Wireless mixer console - does this exist?

[timsabre]

I'm involved with PA for a church which meets in a community hall, the speakers are permanently installed but everything else has to be set up each week. It's a fairly simple PA, one radio mic, one lectern mic, one SM58 for a singer, DI'd piano and acoustic guitar. Because of the layout of the hall and location of doors etc, it's impossible to get the little mixing desk to anywhere useful for listening, without stringing multicore along the walls and over doorframes and things.

 

What would be really handy would be a mixer which could be remote controlled by a wireless console - basically a box with the usual knobs and faders on, but this would just send commands (eg set chan 1 at 50%) to a processing box at the front which actually did all the mixing. I guess you might need a single audio link back to the control console for PFL, but the rest of it would just be "change level" commands, no audio would need to be transferred.

 

Does anyone know of a product like this, for this size of system with only a few channels needed? It sounds simple enough and surely would appeal to churches, conferences etc but I can't find anything.

 

Tim

[mervaka]

a bit big for your needs I know, but if you have a system (such as the A&H iLive) where all the processing was done at the stagebox, and control data is passed via TCP/IP, then a wireless access point will happily bridge the data gap. however, you'll still need to find a way of sending PAFL and talkback signals!

 

I dont think anything feasible exists for the scale you have in mind, though.

[charl.ie]

How about an ordinary mixing desk, an enthusiastic youngun' and wireless comms? :blink:

[TomHoward]

The most wireless solution to me would be a cheaper digital desk like an 01V96 at the stage end, with a PC-based control system. However, this is going to be comparatively expensive and fairly difficult for non-experienced users to operate.

 

I think the most cost-effective solution would be to buy a second multicore and install in permenantly in the room - run it under the skirting boards / above the ceiling etc, just put it in once and leave it in place all week.

[ChrisD]

Roland do a desk which requires only a Cat5 Cable & Power run to it which might be a simple option. Similar to the A&H iLive stuff, it does all the processing in the stageboxes.

 

HTH

[paulears]

Chris just hit it without comment - you can do wireless if you have money, but if you have to have a power cable, then it rather wrecks the wire-less idea. If there is a power socket, then there's not so much need for wireless?

[cedd]

There is another option, but I'm not sure I could vouch for it with the changes in channel 69 coming up;

 

You only have 4 inputs (at the minute) and 2 outputs (left and right, run the system mono and you only have one, then probably a second for foldback).

 

If you relied on wireless mics and audio links, you could have a standard mixing desk at the back mixing the real audio.

 

All that said, you're looking at 7 or 8 channels of wireless, which isn't particularly 2012 proof.

 

 

Save yourself some money and buy some decent cable ramps for the doorways and a good quality, flexible and thin multicore.

[DrummerJonny]

using the roland desk chris mentioned, you could maybe use a system like this: http://www.homeplugs.co.uk/

to send the cat5 signal through the internal wiring of your church, saving on the cat5 run. there may be limitations to this, such as network speed, being on a different ring main (though off the top of my head this doesnt matter!)and dirtying the mains for every other application. so I would say tread cautiously with this idea.

[timsabre]

Thanks for all the ideas... I was thinking of something battery powered, hence no mains either. I agree if I can get mains there, I can get the multicore there too - it's only a thin one.

The multi and mains power basically needs to fall out of the ceiling, which is not impossible if permanently installed, but I was just wondering if there was another solution I hadn't been able to find. There must be lots of venues where the mix position is somewhere totally unhelpful just because of the difficulty of cabling to it.

[nb705]

using the roland desk chris mentioned, you could maybe use a system like this: http://www.homeplugs.co.uk/

to send the cat5 signal through the internal wiring of your church, saving on the cat5 run. there may be limitations to this, such as network speed, being on a different ring main (though off the top of my head this doesnt matter!)and dirtying the mains for every other application. so I would say tread cautiously with this idea.

 

I've used the little homeplug adaptors for festival networking before, they work fine for general use (we ran an IM client and a VNC session for the patch sheet) but I wouldn't recommend using them for time-critical (in this case audio) applications. The latency is just too unpredictable. They also don't work across phases.

[David Duffy]

Chris just hit it without comment - you can do wireless if you have money, but if you have to have a power cable, then it rather wrecks the wire-less idea. If there is a power socket, then there's not so much need for wireless?

Not necessarily. I can think of plenty of situations where there is an existing power outlet (often for cleaners), but no path for other cables.

[DrummerJonny]

I've used the little homeplug adaptors for festival networking before, they work fine for general use (we ran an IM client and a VNC session for the patch sheet) but I wouldn't recommend using them for time-critical (in this case audio) applications. The latency is just too unpredictable. They also don't work across phases.

 

thanks for clarification, and good idea with the patch sheet! might implement that at my next gig. though our wireless router is used to program the monitor rack remotely at the moment... wonder if it can take standard wifi simultaneously. going to try that this weekend

 

(sorry about o/t ramble)

[TomHoward]

We are assuming here that the Roland will be happy running through a router just because it is CAT5 cable - it may not be true of the Roland itself (as I'm not familiar with the specific product) but a lot of the Audio over CAT5 solutions aren't a true ethernet implementation, they're just using CAT5 as a twisted pair data cable to run an entirely different protocol down. It would probably be worth checking up on this before you put too much investment into a wireless ethernet solution.

[J Pearce]

The roland is using ethernet.

 

You can create monitor/broadcast splits using an ethernet hub.