New theatre Desk

[conan]

Hey I need some help.......

 

I work in a 600 seat theatre. The majority of our work is musicals, dance schools, plays and confrenceing. We are having a PA referb in about 8months. We are installing NEXo PS series into the theatre. We are looking for a new desk. Currently we are using an old Yamaha GA something I believe. but are looking into upgrading to digital. We were thinging either a 32 channel Yamaha LS9 or a 32Channel Yamaha MCL. Which would you recomend and what are the list prices as im not having much luck finding them. Many thanks

 

Hmm

[dunk_1984]

LS9 or M7 would be perfect.

 

They are both on thomann But I'm sure I've seen them cheaper elsewhere.

[dave singleton]

Your best bet is speaking to someone like Orbital Sound or Marquee Audio. Who is providing you the PS15's? Can they no source a deck for you. Given the expense involved I wouldnt want to just buy online etc especially from Thomann. I would want 100% service from a reputable UK company.

 

I cannot fault Orbital for all their efforts helping us. They truely are a fantastic company to work with.

 

We can sell the consoles etc too however I doubt we would be able to do you as great a deal as some of the above listed companies.

[CARWYN]

hi

Roland are bringing out a new digital desk soon. Sounds just like what you're after. You can connect your computer/laptop to it and as long as you have the right software on your computer you can do some studio recording. It is connected to the stage box via an ethernet cable and everything can be recorded to the desk and routed to anywhere on the desk. All effects are built in so you can route your network cable to any part of your theatre. The desk is a (Roland V-Mixing System)

[paulears]

The first Roland products were quite nice - nice compact control surface and remote 'brain' with the A/D converters. Carwyns explanation fits pretty well most digital products - even the Yamaha 01 series. Digital connection to external recorders (hardware and software) built in.

[CARWYN]

another thing is you can store all music and Sfx on to pen drive and plug into a Usb port on the desk and it has controls on the desk to play skip pause etc on the desk :)

[Bobbsy]

For live work, I'd worry about the user interface and the trained user base for a desk as much or more than the absolute feature set. For that reason, I'd probably recommend sticking to either of the Yamahas rather than an untried solution from Roland, no matter how attractive. Both the LS9 and M7CL are very easy desks to learn and use, even if you've never touched a digital desk before.

 

Frankly either could do the job for you. The two big differences are that the M7 has DCAs (8) which the LS9 doesn't and also has touch screen control (which can be nice on a fast moving show).

 

As for list prices, I wouldn't worry about them. I doubt anybody ever pays full list...at least not if they're sensible. All the previous suggestions are good but I'd add the audio department at AC Lighting. They've given me good deals in the past and are very knowledgeable on Yamaha digital gear.

 

That said, as with others, my first port of call would be to try and wrap the mixer in with the Nexo deal and see if that gives any extra clout in price negotiations.

 

Bob

[digisound]

I would say the m7cl, much more of a theatre desk and has a range of useful features such as the vcas. The ls9 as much as it reads good, in my opinion is more of a live band desk not a theatre show desk.

 

But that is in my opinion.

 

Hope this helps.

[StevieR]

For those interested, the list prices are...

 

LS9-32 - £6,267.00

M7CL-32 - £14,929.00

 

Both are ex VAT.

[johnlinford]

Bobbsy has covered all the bases quite well.

 

Given the difference in cost, I suspect it will come down to budget more than anything else. If you can get it, definitely get the M7.

[TallPaul]

Hi Guys,

 

our K3 died last week and we've just recieved a nice new Yamaha M7CL (48ch). We decided it was a good desk to make the move to digital since it still has individual faders for every channel, so doesn't have the usual perceived 'downside' to digital desks of flipping through pages of inputs. Having played about with it a bit, I've found it very easy to learn, and that's coming from a lampie!

 

Paul

[drowner77]

We have an M7 and we had an LS9. The LS9 was a nice board, I think it was the 16 channel model, but you had to leaf through levels to get to controls and effects, which is why we went with the M7..

 

Also, the price of the M7 was more attractive than the I-LIVE..

 

I think if you get the LS9 you will wish you had the M7.. It is a really good sounding board, it is easy to use, and it is a proven product and with an interface you can use CAT 5 cable instead of a multi-core..

 

In fact, our M7 and Nexo Alpha rig will be coming to visit Paulears in his theatre come July.. Be afraid...