After trying digital whats the point of an analogue console?

[strandgsx]

These sorts of things are covered almost daily all over the web but the question is:

 

At the weekend I used an m7cl, yep its kinda big and heavy, but the no need outboard sleeve, extra cables and graphics (mons from foh) allowed life to be so easy, operation was painless and totally enjoyable.

Everything is so much easier.

So I have personally decided to get rid of all my analogue desks and outboard as I dont see the point in having it anymore.

 

Now riders have become increasingly friendly towards digi consoles and the vast choices now out there, what do you all think?

 

I believe that mostly part timers and small bands will continue on the analogue route, cheap desk choices (behringer etc) dont really give a good idea of the capabilities of a desk such as a m7 or even an ls9, etc etc.

 

So honest opinions please especially from rental houses.

 

Discuss....

[berry120]

I love digital desks (generally speaking) and the space / cost saving with tons of outboard is brilliant IMHO.

 

However, for some applications they are overkill, and they do have the potential to confuse far more than analogue desks if not in the right hands. Push up a fader on an analogue desk and you can generally be sure you're raising the fader for the corresponding channel. Do the same on a digital desk and depending on what buttons you've pressed previously, you might be doing anything from (absolutely nothing) to altering a 31 band eq for a channel say. They can also introduce extra problems, faders can stick over time, the desk can crash, need rebooting mid show... of course none of these should be a problem with a nice new digital desk, but after a while there's far more to go wrong!

So yes, I love digital but personally I still think analogue has a place for a while yet, even if it's just in the smaller setups.

[mervaka]

analogue is still widely preferred because you know what you're getting. channel strips and a master section. every digital desk at the moment is wildly different between manufacturers. yes, having outboard built into the console on every channel, and having the digital snake really does help, but there's still a lot of technical barriers to overcome, especially reliability.

[dmoffat]

I don't think reliability is an issue what so ever. Several months ago I was reading an article is LSI about an M7 or a touring gig, and a punter throwing a pint across the desk. They managed to keep mixing till the end of the gig, wash it down a bit, and it was good as new for the next gig.

If that isn't reliable then I don't know what is!

 

I believe the biggest issue is people not willing to trust new fangled equipment, and because it has a screen, it must always crash.

Trust the equipment and it will treat you well. I have never had an issue with a digital desk (aside from the one with (behringer written across the front of it, but thats another story)

[mattwire]

I've had a lot of success with much of the behringer digital offerings and I suggest you issue may well have been user-related rather than the desk itself.

 

I think there are a couple of real reasons why people don't want digital desks.

When they first started being used there were a number of high-profile failures and crashes mid-show (Digico D5 being a classic example of this). However, I think digital desks have now matured to a point where they are almost as reliable as an analog console.

Secondly, as mentioned, every digital desk is different. While I would be perfectly happy taking over control of an unknown analog desk mid-show, I'd be a little more concerned with an unknown digital desk since it's that bit more difficult to "guess" what each bit is doing.

Also, you can generally "carry on regardless" with only half an analog desk still functioning and a knackered multicore, whereas digital tends to be an all or nothing affair.

[i_hate_fisicks]

I'm quite a digital sceptic. I don't like the M7 much at all. The LS9 is much better, and on small shows I wouldn't be without one. The other week I did a show on a Vi6. That is an amazing piece of kit. I would gladly never see an analogue desk again if I could mix on one of those every show, but it's not going to happen.

 

The thing is for small rental companies, a Vi6 is an enormous amount of money, and because digital consoles go out of date faster than handbags, no one can have one. Except the M7, which is crap (if you would like to hear my M7 rant, please book an appointment). Added to this non so small problem, because there are so many different kinds of desk out there each band engineer has his own preference, and because they're so different you often can't persuade people to use a different one. So for large rental companies that can have several of each kind, then lovely. Though given the cost of them, I'm not convinced on the business practicalities of this (depends how long they actually do last of course). For the small rental companies though, it's a straight choice between probably being able to get away with an M7 (though there will still be gigs where engineers refuse to have it), or having analogue. And you can now buy a pretty stonking desk for the price of an M7. A company I work for recently went through this very thought process, and ended up with an XL3. Just about any engineer is happy on one of those, and most of them praise the decision. Of course there are gigs where you can't take a large format analogue desk - where space, or trucking, or crew are limited, but then in that situation you've always got the good old LS9.

 

So to recap, personally, I would love to mix on a Vi6 every day. But in reality, I don't mix every day, I set up systems for other people to do so, and so such a desk is no use. And if I was doing the sort of shows where I was mixing every day, the chances of being able to afford anything more than an LS9 are fairly slim!

[RustyBrooks]

Right here we go...

 

Digital Benefits:

 

Small truck space

Low weight

Small power draw

Automation

Internal effects

Cohesive control surface, everything responds the same

No patching loads of cables

Less crew to build mix position

 

Analogue Benefits:

Older engineers are more familier

Easier to bang in a mix with no sound check

Use whatever out board you want to use

And this is the crux, the main point, no matter what anyone argues from the manufacturers, if you put the same system in a room with a top flight digital desk and compare it to a H3000 or xl4 the analogue desk will sound considerably better every time. Always amazes me the difference.

[berry120]

I don't think reliability is an issue what so ever. Several months ago I was reading an article is LSI about an M7 or a touring gig, and a punter throwing a pint across the desk. They managed to keep mixing till the end of the gig, wash it down a bit, and it was good as new for the next gig.

If that isn't reliable then I don't know what is!

 

Saying that reliability isn't an issue whatsoever based on that one statement is IMHO just wrong! All that requires is the proper bits underneath the skin to protect sensitive electronics when liquids get spilt on it. A desk needs to be much more than that to be reliable, the coding needs to be top notch and it'd have to undergo really rigorous testing.

 

I believe the biggest issue is people not willing to trust new fangled equipment, and because it has a screen, it must always crash.

Trust the equipment and it will treat you well. I have never had an issue with a digital desk (aside from the one with (behringer written across the front of it, but thats another story)

 

I'm not saying digital desks are all unreliable pieces of crap and crash every 2 seconds, the few I've used recently have seemed perfectly reliable and lovely to mix on. But I think you'd be a bit naive to completely ignore the possibility of a digital desk crashing or mucking up, especially if it's past its prime. It's not that because it's got a screen it must always crash, but instead because it's got a screen it has the potential to crash. However old, crappy or rubbish an old analogue desk might get, that's one thing they just won't do!

[Doug Siddons]

I used a GL3200 on saturday after a summer of digital and really enjoyed it except for one odd thing. I'm now used to seeing the EQ curve on a screen and guess its my age or the way I do things but I don't tend to think of frequencies any more but "that bits wrong its on the right of the screen" or "I'll put a notch in the middle and remove all the bits from the left of the screen". Going back to a chanel strip and shelving at 8khz and selecting 1khz on one knob then boosting or cutting it on another took some thought :)

[strandgsx]

can you explain :

 

"I'm quite a digital sceptic. I don't like the M7 much at all. The LS9 is much better, and on small shows I wouldn't be without one. The other week I did a show on a Vi6. That is an amazing piece of kit. I would gladly never see an analogue desk again if I could mix on one of those every show, but it's not going to happen. "( i_hate_fisicks).

 

I have bought an m7cl and my understanding is the ls9 is virtually the same but without the centralogic section (which is awesome) no touch screen and infact a smaller screen, no dca's (vcas). I would have thought you would have preferred an m7.

 

---

 

As like most I was always a digital sceptic but now iam fully reformed!

[dmoffat]

I've had a lot of success with much of the behringer digital offerings and I suggest you issue may well have been user-related rather than the desk itself.

 

I don't believe it was at all, and that is why it was a small aside written in brackets, as it was not meant to be a direct negative, but merely me insuring I was not being deceptive in any manor. The issue I had with a digital behringer was to do with rain in the desk, and reliability on that side of things, which I would not expect any desk to be able to handle, never mind a digital, with the amount of liquid that ended up inside the desk.

I apologies if I was misleading in any way.

[jenn]

I believe the biggest issue is people not willing to trust new fangled equipment, and because it has a screen, it must always crash.

Trust the equipment and it will treat you well.

 

Anything with any kind of computer chip in it is liable to crash on occassion... e.g. I had a DVD player crash on me during a performance - all of a sudden I had absolutely no control over it at all. The only thing that got it going again was the old reliable reboot/power cycle.

 

With analogue desks no computer = no chance of crashing! But that doesn't guarentee it won't also go wrong at the most inconvenient moment...

 

In any case, it comes down to using the most suitable bit of kit for the application. Sometime the digital is the saving grace, sometime analogue is best.

 

I like both!! :)

[Bobbsy]

Yeah, there's a place for both.

 

For my own kit, being operated by me, I'm fully sold on digital and start to miss features when I use an analogue board.

 

That said, when I have to walk up to a strange board and use it with limited "messing around time" I'll still take analogue any day.

 

They're both tools of the trade and both have their uses.

 

One comment on reliability though: I've had more failures on big Midas analogue consoles than on digital...despite using my Yamaha digital kit on an almost daily basis. Oh dear...tempting fate there...but so far it's true.

 

Bob

[Johnno]

There's a philosophical (= dippy hippy :) ) view too. An pure analogue signal chain fans your soul with the breath of the singer. You can't say that of digital.

[dbuckley]

Easier to bang in a mix with no sound check

 

A contributor on the Prosound Lab argued a case quite convicingly that its much quicker to do this kind of thing with digital, becuase you can copy and paste settings.