We are faced with different
FOH and
monitor world console configurations on a weekly basis. It all depends on what a band is bringing with them: drive vs. fly date; our boards vs. theirs; combination of the two. Also, this
snake would not be a permanent install. Could be carried to different venues in our area.
48 in/16 out minimum. What recommendations are out there for a digital audio
snake that might meet our needs?
There are many more options than i am willing to mention but lets start with the basics, first a question.
1. Will your
snake be only handling your audio needs or are you wanting to carry any other signal types? Ie. intercom,
dmx,
ethernet, video, Just to name a few. Obviously the more protocols you wish to carry will have an
effect on price.
Assuming the answer to my question is just audio, i would look into either light viper, roland reac, or aviom. There are many many more good ones but for times sake i will only mention the ones that i have installed.
Light Viper and Roland snakes work well as long as you are willing to control your head amps via computer and not the
console. I have had many issues with light viper and
yamaha consoles communicating with each other. Roland works very well with their roland consoles but is proprietary to their consoles as are many other digital snakes. I have found that Roland's reac gives you a decent amount of different flavored inputs and outputs, (analog and digital) card based systems as well as the ability to have sub snakes and
stage boxes depending on your needs. They have also done a good job of getting the MADI bridge out for their
console so that direct digital
interfacing has become a whole lot cleaner than running 24
AES/
EBU cables into a
snake box. Also you can have the ability to make as many splits as you want with their netowork
topology and they have come out with both their personal mixing systems (which are pricey but are sonically unmatched) and a 48
track digital recorder that ties directly into the snakes infrastructure allowing you to pull any 48 channels that you wish back to the hard drive.
I am not a huge fan of the mixers that are sold with the
system but as a general rule i really like the
snake system and what it offers. I have installed them in many churches across the country, some with
mixer and some without and have never had one fail on me as of yet.
Welcome to Roland Systems Group U.S.
I have only used the light viper systems once with limited success but it was not necessarily the
snake systems fault, it was more that they were looking into trying to control the preamps from a
yamaha m7cl and i dont think it was quite what they were looking for.
Aviom is alot like roland in that they have a whole heck of a lot of products and accessories to go along with their systems but i have never been impressed with the audio quality of such systems. One bonus is that they will have interface cards for a majority of the
rider friendly digital consoles out there.
I know that this is somewhat of a rant, if you do require or would like to look into
snake systems that would handle multiple protocols (which is what we have moved on to) i would look into Riedel (
Riedel Communications - Digital Intercom, Fiber, Audio and Radio Solutions Welcome to Riedel Communications) They have solutions of all types and are kinda the lexus/audi of digital snakes.
Hope this helps,
RZ
