Pick a medium sized rider-friendly digital desk?

[Jay Ashworth]

Seems like none of the Yamaha desks qualify these days. What do you have that you like that's rider-friendly at the 32-handle size point? x32? m32? SQ-7? SI Impact? Something else?

Anybody actually *see* lots of tech riders? What are people asking for at the 400-seat sized venues in 2022?

 

[Lextech]

M32s are still rider friendly in that market. A CL 3 or 5 still works too. This is from my 414 seat day job and my 700 seat outdoor summer gig. I occasionally see an A&H or Didgico request, but since i have a CL5 at my day job and a M32 at the summer gig they deal with those.

 

[TimMc]

No such animal right now, Jay. Maybe in another 6 -9 months...

About the only manufacturers delivering any quantity of new desks are Allen-Heath and some models of Digico. Midas Pro series are being assembled from left over modules and frames, but then you'd be buying 10 year old technology, which tends to be unfriendly.

Right now, today: Anyone who wants a 'new' desk is buying Allen-Heath. I don't think Avid has resumed S6L production yet, and Yamaha is a probably a year from filling NEW orders for their pro consoles (2023 will mainly get the back orders filled), so CL-5 and baby Rivage will be 2024 if you go that way.

As a regional system supplier most of the requests we see are for Avid S6L with redundant Waves servers and that's completely unreasonable for your venue. There is still a market for used Avid Profile/SC48 desks and most acts using a house desk will have a show file for them; ditto for M32/X32 on smaller acts. Acts that want Midas Pro series, Allen-Heath, DigiCo... tend to have them in the trailer. On the riders we see, the SD-10 and SD-12 are the most requested DigiCo mixers.

Slight swerve - on a Zoom call with Robert Scovil a few weeks ago, coding and design work was resumed for the "compact S6L" (think SC48). They'd just assembled a team when Covid hit so the project was abandoned. A year later they restart the project and Russia invades Ukraine, and many of the programming team are in Ukraine. Still no prediction of when we'll see a prototype.

 

[TheaterEd]

I don't see any riders in my day job, but we did just get a SQ-7 last year and I have very much enjoyed working with it and using it to teach students. It's very intuitive and versatile.

 

[spenserh]

We have an SD9 in our big venue and a S31 in our small venue.

I don't see the S31 on riders, but no one seems to have any issues operating it.

I'm looking at SQ6 for my personal inventory, I have effectively sold off all of my MT products after going through the most infuriating customer service experience ever.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

I don't see any riders in my day job, but we did just get a SQ-7 last year and I have very much enjoyed working with it and using it to teach students. It's very intuitive and versatile.

The *one* real annoyance on the SQ desks, for me, is no dedicated Cue Clear button.

The QL5 doesn't have one either, but you can tap the cue meters on the LCD to clear it, so I don't need to dedicate a softkey for it.

Does the SQ have such a trick as well?

 

[NickVon]

The *one* real annoyance on the SQ desks, for me, is no dedicated Cue Clear button.

The QL5 doesn't have one either, but you can tap the cue meters on the LCD to clear it, so I don't need to dedicate a softkey for it.

Does the SQ have such a trick as well?

I own a SQ6, and while it seems like a bit of a oversite for no 'cue clear' I have set one of my soft key buttons to do that function. At first I thought it was annoying, but I feel like there are way more softkeys then I ever use, so having one set to be a Cue Clear, hasn't been a problem for me.

I do love my SQ6

 

[Footer]

My smaller room is that sized.... and I see a few hundred riders a year. We have an M32 in there and everyone loves it, monitors from FOH. Everyone has a show file for it. Its as rider friendly as it gets for a sprinter style show. Our larger room (1,000cap) has Pro2's at FOH and monitors.

Here is the thing too... rider friendly isn't as much as a thing now as it was even 5 years ago. Anyone who really cares is carrying a desk. We see M32 cores in pretty regularly, especially for ears rigs. Your house engineer mixing on it the most or road co? What kind of shows? You have a monitor engineer or usually drive from FOH? What is the rest of the PA? Are you locked into the under 5k price point? Are you more of a fly date venue or something special like that?

Few rider notes on the few that are house desks or don't just specify "something that works/specific sized desk" from the last few months....

Cover Band playing the Casino circuit....

• FOH Console

A professional digital mixing board, in perfect working condition, with a minimum of 32 dedicated inputs and (4) effects processors is required. Preferred mixing consoles are Yamaha CL5, Midas M32, Yamaha QL5 or M7, Avid Profile, SC48. Any substitutions MUST be discussed and agreed to before the show. No side stage or iPad mixing.

Acapella act... (We were just racks and stacks this date)

FOR FLY DATE SHOWS WHERE WE PROVIDE NO PRODUCTION
PURCHASER agrees to provide a first class professional PA system to specs listed above.
Acceptable Consoles (If tour is not carrying per advance):
FOH - Digico SD9 or SD12
MON - Midas M32 or Behringer X32
Must provide Digico stage rack, analog split and snake
**All other consoles must be approved by Home Free Production Management

For what its worth, I really had to dig to find both of those. Most shows anymore we are either doing racks and stacks or no one give a crap because its on our house engineer.

I'd seriously just get whatever YOU want to mix on. Everyone else will deal. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to rent an alternative desk in the last 10 years.

 

[Dionysus]

I'd lean towards Allen & Heath's SQ or Avantis, S21/32, maybe M32 (I very much prefer the others to the M32).
While not mentioned on riders, they are generally thought of as quite ameniable for smaller consoles. The smaller CLs are great too of course as mentioned.
Allen and heath is where I've gone, between the SQ and dLive.

 

[RonaldBeal]

There seems to be a shift from X32/M32 to SQ these days. In part, because A&H have somehow been able to keep shipping consoles throughout the supply chain crisis, combined with the failing customer support from Music Tribe (which owns Behringer/Midas).
I would not hesitate to recommend an SQ or Avantis.

 

[gafftaper]

I don't see any riders in my day job, but we did just get a SQ-7 last year and I have very much enjoyed working with it and using it to teach students. It's very intuitive and versatile.

Same with me, no riders but I love the SQ 7. It's clean sounding, very easy to work with, and easy for teaching.

 

[macsound]

The *one* real annoyance on the SQ desks, for me, is no dedicated Cue Clear button.

The QL5 doesn't have one either, but you can tap the cue meters on the LCD to clear it, so I don't need to dedicate a softkey for it.

Does the SQ have such a trick as well?

Any fader issues? I have a SQ6 where faders sometimes don't completely recall completely when switching between layers, maybe only moving 50-90% to their final position.
If I push the button again, they do properly recall, so it's not poor calibration or something like that.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

There seems to be a shift from X32/M32 to SQ these days. In part, because A&H have somehow been able to keep shipping consoles throughout the supply chain crisis, combined with the failing customer support from Music Tribe (which owns Behringer/Midas).
I would not hesitate to recommend an SQ or Avantis.

"Failing customer support"?

 

[RonaldBeal]

"Failing customer support"?

While I have no personal experience (because I don't own any Berhinger gear), the general consensus on Prosound web, Livesound-reddit, and a few others is that at the moment, customer support seems to be non-existant.... from no working emails and contact numbers, to no real response for the few people that do get through. Music Tribe recently cut a special deal with Sweetwater where essentially, Sweetwater is the only real chance at service (and only if you bought from them.) Lots of pros are abandoning the Music Tribe ship.

 

[TimMc]

I thought I wrote a reply to this last night...

Behringer/Midas has the worst customer service in the industry. If you buy a Midas HD-96 or a Pro 10, you'll get a Magic Phone Number to call if you need support. Everyone else? You're pretty much screwed.

I own an X32 full size and an X32 Rack. There are no future purchases anticipated.

 

[JohnD]

Also, something to be considered is that the x32 is ten years old.

 

[RonHebbard]

Also, something to be considered is that the x32 is ten years old.

@JohnD Isn't X the Roman numeral for ten?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[spenserh]

Also, something to be considered is that the x32 is ten years old.

SD9 is almost 13 years old. I can contact Gerr - or even Digico directly - any time I have an issue (which is rare).

MT is a dead end at this point. Only thing I have left is a few racks of PLM and D series Lab Gruppen. If one of those should fail, Uli better deliver a new one personally.

 

[gafftaper]

Any fader issues? I have a SQ6 where faders sometimes don't completely recall completely when switching between layers, maybe only moving 50-90% to their final position.
If I push the button again, they do properly recall, so it's not poor calibration or something like that.

I haven't seen this problem with my SQ7

 

[Jay Ashworth]

I haven't seen this problem with my SQ7

Our Qu16, even older, also does not display this problem that I've seen. Course we don't change layers all that much.