Digital Board for School

[silvonus]

I'm looking for a new board for my school (in Florida). We've been using a 16 channel Yamaha analog, but it is getting old, and we've maxed out the system. I have a budget of around $10-20k (we have a monopoly on muffin and bagel sales). We are looking for a new digital sound board (16+ channels with compressors, eq, etc) to replace our current board, that we can move to a new, much larger theater that should (hopefully) be built in 5 years or so (hence larger budget)(eventually our old board will be repaired, and stay in the current small theater once we move, which will be used more for assembly and guest speakers). In addition, this will also be used by a professional theater group that is in residence at our theater.

 

We have 13 Sennheiser wireless mics, and yes, we do use them all for some of the shows (We've made the move to wireless). Half of them only have ¼ inch jacks, while the other half has XLR. Also, we have 3 floor mics. We do have a live band, but currently they do not go through the board, though in the future, they might. Other inputs would be for a CD, mini disk, and a laptop. Currently, the only outputs we use are stereo, and a ¼ inch aux, but all of this can and will change when we move into the new theater. Overall, we want something bigger and better with future expandability and capability.

 

One sound guy recommended the Yamaha M7CL. Looking at that though, it only has XLR, which has me worried. The DM2000 and 02R96V2 looked nice to me. Thank you for the help!

[Bobbsy]

In your price range it's going to be hard to beat the M7CL which is an excellent board with great facilities. Don't let the XLR connectors worry you...buying or making up new leads or adaptors is simple.

 

The only alternative I might suggest would be the cheaper LS9 (which isn't to far behind the M7CL in facilities) and putting the savings into other equipment you might want.

 

The DM2000 and 02R96 are both excellent boards and I've used them often. However, they're primarily designed for studio/post work and the user interface would be a far steeper learning curve for operators...there are also numerous traps you can fall into in a live situation. Finally, if you look at the feature set, you'll find you're paying for things that you're not likely to need in a live situation.

 

Both the M7CL and LS9 were designed from the ground up for live work...that's the way to go.

 

Bob

[cedd]

Interesting one, I assume the board will be used by students rather than staff mainly? If so I would seriously consider an analogue board with midi mutes. I understand the need for a digital board in large shows with multiple radio mics, but to teach somebody to mix on digital is IMHO a bit like teaching somebody to drive in a porsche. A nice big analogue board with midi mutes will allow you to still have scene changes and ven a "GO" button for queues without having to play "chase the radio mic". Plus in a a live situation where I guess some jobs will be "on the fly" it's far easier to get something working.

 

Are your jack outputs balanced? f so a simple jack - XLR adapter will do the trick. If not, anrack of cheap DI boxes will be needed for pure XLR connection.

[dunk_1984]

Whilst reading through that the first mixer that came to my mind was the M7, which at the end I saw had already been suggested, but if your budget is that big you could surely also afford to purchase some DI boxes.

 

All already been said, I started typing, then got called away...

[i_hate_fisicks]

Another vote for the LS9 here. It's a great board at a great price. I think that it is a better board than the M7CL, once you've got used to not having a touch screen. It's got a much simpler layout, and less ways to go wrong. The only reason I can think of for buying an M7 over an LS9 is if you've got to meet riders and satisfy band engineers, which at a school of course you don't. So yeah, an LS9, and then you can put all the rest of your money into other stuff which you're bound to need.

[MarkPAman]

Now I'm not saying the others are wrong, but the Mackie TT system 32 would be another one to look at. Lots of channels, lots of inputs and outputs.

 

After looking at many digital desks the college where I work decided to get one, and we have found it easy to teach people to switch from analogue to digital with this.

 

There is no digital patching (at the moment) which is a real down side for many people, including me, but is one of the biggest reasons we decided to get one for use in a college. Plug something into channel one and there it is, on channel one. This seems to be the hardest part of digital desks to explain to students.

 

I understand that Mackie Technical Support is fantastic in the US, and you'll have budget left to get a dedicated touchscreen laptop to go with it.

 

That's my thought for a school. For myself I'd look at the Yamahas or the Allen & Heath. ;)

[6th Order]

"How many channels" get a little silly when you talk about digital desks. The question then becomes how many can you operate without changing layer.

 

The digital multi on the TT24 is nice, but trade off is fewer faders and fewer aux busses.

 

The lack of internal patching may be irritating, but it reflects the ideology of the TT; that it's an analogue desk that just happens to be a digital one (or something like that.)

 

An M7 would seem to give more options for the planned new theatre.

[silvonus]

Thanks for all of the help! I do realize that digital is way more complex, but we always have the most experienced tech run sound. I'll look into all of it.

[dbuckley]

I've just be having a shuftie at thge LS9, is it correct it has no DCAs?

[MarkPAman]

The digital multi on the TT24 is nice, but trade off is fewer faders and fewer aux busses.

 

Fewer than what?

 

There's 24 channel faders, 4 group faders which can be mono, stereo, LCR, LR+M or "VCA" (8 groups in total), and the master.

There's 12 auxes and an 8 way matrix which can select virtually any signal you want.

[Andrew C]

I like the TT24 too. As a complete digital mixing noob, I can find my way around the features I need "man style" (without referring to the instructions). ;)

[Dj Dunc]

m7cl is a very nice desk. I got chucked into the deep end onto a digi last week, and it was a piece of cake to use

[andy_s]

we've got TT24s here as the obvious first step from analogue desk. they're reasonably flexible and have plenty of ways of getting the sound out of the desk - 8 subgroups, LCR, matrix, plenty of aux outs as mentioned above. At the time we were buying(about two and a half years ago), the simpler smaller yamahas weren't around, or we would certainly have considered them. at less than £5k per desk, they represented good value at the time. I don't like the cooling fan - I'd like it to be much quieter for theatre work as we operate from the rear stalls, but on the whole we're happy with them.