kevinatblinn
Member
I have some end-of-the-academic year money for a digital mixer. We're a community college, and the determining factors for the best mixer choice are budget ($2-3k), enough physical channel faders without changing pages (min 24), and minimum of searching through menus to find EQ, etc. The mixer will be used for musical theatre and the occasional band. I also expect to use it with multitrack 'raw' playback so a student can practice mixing, listening to how EQ, compression, reverb, etc effects the sound on different vocals and instruments.
The current digital mixer is a Yamaha 01v96v2. In mixing wireless microphones live, the students have had difficulty managing the two pages of faders (16 channels on page one, eight on page two) and finding the right menu for channel compression and EQ. The analog mixer, a Soundcraft Lx7, is fine but I really miss compression/gating/high pass filters and effects.
I was looking first at the Presonus Studio Live (24.4.2), and I had an opportunity to mix a country swing band (luckily they are really good musicians) on a 16.4.2 and found the controls very intuitive until I started looking for the main out graphic eq. I was just a stand-in for the regular guy who couldn't make that show, so I didn't mess with too much.
I'm now considering the Behringer X32 - I like the ipad control, the Midas preamps, the effects engine, the easy integration with a digital snake - but it looks like I'm still mostly limited to controlling 16 channels and 8 DCA's at a time. But the X32 seems to be garnering a big following while the Studiolive might be towards the end of its lifecycle.
So, I'm asking for as simple an answer as you can give me.
The current digital mixer is a Yamaha 01v96v2. In mixing wireless microphones live, the students have had difficulty managing the two pages of faders (16 channels on page one, eight on page two) and finding the right menu for channel compression and EQ. The analog mixer, a Soundcraft Lx7, is fine but I really miss compression/gating/high pass filters and effects.
I was looking first at the Presonus Studio Live (24.4.2), and I had an opportunity to mix a country swing band (luckily they are really good musicians) on a 16.4.2 and found the controls very intuitive until I started looking for the main out graphic eq. I was just a stand-in for the regular guy who couldn't make that show, so I didn't mess with too much.
I'm now considering the Behringer X32 - I like the ipad control, the Midas preamps, the effects engine, the easy integration with a digital snake - but it looks like I'm still mostly limited to controlling 16 channels and 8 DCA's at a time. But the X32 seems to be garnering a big following while the Studiolive might be towards the end of its lifecycle.
So, I'm asking for as simple an answer as you can give me.
- Is the X32 limited to controlling 16 input faders per page?
- Is the X32 channel EQ/compression/gating very easy to find and change or is it more similar to the 01V96 and potentially buried under some menus.
- Is the Studiolive a mature console or is it towards the end of the product lifecycle and not a good choice to teach with?
- Is there a digital snake option for the StudioLive series? If not built in, what are my most economical options?
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