Digital Mixer w/o Digital Sources. Advantages?

[Aaron Becker]

Like I said before, I can't wait to get rid of all the XLR cables some day when mics and speakers are all wireless ... that will be another "priceless" moment for me as it will cut my setup and teardown time virtually in half ...

I don't ever foresee this as a reality in our industry, at least not in the professional realm. In an orchestra pit, no reason to put wireless mics on instrumentalists when the video feeds, monitors, etc, are all on wired feeds. Running all these applications over "wireless" just wouldn't be feasible or cost-effective. It's hard enough to get 36 wireless packs to play nice in every city a tour goes to, let alone NYC. As the old saying goes, the most expensive wireless system is almost as good as a 20 dollar cable.

 

[EdSavoie]

Not quite related to XLR specifically, but Canada Day had a remote screen of the stage for the queue to enter the hill.

The wireless signal was reallllly sketchy and kept cutting in and out, i don't think wireless is going to be completely trustable for a long time to come.

 

[blue439]

A couple of answers to my question have suggested the prices for both types are comparable, but I'm having a hard time finding that in the marketplace. At Sweetwater, for example, I see nine 24-channel analog mixers under $2,000, with the lowest price being $700. That's a price-range a small community theater company can consider, and twenty-four channels is about as many as they'll ever need. Conversely, Sweetwater only offers one 24-channel digital mixer under $2,000 (if you don't count the rack-mounted USB contraption for $1,000, which I don't think would be suitable for amateur use).

The needs of the community theater companies I work with are extremely simple: they need between twelve and twenty-four mono inputs, three-channel sound shaping, an auxiliary sender for stage monitors (and maybe a second one for recording). The company I mostly work with has a Behringer UB2442FX with some built-in sound effects, but we never use those. While it is easy to see from this discussion that digital boards have many capabilities superior to analog boards, I'm still left thinking there's no reason to pay extra money for one if one has no digital sources and no need for the other capabilities digital boards possess. If they really were the same price, of course, I'd say go with the flow and buy the latest proven technology. But it looks like low-end digital is, roughly, twice as expensive as low-end analog, for the same number of channels.

Anyone got a vendor with less expensive digital choices?

Sweetwater has a Behringer X32 Compact 32-channel mixer and digital snake for $2499.

 

[blindbuttkicker]

If you prefer an analog worlkflow, but want to go digital, I recommend the Allen n Heath QU32 / 24 / 16. Simple analog like workflow with digital as the core of the board. Can also allow for some security settings / a bit of automation of the board, if so desired and set up properly. (three users: Admin, standard, basic) The QU24 is 2299 at Sweetwater. We use a QU32 that was just put in at my church over two months ago and we have noticed everything sounds much cleaner and allows more customization to get the sound we want, and even get "more" out of our use of it. Best part is the QU series is full on XLR / Quarter inch, but does allow for EtherCon (Shielded XLR like Cat5e) for digital snake / connection uses. The wireless tablet control (for both android n ipad, heck my Samsung S7 is able to get the app so I can control the mixer from my phone) is a blessing to be able to walk the room n do what I do to get what sound I want.

I am not trying to bash on Behringer here as the QU replaced our 32 channel analog Behringer, but the X32 workflow and setup is not as intuitive if you have never used it before, and does require a bit of reading. With the A&H workflow, it took a bit of reading just like the X32, but it was much much more simpler to operate once we had it in front of us from the get go. Just my two cents.

 

[Stevens R. Miller]

If you prefer an analog worlkflow, but want to go digital, I recommend the Allen n Heath QU32 / 24 / 16.

Heh, that's a bit spooky: the show I'm working on now is being produced in a high school theater that has a QU32. First time I've seen a sound board with motorized faders. Quite a moment for me, when they jumped into place on their own (wasn't expecting them to do that). I'm actually strictly on the lights for this show, not sound. But I get to watch the sound techies doing their thing. One is clearly knowledgeable and experienced. She's mentoring the other, who is (at least on this board) a beginner. The mentor clearly loves the QU32, but she apparently forgot to tell the beginner a necessary password and was late to rehearsal when the beginner needed to log in. I love high tech, but the idea of "logging in" to a sound board seems odd to me. Of course, we've all had the experience of configuring a complex piece of hardware, leaving it, then returning to find that the theater gremlins have undone all of our hard work and we have to do it over again. So, being able to secure the board has its appeal. But passwords have a way of becoming unavailable that, in my experience, brass keys don't. I suppose how good or bad that is depends on just whose ox is getting gored.

Anyway, the mentor loves the QU32, while I can see the beginner is pretty overwhelmed by it. You mentioned reading. I find the world divides neatly into two kinds of people: those who read the manual before turning something on, and those who never read the manual at all. I'm in the former category, which leads to considerably less frustration than I see experienced by those in the latter. Watching my colleagues, I can see that the QU32 might justify some time with the book. For someone who is mostly on their own, and does not have access to a mentor, would you still recommend it, or is the learning curve a steep one?

 

[CanYouHearMeNow]

A couple of answers to my question have suggested the prices for both types are comparable, but I'm having a hard time finding that in the marketplace. At Sweetwater, for example, I see nine 24-channel analog mixers under $2,000, with the lowest price being $700. That's a price-range a small community theater company can consider, and twenty-four channels is about as many as they'll ever need. Conversely, Sweetwater only offers one 24-channel digital mixer under $2,000 (if you don't count the rack-mounted USB contraption for $1,000, which I don't think would be suitable for amateur use).

The needs of the community theater companies I work with are extremely simple: they need between twelve and twenty-four mono inputs, three-channel sound shaping, an auxiliary sender for stage monitors (and maybe a second one for recording). The company I mostly work with has a Behringer UB2442FX with some built-in sound effects, but we never use those. While it is easy to see from this discussion that digital boards have many capabilities superior to analog boards, I'm still left thinking there's no reason to pay extra money for one if one has no digital sources and no need for the other capabilities digital boards possess. If they really were the same price, of course, I'd say go with the flow and buy the latest proven technology. But it looks like low-end digital is, roughly, twice as expensive as low-end analog, for the same number of channels.

Anyone got a vendor with less expensive digital choices?

I feel like the 24 channel mono stuff is going away for the better. The benefit of 16/32 channel boards is the versatility. Especially when talking about the X32 series, I'm glad they stopped saying the number of inputs and instead have the 32 refer to the preamp count. How many of the 24 channel boards have 24 mono inputs for your microphones? And if you really just needed only 24 inputs digitally, get something like the X32 compact or producer and rent the snake box for the extra inputs for the one show you need it for.

Another huge benefit is that you can plug into a computer and do multi track recording. In a theatre environment (especially when you are less seasoned at mixing), having the chance to record a show and then practice without having to waste everyone's time is honestly a "priceless" feature.

And how many of the 24 channel mono boards have 8 independent outputs that you can set either a graphic or a parametric on each output and change them between pre & post fade? You get so many features that most community theatres were used to never being able to afford them. If you need 16 or 32 pre amps and can't get the X32 compact or X32, then you need to reevaluate your budget and come back when you can. Analog is useful now when you have a board sit in a room without someone to operate it, or when you need to slave it with your bigger console.

 

[blindbuttkicker]

Heh, that's a bit spooky: the show I'm working on now is being produced in a high school theater that has a QU32. First time I've seen a sound board with motorized faders. Quite a moment for me, when they jumped into place on their own (wasn't expecting them to do that). I'm actually strictly on the lights for this show, not sound. But I get to watch the sound techies doing their thing. One is clearly knowledgeable and experienced. She's mentoring the other, who is (at least on this board) a beginner. The mentor clearly loves the QU32, but she apparently forgot to tell the beginner a necessary password and was late to rehearsal when the beginner needed to log in. I love high tech, but the idea of "logging in" to a sound board seems odd to me. Of course, we've all had the experience of configuring a complex piece of hardware, leaving it, then returning to find that the theater gremlins have undone all of our hard work and we have to do it over again. So, being able to secure the board has its appeal. But passwords have a way of becoming unavailable that, in my experience, brass keys don't. I suppose how good or bad that is depends on just whose ox is getting gored.

Anyway, the mentor loves the QU32, while I can see the beginner is pretty overwhelmed by it. You mentioned reading. I find the world divides neatly into two kinds of people: those who read the manual before turning something on, and those who never read the manual at all. I'm in the former category, which leads to considerably less frustration than I see experienced by those in the latter. Watching my colleagues, I can see that the QU32 might justify some time with the book. For someone who is mostly on their own, and does not have access to a mentor, would you still recommend it, or is the learning curve a steep one?

I understand that. We particularity do not use the password functions at all so the board is set n ready to go upon power on (it snapshots itself periodically, so the board will "autosave" where it is if there is an power interrupt. So it remembers where it was after it was shut down as well.) but the features are there for those who need it. The way I solve that is by using scenes 90-100 for "backup" saves of scenes, while only allowing scene editing when I or another technician are on the board so someone cannot accidentally mess with our scenes unless you know where to look (you can dis / enable it in the Scenes menu via the Function key.)

It might be that the beginner has never used digital before, heck I'm the same way operating an Avid console for TV Production as a Production student as it's something I don't have the opportunity to use that much. Practice prevails with proper patience. It's just learning the workflow and how things go, but the manual lays it out nicely in conjunction with being able to use the board at the same time, if so desired. Go to A&H's website and search it up, they also have a knowledge-base up as well with some good info and Youtube also has some good tutorials. Otherwise if you want to know more, ask your guys after the show to see if they could block some time out whenever to see if you might be able to get some training and get a feel for the board, if that's applicable. Honestly I can't really give an estimation of whether or not it's recommended or not, as I myself am the first category, so it took a little time to learn it once I read the book a few times to see how things were and why. Once we got the board n some training by our installers, it went pretty well. I'd recommend seeing if for where you want to purchase for can purchase from a local sound and media install company and include training in their price. It will be well worth it in my opinion.

 

[BCAP]

Heh, that's a bit spooky: the show I'm working on now is being produced in a high school theater that has a QU32. First time I've seen a sound board with motorized faders. Quite a moment for me, when they jumped into place on their own (wasn't expecting them to do that). I'm actually strictly on the lights for this show, not sound. But I get to watch the sound techies doing their thing. One is clearly knowledgeable and experienced. She's mentoring the other, who is (at least on this board) a beginner. The mentor clearly loves the QU32, but she apparently forgot to tell the beginner a necessary password and was late to rehearsal when the beginner needed to log in. I love high tech, but the idea of "logging in" to a sound board seems odd to me. Of course, we've all had the experience of configuring a complex piece of hardware, leaving it, then returning to find that the theater gremlins have undone all of our hard work and we have to do it over again. So, being able to secure the board has its appeal. But passwords have a way of becoming unavailable that, in my experience, brass keys don't. I suppose how good or bad that is depends on just whose ox is getting gored.

Anyway, the mentor loves the QU32, while I can see the beginner is pretty overwhelmed by it. You mentioned reading. I find the world divides neatly into two kinds of people: those who read the manual before turning something on, and those who never read the manual at all. I'm in the former category, which leads to considerably less frustration than I see experienced by those in the latter. Watching my colleagues, I can see that the QU32 might justify some time with the book. For someone who is mostly on their own, and does not have access to a mentor, would you still recommend it, or is the learning curve a steep one?

There's always YouTube?

I found that it doesn't take too long before newbies are up and running to mix a simple production on a digital mixer, even if they aren't knowledgeable of the whole board. The number of users who are new to and or uncomfortable with digital boards should be dwindling, as it seems like there's a digital mixer in just about every high school theater. Actually it might be a lot worse to have a whole bunch of adventurous expert users!

I've worked in multi user environments where all the users were experts on digital boards and frequently users would change setups, routing, and basic configuration details that affected other shows without communicating to everyone else and that was sometimes frustrating. It might actually be a good thing to have a few users who are knowledgeable and self sufficient enough to mix a relatively straightforward production but aren't so interested in customizing everything. My opinion - in multi user environments with digital that it helps to have at least one expert user, a regular backup routine, a way to communicate changes to other users and a few ground rules or etiquette, like certain preset slots that absolutely don't get overwritten so people aren't modifying setups and configurations others are depending on, and the idea that all users should reset the board back to a known state after they are done using, and so on.

 

[BCAP]

I recently did a show where our stack of eight wireless mike receivers sat in the wings and fed their analog outputs to some kind of analog-to-digital converter. The converted output came up a data line from the stage to the control booth where it was decomposed back into eight separate signals by a PreSonus SLM244AI mixer. This worked great and eliminated the need for a traditional snake.

Now, a friend I've made in the local community theater sphere is eager to see his company buy a new mixer. As far as I know, they have no digital sound sources. They have a number of wireless mikes, as well as some wired mikes on stage and in the pit. They also use recorded sound effects and music, mostly played out of the analog jack on a computer. This fellow is very eager to buy a digital mixer, but I don't see a reason to do that. As far as I can tell, they tend to cost more than otherwise comparable analog boards. While I can imagine a bit less noise reaching the final amplifiers when mixing is done digitally, I'm not yet convinced that's worth a premium when he has no digital sources.

So my question for today is, if all of your sound sources are analog and will reach your mixer in analog form, what advantages does a digital mixer offer over a purely analog mixer?

Thanks!

The feature set of digital mixers is what appealed to me, and pretty hard to find a cost comparable analog equivalent. With a digital board I can replace lots of outboard gear and cabling, and when I consider that I get a fairly flexible downward expander / gate, a compressor / limiter, 4 band fully parametric EQ on each channel. Plus built in FX, graphic EQ on each output plus notch filter - too many additional features to mention. It can solve a lot of audio problems and probably create some new ones!

Much like your post, a small community theater near me is considering purchasing a digital board to replace their 16 channel analog board but they are also questioning the advantages and benefits and they will not be able to afford to feed the board with digital sources.

For the money the theater will spend (< $2k?) they hope to benefit from a significant improvement overall in sound quality over their existing setup, more capability and addressing complaints their audience has had on past shows.

 

[TimMc]

The feature set of digital mixers is what appealed to me, and pretty hard to find a cost comparable analog equivalent. With a digital board I can replace lots of outboard gear and cabling, and when I consider that I get a fairly flexible downward expander / gate, a compressor / limiter, 4 band fully parametric EQ on each channel. Plus built in FX, graphic EQ on each output plus notch filter - too many additional features to mention. It can solve a lot of audio problems and probably create some new ones!

Much like your post, a small community theater near me is considering purchasing a digital board to replace their 16 channel analog board but they are also questioning the advantages and benefits and they will not be able to afford to feed the board with digital sources.

For the money the theater will spend (< $2k?) they hope to benefit from a significant improvement overall in sound quality over their existing setup, more capability and addressing complaints their audience has had on past shows.

I'm trying to figure out why folks think that digital mixers only work with, or present advantages only from native digital signals. They don't. The mixer doesn't give a rat's ass about the type of input signal - eventually it's converted to 1's and 0's and then re-converted back to analog for output at some point.

For the amount of EQ and time alignment work I do in theatre, there is no analog setup that can replicate the function of a decent digital mixer for less money or in less space. Any operator who cannot make the switch to digital was also not competent to use an analog mixing system of the same functionality, features and hardware complexity. There, I said it.

 

[RonHebbard]

I'm trying to figure out why folks think that digital mixers only work with, or present advantages only from native digital signals. They don't. The mixer doesn't give a rat's ass about the type of input signal - eventually it's converted to 1's and 0's and then re-converted back to analog for output at some point.

For the amount of EQ and time alignment work I do in theatre, there is no analog setup that can replicate the function of a decent digital mixer for less money or in less space. Any operator who cannot make the switch to digital was also not competent to use an analog mixing system of the same functionality, features and hardware complexity. There, I said it.

"There, I said it" You're right Tim, you definitely said it. Are you feeling better now?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[TimMc]

"There, I said it" You're right Tim, you definitely said it. Are you feeling better now?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

Yepper, I do.

Do we need a 12 step group for recovering Analogue Luddites? Hi, I'm Tim and I'm an Luddite! I grew up on little analog mixers and those became bigger and bigger mixers until I could live in road case and needed 8 guys to lift it.....

I understand the apprehension and discomfort of learning new things, particularly those things that mean we have to change our workflow (habits). I've told this story elsewhere (and maybe here, too)-

About 15 years ago or so I decided the digital revolution wasn't conveniently going away and that I'd better get up to speed on the new fangled digital mixing. Being a mostly hands-on kind of guy I found an original Yamaha 01v on eBay. When it came in I downloaded the manual and set it up. Plugged in a mic and a CD player to inputs and a small Anchor speaker to an output. I didn't move from that spot until I had sound working and achieved a modicum of familiarity with aux sends and EFX. Then I put it on a shelf for a year.

After a long and difficult event that should have been relatively simple, the following year I decided to take the 01v and leave the analog FOH in the van; there if I needed it. I'd forgotten a fair bit of what I'd learned but I stuck with it and by the end of the event I swore I'd never, ever, go back to analog FOH... and I haven't. Once it became clear to me that I could better deliver on my promises to clients with this new tool, I was all in.

So my advice is find "your" 01v and get familiar. Contemporary mixers have editor software and remote software that can provide a good view of how a mixer works and how different mixers could affect your workflow, as well as showing how various features were implemented. Then rent, borrow or buy and get with some physical practice.

And if you have problems with analog, you're going to have problems with digital, too. Just don't blame the tool.

Have fun, good luck.

Tim Mc

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Fair enough, Tim.

The issue -- and it's been happening more and more with the march of technology -- is that *someone else* decided to expend my time and money in needing to learn a new way to accomplish something I already knew how to do.

Any mix engineer could, by and large, walk up to any analog desk, figure out where the in, outs, and auxes were patched, and *go*.

You didn't need to spend a week (on the first model) and several hours (on the 2nd, 3rd, and maybe 4th models) *just learning how to drive the interface*.

It's especially painful if you're an intermittent mixer, as many people are down at my end of the market. I've been doing it for 30 years, but not ever single day; more like every couple months.

So it has positive and negative sides, this transition from analog to digital mixing control...

But mixing is a creature of the ear, not the fingers; I don't know that it's really accurate to say that just because one doesn't have in their head *the specific desk they happened to (have to) walk up to*, they're suddenly automatically a bad mixer.

You put Alan Parsons on an x32, it's gonna take him time.

 

[BCAP]

Fair enough, Tim.

The issue -- and it's been happening more and more with the march of technology -- is that *someone else* decided to expend my time and money in needing to learn a new way to accomplish something I already knew how to do.

Any mix engineer could, by and large, walk up to any analog desk, figure out where the in, outs, and auxes were patched, and *go*.

You didn't need to spend a week (on the first model) and several hours (on the 2nd, 3rd, and maybe 4th models) *just learning how to drive the interface*.

It's especially painful if you're an intermittent mixer, as many people are down at my end of the market. I've been doing it for 30 years, but not ever single day; more like every couple months.

So it has positive and negative sides, this transition from analog to digital mixing control...

But mixing is a creature of the ear, not the fingers; I don't know that it's really accurate to say that just because one doesn't have in their head *the specific desk they happened to (have to) walk up to*, they're suddenly automatically a bad mixer.

You put Alan Parsons on an x32, it's gonna take him time.

Well, one good thing is that some things seem to have improved since the early days of digital mixers. I remember looking at a Yamaha DM series prototype - one of their early small format digital mixers - at a convention in the early 90s, wondering if it might have been more difficult to use than an analog mixer. Later on the user interface seemed to evolve to a 'fat channel' type concept where the user selects the channel in question and then can access the rotary encoders and buttons for EQ, buss assignment, compressor, etc. Quite a bit more similar to an analog mixer than cursor buttons, menus and an alpha wheel. Back in those days a good number of my customers thought a digital mixer would never be a good choice for any live work. But things seem to have changed for the better.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

They have. Though the x32 is quite a bit newer than the the LS9, the couple hours I spent with the x32's manual, and the dozens of hours of practical I spent mixing shows did in fact help quite a lot in being able to pick up the LS9 -- for the record, I like the x32, with its View buttons, and larger and better laid out monitor, quite a bit better...