Simon Lyall Posted February 10, 2006 Share Posted February 10, 2006 Currently at school we have 16 channel analogue soundcraft, and ageing multicore which goes to a few stage boxes.after a discussion with the teacher in charge of the stage crew he was contemplating going digital as such. The budget for the upgrade would be min £2,000 max £6,000 this would be for console and stage box and cable linking them. Ive heard of systems where you have a stage box which takes and gives out analogue, multiplexes/demultiplexes as such, which is connected to the console via cat5/fibre, whats the viability for these kind of systems in my price range. the console would need to be min 16 channels, preferable more around 24-48 mark, with sends for monitors and things. On board things like compressors EQs etc would be preferable but I understand these things are almost always on digital desks so, no worries about that! please do tell me if I'm completely mad wanting to go digital, but it seems like something that should help me and future technicians. The budget is fairly large for a school, but we are a private school so we have too much money! If Ive missed anything crucial, tell me and ill try and answer. Its great to have this ability to ask questions to intelligent professionals in the business, I read a lot of threads and I feel a bit guilty because Ive gained a lot from this site, but don't really have the knowledge to input much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted February 10, 2006 Share Posted February 10, 2006 I have slightly mixed feelings about this. I'll start by saying I'm one of the biggest proponents of digital boards on this forum. I own a DM1000 and a DM2000 and have mixed many shows on both of these as well as a PM5D. Love 'em! However, I'm not 100% sure that this is automatically the way to go for a first/only mixing desk in a school. I have a couple of fears. First, I think it might be much harder to teach/learn the basic concepts of a mixing desk without being able to actually SEE things like Aux sends, Bus routing, etc. on each channel strip. This might be just me, but in order to understand and appreciate the digital board, I'm very glad I did my time on analogue first. However, this might also me being a 53 year old Luddite! My second concern is more specific. There are FAR more ways to get yourself into trouble on a digital board. Their great advantage is the flexibility, but with this comes the possibility to have things set totally the wrong way. With an analogue desk you can usually grab a fader at one end and get sound out of the other...or see which switch is in the wrong position. With digital you can easily route channel 1 just to an obscure omni out and forget the main outs..then wonder what you've done. You need more planning and discipline. Having said all that, there's no doubt at all in my mind that digital boards are the way of the future so you may well have it right...with me just being a bit old fashioned! Anyway, your price range is going to limit you quite a lot on this project. The main desks you could consider would be the 01V96 and the DM1000 from Yamaha and the DDX3216 from Behringer. There are also mixers from Tascam which I don't know so much about, and old Soundcraft 324 Live boards out there, though these are pretty long in the tooth. Unfortunately your budget doesn't stretch to things like the M7CL or Mackie TT24. I'm pretty sure the new A&H digital mixer will be out of your range as well. My personal suggestion (though I'm biased) would be to stick to Yamaha. Yammy and Digico are the two main makers of digital mixers that will be used for live work, so if your goal is to provide experience on gear they will later find in pro situations, then Yamaha is the one for you. In your budget, you could go for the DM1000 which I think is better laid out for live work. Add an MY16AT card and a pair of Behringer ADA8000s and you'll have 32 mic/line inputs plus 4 more omni inputs (basically line only inputs). You also have 8 auxes (all switchable pre/post on a per channel basis), 8 busses, Stereo out, Control Room out...and a total of 28 output jacks which can have anything routed to them. You have 4 band parametric EQ, compression, delay and gating on every channel. You also get 4 channels of Yamaha quality effects. There are 99 snapshot presets, and the board can be controlled via MIDI and/or the Yamaha Studio Manager software. I've done things on the 19-inch wide DM1000 that I would never have attempted on my older 32 channel, 8 buss analogue board. I don't think your budget would stretch to the analogue to digital stagebox type of system. There are new ones of these coming out all the time, but AFAIK they're all still a bit pricey for you (though I'm bound to be corrected any minute!). Hope this helps...and if you do decide to go for digital (and buy from Yamaha) feel free to contact me privately with any questions you might have. Cheers, Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted February 10, 2006 Share Posted February 10, 2006 Personally, I think you are better off sticking with analogue and some outboard. Digital desks are great, but you are a school, which means high turnover of people. Digital desks can be quite confusing when you first use them and the real bonuses that come with having a digital desk will be forgotten rather quickly, and it will just be used like an analogue desk and all those nice features that cost $$$ forgotten. At least with outboard, most of the 'extras' are right there in plain sight, and the learning curve minimal. Onto digital multicores - quite good technology - for <48 channels, I would not bother. Especially if it is an instalation job - which it appears to be. The main advantage to a digital multicore is if you move arround a lot, or you are using a mixer that interfaces with one. God I would have killed for a UK6k budget when I did my schools sound system... I had closer to your lower end, and that was a complete fit out (mixer, amps, speakers, cables, road cases, mics, wireless mic, etc). Being smart with your money, you could get a hell of a system, but look at really upgrading the infrastructure - multicore run to a single stage box is not as handy as a run that goes to three (up stage, P and OP breakouts), however a run that goes to three costs a hell of a lot more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hinds Posted February 10, 2006 Share Posted February 10, 2006 The budget for the upgrade would be min £2,000 max £6,000 this would be for console and stage box and cable linking them. Ive heard of systems where you have a stage box which takes and gives out analogue, multiplexes/demultiplexes as such, which is connected to the console via cat5/fibre, whats the viability for these kind of systems in my price range. the console would need to be min 16 channels, preferable more around 24-48 mark, with sends for monitors and things. On board things like compressors EQs etc would be preferable but I understand these things are almost always on digital desks so, no worries about that! Hey Simon, First of all, yes digital desks do include compressors, gates and EQs on board so you don't have to worry about that to any great extent. The great issue with digital transmission though is the cost - specifically at this budget sending over fibre is not practical. Connecting to the console via Fibre/Cat5 requires preamps on the stage, which is pricey in itself. Let's look at the primary need first, which is a minimum 16ch console, but 24-48 would be nice. Working on your budget you have the following options: Yamaha 01v96 - about £1400, has 12ch of Mic Pre's on board, an additional 32 may be connected to the desk, but the limit is 32ch of mic inputs in any one scene i.e. another 20 on top of what is built in. The desk has 4 internal effects units too, making the total channel count 40 (32 + 4 Stereo sends from effects units). Using the Behringer ADA Preamps to add an additonal 16ch of preamps and the required MY16AT interface card, this soluton is around £2200 for a 28 input from the stage mixer. You also have 4 line level inputs to connect CD players etc. You would need a suitable length 32ch multicore on top of this - expect to pay a reasonable amount for one you want to move around, but if you wish to have it fixed in place the Yamaha DM1000 - about £4400 to buy with 16 mic inputs already in the desk, but then exapandable using cards to add up to 32ch more of inputs allowing up to 48ch to be mixed. The DM1000 is more powerful and has a larger control surface making it easier to use and obviously allows shows to grow further. To match the input capacity on the 01v96 as above would need the adding of the two ADA8000 units again and an MY16AT card bringing the total to about £5200 again needing an analogue multicore on top as above. The other potential contender is the Mackie TT24 at about £5800 list. This desk has 24ch of mic inputs inclusive, and is supposedly the most "analogue" desk in feel. The trouble is it's pricey, the advantage is it has a biggest matrix, more auxes, and a fader for each of the 24ch. However it can only address 36 inputs per scene, however the user inteface may be preferable. Again you'd need an analogue multicore to send the signals to the desk. For each mixer you can download a manual and editing software from the sites to experiment a little with what they can do. Now. Multicores. A fairly cheap 50m 24 send/8 Return multicore from Allan Gordon PA will set you back £240. That's pretty cheap and it won't stand being bashed about for long periods over time. However you can replace it fairly easily at this price! Studio Spares have some slightly more expensive multicores and a 32x4 50m core will cost you £306 There is however one digital option in this price range, the Audiorail System which will cost you $1000 (£750 say) for the units, plus a suitable length Cat5 cable to go between them. You'd also need preamps for each channel using either the Behringer units - £150ish each or the Mackie Onyx units at £1100 or so per 8ch. So for 32ch of sound you'd need 4 units of each. As you can see the cheapest digital snake option is about £1350 to send 32ch from the stage. The 01v96 will only support 24ch of inputs driven from this multicore, while the DM1000 will support all 32, as will the TT24. However all suffer the same problem, your preamps are not remotely controllable so you have to adjust those on the stage, not on the desk. I would suggest it is not very practical to use a digital multicore at this level for this reason. please do tell me if I'm completely mad wanting to go digital, but it seems like something that should help me and future technicians. The budget is fairly large for a school, but we are a private school so we have too much money! If Ive missed anything crucial, tell me and ill try and answer. Its great to have this ability to ask questions to intelligent professionals in the business, I read a lot of threads and I feel a bit guilty because Ive gained a lot from this site, but don't really have the knowledge to input much!You are absolutely right in going digital. In fact my first question to people buying a desk now is why would you want to buy analogue? Especially in a school environment where people will be going out into the big wide world and by the time they get there digital will be commonplace and analaogue will be considered dinosaur technology. Also it's just so much easier in my opinion than trying to find the right knob on the right channel on the right rack - I'd rather have it on the console. Hope that's of some use Regards Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ojc123 Posted February 11, 2006 Share Posted February 11, 2006 I'm with Mac Calder. The corporate memory in a school is very short and going digital may mean that the benefits are minimal because the function, and even the very existence, of all the bells and whistles will soon be lost in the mists of time. I also agree with Bobbsy about losing your way on a digital desk. If it is purely for recreation then I'd be tempted to stay analogue . On the other hand, if people are being trained to go into the industry then maybe the capacity to use analogue (existing desk?) and digital might be useful? I don't know your set up but we have two systems in different spaces so one could be digital and the other analogue giving trainees the best of both worlds. That is an off the top of my head suggestion and feel free to treat it with the contempt it deserves. I had to set up a complete system for £2500 in a school so don't look to me for sympathy! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lyall Posted February 11, 2006 Author Share Posted February 11, 2006 the upgrade doesn't mean we have to loose the analogue desk, there are functions where the FoH position is moved, so there the analogue might come into its own, thanks for the advice guys, I think I'm going to try and get some professionals into the actual space to get their opinion, if anyone fancies that and works around N.london Essex area, drop me a PM. I can see the annoyance with preamps on stage, and ill discuss further with the teacher about things, I can see everyones points about quick turnover of technicians and this would be something to plan about if we did go digital keep the comments advice coming in though, its all really helpful Simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 11, 2006 Share Posted February 11, 2006 If you get the pros in - make sure they are consultants and not suppliers. Real consultants don't deal in kit - too many are stuck with certain manufacturers, and are not independant enough. If you are in london, why not talk to Aura sound design - proper theatre people website Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lyall Posted February 11, 2006 Author Share Posted February 11, 2006 I take it they will charge for their advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted February 11, 2006 Share Posted February 11, 2006 Generally yes, as consultants that is what they do for a living. However they know brands, what each product does, what prices things are, the theory behind (for example) acoustics, systems design, safe rigging, etc etc. Also, as Paulears said, they are not biased towards one particular brand or supplier or product, so you are getting independant advice, and the best products for you. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted February 12, 2006 Share Posted February 12, 2006 John Leonard at Aura LITERALLY wrote the book on theatre sound. I can't recommend them highly enough. The trouble you would have with any professionals that don't charge you is that "there's no such thing as a free lunch". Many so-called consultants are actually selling one brand or another and their advise is far from independent. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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