The RDL widgets are cool but they easily eat up money if you need more than one or two.
Before you go too far down the rabbit hole financially, I would recommend evaluating what it would cost to replace your
TOA's with a proper
DSP rather than buying into replacements and extending the
current functionality with other widgets and parts and pieces. $2500 for a Q-Sys Core 110f and you can replace and update a lot of the functionality you have, and make improvements upon what you can control and how well you can tune each of the zones.
Typically what I see for a
DSP in this kind of space is some variation on this:
Inputs:
Left
Center
Right
House Mic Mid (because usually I spec a
Shure VP88)
House Mic Side
Quick Mix 1,2,3,x
Page Mic 1,2,x
Aux Subs
Aux FF
Aux
ALS
Aux Front of
House 70V
Aux Back of
House 70V
Booth Monitors (unless handled internal to
console -- processing through
DSP allows tuning these to behave as an extension of the main PA, and allows
page mic's and
house mic to feed into these whenever the
console does not have something solo'd)
Stage Mon A, B, C, D (if semi-permanent, idiot-proof tuning is required, or if the
console is analog and does not have EQ-per-output)
The
DSP does all of the
system tuning, handles the mixing for a console-free Quick Mix setup for a talking head style event, gives you all of the delays and EQ and ducking you could want, and derives each of the individual mixes you're looking for.
Usually that would be something to the
effect of having a program mix derived from LR/
LCR console feed and Quick Mix inputs. Then breaks out into individual processing/paging for each of the subsystems. Absent the derived program feed from the
console, each subsystem follows the
house mic. If the subsystem gets an Aux feed from the
console, it ducks the program mix and emphasizes the aux feed. This is usually because you are riding the vocals on top of music. Hearing impaired and back of
house systems
want a touch of music and ambiance, but they
need speech intelligibility first and foremost.
Similarly, subs/front fills/delays all take the derived program mix from LR/
LCR unless you
switch them into Aux-only mode. This way whenever you turn on the
system, all of your different systems are broadcasting by default and you don't need to set up a discrete feed on the
console for them every time. If you do drive a dedicated Aux feed, it only improves what those subsystems are doing.
Sets you up for being able to drive your
system over Dante/AES67, and gives you the ability to run events without the
console if it's just a talking head at one or two mic's.
Assistive-listening wise, it also means if you have an unamplified event you at least have some degree of
ALS feed for hearing impaired coming in from your
house mic.
