy to talk off list.

—J.Foley

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[Jim vanBergen]

The best thing you can do is get some hands-on time with each of these desks. I've mixed major events on desks from these three manufacturers from boards across their lines, and each has a vastly different user interface, scene recall function, and approach to mix ergonomics. It's not just the I/O and layout, but how much you can access on one page that will make a difference to designers & operators, as well as on- and off-line remote computer software.

 As with any small format console, one of the toughest things is trying to access a channel or feature that is a layer (or more) away. Another major concern is how well a console responds to very complex scene changes for shows. 

Finally, available customer support and repair should be a something you consider. 

Good luck with your decision, and let us know how you like what you choose! 

JvB

[Joseph Foley]

On the Pro1 side, I have found the Pop groups make navigation of channels very quick and easy. Like JvB said, with out getting hold of a console, working on any desk is going to be slow.

[Ben Bloomberg]

Keep in mind the S21 does not function like other Digico desks. I find it has very good features for accessing strips though. The concept of tiles is really cool and beyond layers and different from pop groups.

 But it's not like any other console out there so you definitely want to demo and see if it works for you. No theater software for it yet. Support from Digico has been amazing. No matter the time zone, I usually can get an answer by text in less than an hour. The best thing is to stop by a show room and get to know the folks there (assuming this is true for Midas too- not sure about a&h).

Ben

On Saturday, January 23, 2016, Joseph Foley <joseph...@gmail.com> wrote:

On the Pro1 side, I have found the Pop groups make navigation of channels very quick and easy.  Like JvB said, with out getting hold of a console, working on any desk is going to be slow.

[Thomas Vecchione]

I think Jim hit it on the head, but the feedback I can give you from my experience on a Pro2, and GLD.  If you have a lot of time available to learn the desk and programming, the Midas Pro series is probably the better choice, but it will take a while to get used to how to utilize the power it has, and while for running it it is fairly quick, actually programming it can take a bit.  The GLD is much easier to walk up to and go, has decent recall filtering available, and especially if using MIDI to remote control other things/desks/etc. I would be looking at it, but isn't quite as powerful on scene management as the Pro series.  Hope that helps.

         Thomas Vecchione

[Jeremy Lee]

Pop groups are awesome, but with only 16 faders on the surface (8 channel faders if you use VCAs) a lot of your time will be spent on a screen.

Don't forget the CL1 for very small format digital consoles. It actually has about the same I/O capabilities as a PM5D, in 1/4 or less the space, and much better automation.

- Jeremy Lee's iSlab

> On Jan 23, 2016, at 9:21 AM, Joseph Foley <joseph...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On the Pro1 side, I have found the Pop groups make navigation of channels very quick and easy. Like JvB said, with out getting hold of a console, working on any desk is going to be slow.
>

[Chris Hubbard]

Hi,

 

The GLD is also able to be controlled by show control software such as Palladium, and has been used in this way.

 

Full disclosure: I am the developer of Palladium.

 

Kind Regards,
Chris Hubbard,
CH Sound Design.
www.chsounddesign.com

Sent from my abacus.

On Sunday, January 24, 2016 at 1:46:59 AM UTC+11, Thomas Vecchione wrote:

I think Jim hit it on the head, but the feedback I can give you from my experience on a Pro2, and GLD.  If you have a lot of time available to learn the desk and programming, the Midas Pro series is probably the better choice, but it will take a while to get used to how to utilize the power it has, and while for running it it is fairly quick, actually programming it can take a bit.  The GLD is much easier to walk up to and go, has decent recall filtering available, and especially if using MIDI to remote control other things/desks/etc. I would be looking at it, but isn't quite as powerful on scene management as the Pro series.  Hope that helps.

         Thomas Vecchione

On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Jim vanBergen <vanber...@gmail.com> wrote:

The best thing you can do is get some hands-on time with each of these desks. I've mixed major events on desks from these three manufacturers from boards across their lines, and each has a vastly different user interface, scene recall function, and approach to mix ergonomics. It's not just the I/O and layout, but how much you can access on one page that will make a difference to designers & operators, as well as on- and off-line remote computer software.

 As with any small format console, one of the toughest things is trying to access a channel or feature that is a layer (or more) away. Another major concern is how well a console responds to very complex scene changes for shows. 

Finally, available customer support and repair should be a something you consider. 

Good luck with your decision, and let us know how you like what you choose! 

JvB

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[Gordon P. Howell, Jr.]

My company has used our GLD 80 with Palladium quite successfully.  The only tricky part is sorting out the busses to be able to address those you need.  Any time a new template is loaded, the bus order can change.  I have written up a procedure on how to do this and would be happy to share it with any one interested. Not hard to do, but some knowledge of how A&H assigns busses on reconfiguration is somewhat of a requirement. Also need to send it to Christ to include in his Palladium docs.

Geep

HH Audio

[Gordon P. Howell, Jr.]

Er…that should have been Chris.  Blasted autocorrect.