I guess it all comes down to the sound you are trying to get the Presonus is decent quality, but in a studio environment the drawmer just sounds better, tends to be less obvious. Once you get into the area of rack effects and processing
etc, it really comes down to the sound you are looking for, it is sort of like different brushes an artist might select.
In general I try to be careful with using too much compression on live sound, what you wind up with is taking a live performance and starting to make it sound like a cd if you are not careful.
In my opinion, you are running the risk of adding and adding more and more effects and tweaking stuff when getting back to more basics would probably give you a better sound. Again personal preference, but what you can do in a studio, using stored automation
etc is very different from what you tend to do in a live environment, Plus on your 01v96 you will have a fair amount of processing available on your inputs
Sharyn, yes I have the 01v96 now so I am going to try to use that whenever possible. But I wanted to have some extra channels around for analog board use.
I think the use of these extra analog units would primary be vocals ... if we ever do mic the band I'll pull in the digital board for sure so I have enough adjustment capability to figure out how to make it sound right.
Fyi, I did NOT get to mic the band for Smokey Joe's as I had originally hoped. The Music Director simply did not want to, and although the band sounded great (very talented musicians) they played at night club levels and there was really nothing I could do to help it. Extensive sound checks and volume settings proved somewhat futile as the adreline rushes during performances
led to harder strumming. The keyboard player had a gas pedal that obviously overrode his amp settings. And the atmospheric changes affected the mid-bass resonance from night to night. All of which would have been pretty well controllable from a board ... but oh well, this is not a pro
house and this is not my day job, so with the little time I had to work on this the only major thing I was able to accomplish without the MD's full cooperation was to figure out that compressors gave my vocalists a fighting chance !!
So, my use of compressors was primarily to pull the vocals up in volume at or slightly above band levels, but keep it limited under the pain
threshold for the theater. There was only a small volume range I had to work with here ... and you could really tell the difference whenever the band paused and you could hear how loud the vocals were actually playing in the room, whereas with the band in full
swing you could barely hear the vocalists at all.
And, after many complaints from patrons ("this show is too loud!") I basically rold told the artistic director that I'm not doing this again -- either get a different Music Director who doesn't have an ego, or I'll sit out on that production ... I am now a firm believer in micing the band for
level and balance control (and yes, I don't need 8 mics on the drums ... 2 or 3 may be just fine -- I'll leave the attempt at Jersey Boys sound for some other day)
From the earlier picture of your
speaker layout things are still far from ideal. Since you are dealing with an odd
layout, an other alternative is to use more smaller speakers, with proper alignment delay and better
frequency response .
I like the Mackies, but tend to use them over time more for monitors, or some vocal reinforcement, but you need to recognize that they are still on the modest end of the spectrum.
Again everyone has their own perspective, but I tend to go with higher quality, simplicity, and try to use
speaker placement, room treatment to fix the fundamental design problems with the
venue especially if you are there for a long time. It is one thing when you are dealing with a new
venue every few weeks, quite another when you are dealing with the same place.
Anyway all a matter of preference
Sharyn
As for
speaker placement, that's still a budget, time and effort issue. If these speakers were half the size and weight and had 2-way yokes on them, it would be relatively easy to adjust and reposition for each production. But they aren't, they don't, the theater has no money (or understanding) to work on this issue, and I don't have much time for each production to mount and fashing hanging brackets and to try to tweak their positions. I pulled down the two upstage "
orchestra" speakers for the next show because the set's in the way, and I don't know where I'll put them up again for the next musical. I do know that where they were provided the most balanced sound I've ever had in that theater. What it sounds like though is that for the next step I should
pick up a ref mic and do a little
RTA around the theater to start understanding where the problems are, and invest in some
insulation for sound dampening and
bass traps.
But for
speaker placement, take a look at our theater
layout with the zero pit depth and highly raked seating area, and the need to have FX speakers in each corner of the theater. If you have any good suggestions on how to arrange 6 speakers to
cover these needs I would love to hear your ideas.