Digital Multicore on a mix wizz?

[richie1575]

Hi People!

 

I tend to do smaller events with a 16ch Mixwizz which I'm largely happy with. For ease of setup, the entire system currently lives in a single 18U rack. The advantage is that its relatively straightforward to plug and play (no scope for interconnecting errors) but dragging a snake and speaker leads sucks, plus its hardly efficent when I'm at 2 ohms (4mm cable).

Moving the power amps to the front is an obvious one and maybe staying analog and using a decent multipin... or get a digital multicore system such as the ROLAND DIGITAL RSS BABY SNAKE! Seems too good to be true to get everything down a cat5 cable instead of in inch thick cable! Anyone used one? Seems perfect but are there any alternatives? (Seen "Brikworm" but looks awkward to set up!). Your input would make me feel better about spending the money!!

Considered a digital desk but suspect I don't do live events often enough to get well practiced on using a digital board. This is my hobby (expensive hobby!!)

 

Thanks

 

Richie

[Simon Lewis]

Looking at this in terms of cost, separating amp(s) and desk will mean a rack for the amps and sorting out the return feeds, but you'll not need as long a set of speaker cables. The individual cases should be lighter to carry! This is fairly cheap to do, and is technically very worthwhile.

 

Adding a multipin will considerably speed up the connection / disconnection time. If you are the sole user, you might not need industrial strength connectors... Edacs can still work well, even though most on this forum pretty much hate them. I've used them for ~25 years, and they're OK - used carefully! Otherwise, use Hartings or one of the circular offerings (VDM etc.). This upgrade could cost sevreral hundreds, but if you are good with a soldering iron, you'll "save" the labour costs.

 

Adding a digital multi to an analogue desk is going to cost the best part of £3k. Only you can determine the cost to benefit ratio, but personally I think it's not quite worth it - especially if you have a workable existing analogue multi cable. It's not uncommon to need power and comms with the CAT5e cable, and end up with a bundle that's almost as unwieldy as the analogue multi it "replaced". Of course, the digital multi concept (to me) makes more sense if the desk is digital. Also, in install situations, the reduced labour costs can offset the cost of digital.

 

Adding a digital desk (let's say a Roland 380) adds nearly £4k to your shopping cart. You gain lots of toys useful tools, but you may not actually need a comp on every channel etc. You now have a very nice system, but it's ten times the cost of your MixWiz.

If you search for posts by Mark Payne, you'll get some real world comments about using the Roland multi. I think it distills to, "when it works it's very very good, but when it doesn't it's horrid". Many of the problems appear to arise from using stranded CAT5e cable.

 

If it were me, I would split the amp & desk, and add multipins. If you have the best part of £8k+ (less what you might sell your existing gear for) then you can move into the bright world of digital. You will soon learn the surface, and you have the options of expansion. However, the MixWiz is a pretty good desk for the money, and it's a lot of money for perhaps a slightly disproportionate increase in facilities.

 

The market could really do with a good desk (and multi) but with slightly fewer features and at about a third to half the price of the present entry level offerings. Phonic and Presonous have interesting offerings, but they haven't quite cracked it yet, in my opinion...

 

Simon

[Biro]

A music venue I regularly work in has an odd setup using the Roland console as FOH and a GL3300 as its monitor console, and the way they do it is by all inputs (mics etc) go into the multi, sent to FOH and then the returns sent back to the GLs inputs.

 

 

Now, 99% of the time the snake works fine (they have two linked together), but we have had two occasions in about 10 gigs where the desk has lost the signal to the snake - one was during soundcheck one was during the gig. Whilst it came back after about 30 seconds, its still highly annoying.

 

 

In comparison to this, using the LS9 and its CAT5 stage box I have found that it works fine with no signal loss in a good 15 gigs. I know there is a price difference, but still.....

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I think the Roland snake is pretty good for the money, and there are things that are very good for problem solving, IE having a signal meter on each channel on the stage which is so useful.

 

 

So, if you have the money you should ask yourself how much its going to help you in your setup. True, it will reduce it down to a CAT5 cable and pretty much all the time it works, but is a lot of money...

 

I don't know weather ours is an isolated incident or not.. if it persists it will be something that we write to Roland about but for now the benefits of having it outway the cons.

 

 

 

Hope this helps.

[mervaka]

I'm currently in a similar position in the evaluation of "going digital" at this stage. I also run a mixwiz 16:2 which sits in an SKB mixrack, but carry a hefty 24/4 50m multicore around with it.

 

For me, the cheapest and most cost effective way into digital has to be an A&H iDR-16, wireless access point, and a good laptop running the iLive Editor software. Of course, the laptop idea scares a few people, but the footprint is just brilliant, there isn't one! The iDR can then just sit inside your amp rack.