Sound board upgrade from Mackie CFX-20

Sigh ... okay ... I can (personally) afford to put up the money for the 01v, and yes I would prefer to buy something better and not be kicking myself about it for the next two years.

The one 'pro' about the Behringer board is that I can probably pick up the display unit from the local shop new for about $500, which means if I use that for a few shows and sell it later on for $300 or so, I haven't really lost that much money on the board. At least not compared to a $2-3k board. In fact, I would probably keep it as a backup board.

However, now I'm looking at dealing with 12 wireless mikes for another musical coming up, and wanting scene snapshoting and motorized faders more and more ... And, in order to minimize the number of switchoffs I may increase the number of wireless to 18, which means scene snapshots will be more important than ever.

So for the 01v:
* Let's say I end up with 18 wireless, a random assortment of extra mikes, and 8 inputs from the Sound Cue PC. I would potentially want 24 faders at my fingertips (23 mikes, one VCA for the Sound Cue channels). The 01v has 16 faders. Do I change the grouping of input channels from scene to scene to fit within a 16 fader arrangement? In this case (as an example), I would assume I give the six main lead actors dedicated faders 1-6 throughout the show, and rotate the other wireless through faders 7-12, and keep 13-16 for area/pit mikes and Sound Cue. Is this how it's done, and how do you keep track of who's on 7-12 for each scene? Will the PC display tell you the scene-by-scene assignments for easy reference, or do I have to keep a chart nearby?

* where do you suggest I find an 01v to buy? They have been few and far between on eBay, and for new purchase should I do mail order or is it safer to find a local shop that can order it for me? At $100 bucks a round trip on shipping, I'm thinking it's safer to find a dealer within driving distance ...

Thanks. John
 
Here is a link you might want to look at;

http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/downloads/documents/index.html #01v96

Running it with the external sofware control might help you also

If the price is close you usually are better off local if it is a good dealer, since there are no dealers within 1000 miles of me, I'm usually using the online companies

Also you might want to look at http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/21906/0/
I would suggest that you join that forum also, and contact Ivan Beaver re the guide he is putting together for the 01v96
There are LOTS of people on the Lab Lounge section that use the 01v96 all the time and provide excellent help
day
I use 03d's and 02r's so I would rather you talk to someone who uses the 01v every day


Sharyn
 
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Thanks Sharyn ... I joined the other forum and poked around a bit. I also checked out bunch of docs on the Yamaha support web page you mentioned. I'll check the local dealers first ....

Fyi, not to start up a different topic on this thread, but my colleague at work keeps bringing up the Ramsa DA7 ... his first entry into digital several years ago. He does studio recording, not live sound reinforcement, but has been doing it for 20+ years, and said he really liked that board. Owned it in between a Mackie 32x8 and his current all-digital PC-based setup. He says the DA7 and 01v were rivals at the time -- he chose the Ramsa over the Yamaha for various reasons, one of which was community support (there still is a DA7 web site and what appears to be a large following). They can be purchased < $1k and are reasonably compact and portable, so would seem like a good stepping-stone to the 01v ... and looking at the docs, it appears to have more-or-less the same features other than lack of VCA/DCA and what looks like less or more-difficult to configure I/O capacity ... Is a used one of these worth looking at or is it "not ready for prime-time"?

Thanks. John
 
Here's the deal on the DA7. It has an amazing featureset, and I learned how to use it in under an hour. It has Aux On Fader, which is nice, and a very sweet EQ section, as well as very sweet preamps (it has 8 of them). You really do need expansion cards for the DA7, though. The meter bridge is also almost a necessity, because in switching between fader layers, it's hard to keep up with what levels are what, and the meter bridge really helps with this.

We own one here, so I can attest to the fact that it's an amazingly flexible console, but it is limited for a few reasons. One, cue storage is limited. It does not have that many cues (thirty some, if I remember properly).Also, the expansion cards are basically worth twice their weight in gold bullion now, because there are not many around. One other issue with the console is the lack of feasible backup of shows. There is supposed to be a way that you can do this over MIDI, but I don't know how to do it, and it's rather complex.

Basically, the deal with the DA7 is that Guitar Center got ahold of a bunch of them (we're talking hundreds or thousands here), dropped the price floor out by putting them on sale, and Ramsa lost their market because people didn't want to pay the full price for them. I actually got that story from one of the guys on the DA7 deveopment team, who is now working for Yamaha, and visited here to give advice on our PAC's PM5D consoles.

It is an amazing console though, and I'd have a very hard time picking between the two. If I could get three WR-ADDA cards and the necessary DB-25 cables to go with them along with it, I would most definitely go for the DA7.
 
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The DA7 doc says it will store 50 scenes ... not as good as 99, but should be okay to give me enough flexibility in cueing up a two-act play with 15-20 actual scenes in it.

The PC connection required for the MIDI->Bulk output function isn't well described in the documentation. However if MIDI support from the PC end is a standard thing, then I would imagine this should be a straightforward operation. I'll check with my colleague on this.

The lack of product support/service is definitely an issue. So if I went with one of these I would have to have keep a backup board handy, just in case.

Just to make the decision more difficult, I also found that the local shop will give me a great deal on the 01v (with ADAT expansion and two ADA8000s I'm probably under $2500 total) so I'm going to have to weigh that against finding a well-loaded DA7 for under $1000.

Thanks. John
 
Tough decision, I think that in economic terms the market tends to reflect the true value, and factors in the risk factors, SO I guess I you were handy electronically or had access to a good shop you could get two of the Ramsa Da7

Sharyn
 
hey jkowtko, if and when you do upgrade to an newer board, umm how much would you sell the cfx-20 for?..just curious...
 
On a side note -- as a stopgap solution the Behringer boards are out of the running because they don't have balanced group outs. Since I am routing to all of my speakers through the group outs and running 50-100' + lines to the self-powered speakers, they need to be balanced. My little Mackie CFX-20 has all balanced outs -- group, aux, and efx.

That also means the Yamaha mg3214fx is also out for the same reason.

The digital boards are still fine ... the ADA8000 I/O units are fully balanced :)
 
Ok, so DIs along with a modest level board might work ... however I need to take into account the cost of the DIs ($150 / 8 output channels?)

Here's another thought ... the Mackie CFX-20 we have is a decent board, the right size, and has all balanced outs. What I immediately need is just more channels. Since I'm thinking about getting a board for myself, I thought -- why not just buy another CFX and daisy-chain them? This could be an inexpensive but effective short-term stopgap until I get a decent board.

So I'm looking around for a CFX-12 or 16 ... found some, but they're in the $300 range -- not too expensive, but not too cheap either.

So I looked for even cheaper used boards that will give me 12 channel faders. I don't need balanced group outs since I'll just run the main outs from this board into an input channel on the existing board. Looking around:
- Yamaha 1602
- DOD 1222 XL (really cheap)
- Peavey MD-12 or MD-16
- Mackie CR1604
- Nady CMX 16a
- Behringer MX or Xenyx

Does anyone have experience with any of these? Are they usable (especially the DOD) or just noisy low-end equipment?

Thanks. John
 
the only one I am familar with from actual experience is the MACKIE.
http://www.mackie.com/products/cr1604vlz/index.html

the outputs are infact balanced/unbalanced, they are on TRS jacks.

These mixers have two problems, that may or may not be a problem, one is that if you are close to a radio station, they do not have good rf rejection, and their is a weakness in the multi pin cable . Other than that there are a ton of them around, they were very popular back in the ADAT days. most of the noise problems are more of an issue in recording than PA.

I tend to like the 1642 as a better upgrade, if you look on ebay all of these mixers come up all the time. you could also look at the SR24.4 or sr32.4

the other option would be to look at the earlier version 01v, they also are hovering pretty low these days, and from a practical standpoint, for PA there is not a lot of difference that the 96 will make

Here is a thread that you might find useful

http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/21293/0/0/0/

Sharyn
 
Ok, so DIs along with a modest level board might work ... however I need to take into account the cost of the DIs ($150 / 8 output channels?)
Considering that you would spend an average of $320 on 8 individual boxes I would say that it's a pretty good deal.
8 boxes at $40 ea=$320
 
On the question of balanced outputs, will an EQ work in place of a DI unit? I'm planning to get a bunch of DBX231s to EQ the room and could fairly easily get enough to cover all eight output channels. Will this work?

Thanks. John
 
Okay, I'm getting a bit frustrated with low-end analog equipment ...

For our upcoming production of Smokey Joe's Cafe I will be attempting to fully mic the band (7 mics on drums, plus Sax, guitar, bass and keyboards) and 8 singer/actors with wireless, and 1-2 stage mics on stands.

I've just finished a massive assault on eBay and Craigslist and bought four DBX266xls to give me gating and compression to cover the drum mikes and the sax (the others will be line outs) and four Lexicon FX units to provide 2 reverbs for vocals and two for instruments. These will run on two boards -- Mackie CFX-16 and CFX-20, which I will use for vocals and band, respectively. I actually have two complete sound systems running in the house ... SRM450s with subs for the band, placed well upstage where the band is located ... and the standard 5 channel FOH setup with SRM450s in center and wings, and SRM350s in the rear.

Combine that with a myriad of cables to connect all of these processors up to the boards, and a lot of shop work to build equipment racks out of plywood, and I'm thinking I should have just bought a Yamaha 01v96 ... :|

So, I may be buying a Yamaha 01v96 very soon. If this show was another few weeks off I might try to get it for this show. But I still need to do a bit more research.

A couple questions for whoever has used the Yamaha 01v96 ...
1) are the gate/compressors and FX engines acceptable for use in live performances as compared to DBX 266XLs and Lexicon MX200? Or do you notice a difference to the point where you would still want to use an outboard unit?

2) How are the onboard EQs? When I saw Curtains in NYC I spoke to the sound guy who showed me the group EQs he used on his P1MD ... they looked really handy, so I would expect to do the same here.

3) Is there any aspect of the 01v96 that you didn't like from a sound quality perspective, making you want to use an analog board instead?

4) Does the "user layer" give you enough flexibility for setting up DCAs, or are there specific things you couldn't do?

Thanks. John
 
Okay, I'm getting a bit frustrated with low-end analog equipment ...
For our upcoming production of Smokey Joe's Cafe I will be attempting to fully mic the band (7 mics on drums, plus Sax, guitar, bass and keyboards) and 8 singer/actors with wireless, and 1-2 stage mics on stands.
I've just finished a massive assault on eBay and Craigslist and bought four DBX266xls to give me gating and compression to cover the drum mikes and the sax (the others will be line outs) and four Lexicon FX units to provide 2 reverbs for vocals and two for instruments. These will run on two boards -- Mackie CFX-16 and CFX-20, which I will use for vocals and band, respectively. I actually have two complete sound systems running in the house ... SRM450s with subs for the band, placed well upstage where the band is located ... and the standard 5 channel FOH setup with SRM450s in center and wings, and SRM350s in the rear.
Combine that with a myriad of cables to connect all of these processors up to the boards, and a lot of shop work to build equipment racks out of plywood, and I'm thinking I should have just bought a Yamaha 01v96 ... :|
So, I may be buying a Yamaha 01v96 very soon. If this show was another few weeks off I might try to get it for this show. But I still need to do a bit more research.
A couple questions for whoever has used the Yamaha 01v96 ...
1) are the gate/compressors and FX engines acceptable for use in live performances as compared to DBX 266XLs and Lexicon MX200? Or do you notice a difference to the point where you would still want to use an outboard unit?
2) How are the onboard EQs? When I saw Curtains in NYC I spoke to the sound guy who showed me the group EQs he used on his P1MD ... they looked really handy, so I would expect to do the same here.
3) Is there any aspect of the 01v96 that you didn't like from a sound quality perspective, making you want to use an analog board instead?
4) Does the "user layer" give you enough flexibility for setting up DCAs, or are there specific things you couldn't do?
Thanks. John

I used the 01v96 for two years with a small band doing local gigs. It was a great little board to work with. Here are my opinions
1 comps, gates, fx, they worked fine for me. Certainly better than dragging outboard effects racks around. The display for comps/gates took a bit of getting used to but it was a minor issue.
2 EQ is 4 band, fully parametric. what else could you need. Thats what the best analog boards have. I think AandH and Soundcraft make better sounding ones on their big boards but that costs way more than you a talking about spending. I liked having both the picture of the curve and numerical information in the display although navigating the controls with the arrow buttons is tough to do in the dark and on the fly. Course, if we had gotten sound checks all the time.......
3 Sound quality was fine as compared to similar price boards. The pre-amps were a bit noisy but that is a problem with most Yamaha consoles and carefull attention to gain structure seemed to help minimize th problem.
4 I didn't use the user layer or DCA so I can't comment

Over all, impressions were favorable. I liked the ability to unload 2 cases ( console, and cd player) plug in the snake and be ready for sound check in 15 min. I really liked having 4 band EQs on the outputs. I could save my monitor and FOH eq settings and recall them all instantly, made sound checks faster. Mostly I was able to do without carrying GEQs.
My only complaint was that the input gains were not digitally controlled as they are on the LS9.

I would be more than happy to use that board again. best of luck to you.
 
Just a quick recap on the 01v96 capacity:

With a vanilla board and one Behringer ADA8000 unit, I will have
- 24 input channels with 20 mic preamps
- 12 omni outs in addition to LR

With an expansion card and up to two more ADA8000s I can add up to 16 more inputs AND 16 more outputs, for a total of 40 input channels (with 28 mic preamps) and 28 omni outputs plus LR

Is the above correct?

Any comments on the quality of the ADA8000 preamps vs the onboard ones?

Thanks. John
 
Actually that may be the worst part. Most Mackie consoles makes some sense. The CFX-20 for example's got 20 channels and it has some on board effects. Yamaha on the other hand makes no sense at all... PM5D-RH. So you are never sure if you are supposed to know what the code means or not.

mackie 1402?

14 channels 2 outputs:rolleyes:

no 14 channels 4 outputs, not all is so well thought out in the world of sound
 

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