sound console

[HillJonathan]

Just trying to find out if there are any Digital Consoles out there that that have 96ish inputs and 48ish outputs. I know you can get way more inputs than 96 but than the price starts to hit the $300,000 range and thats hard to sell to the offices. Having between 10 and 12 vca/dca's would be nice but 8 wouldn't knock it off the list.
Thanks for the input.

 

[MisterTim]

Just trying to find out if there are any Digital Consoles out there that that have 96ish inputs and 48ish outputs. I know you can get way more inputs than 96 but than the price starts to hit the $300,000 range and thats hard to sell to the offices. Having between 10 and 12 vca/dca's would be nice but 8 wouldn't knock it off the list.
Thanks for the input.

I would recommend you look for consoles that can be linked together, rather than one console with that many inputs. Even a board as cheap as the Mackie tt24 (MSRP $6000/ea) can be linked with another tt24 to have 120 inputs, 12 VCA, 24 aux, etc.

 

[HillJonathan]

We could go way bigger than that. The last few consoles we worked on was a PM5D and a Digi Design. In our capital is a M7 but it still wouldn't cover our needs. $50,000 to $100,000 is more or less what we could spend maybe $150,000 if it was perfect. I'm not sure our mixer could make it to the other console to mix both VCA's.

 

[bishopthomas]

Check out the Digico consoles. The D5T is designed specifically with theatres in mind (I am only assuming you're in a theatre). There are others out there, such as the Digidesign (now Avid) D-Show, but the Digico seems to be the standard for high end theatre installations. Also, Calrec is at least as popular as the Digico, so maybe check out those as well. Of course, whatever you get make sure you demo it first. Is this going in a venue in Dallas? If so, give Sound Productions (soundpro.com) a call. They are in Dallas and always have the best price in the country on consoles.

 

[Eboy87]

The DiGiCo D series, and the SD7 will cover that easily. THe SD8 is limited to 60 channels and I forget how many outputs. You can easily bump that up though using the alt inputs in each channel and snapshots. I've never tried it that way before, but I know it can be done.

If you want to stay Yamaha, you can grab a DSP5D to expand the 5D out to 96 channels, again, not sure about the outputs. Cascading 5D's is also an option. Digi gives you 96 channels easily and their show files are compatable with the entire range of their consoles.

I'm a fan of the DiGiCo's, and most theatrical tours I see come through with digital have either a DiGiCo or LCS at FOH.

 

[museav]

Do you need 96 physical inputs and 48 physical outputs with a potentially smaller I/O count or 96 logical inputs and 48 mix buses? There are consoles that could support that many physical connections but with a more limited number of logical paths (e.g. using virtual patching to address a larger number of physical inputs or outputs than the console logic supports).

Any other requirements such as needing anything other than analog I/O, any specific physical format (all in one, separate work surface and processor rack, remote stage boxes, etc.) and so on?

A $50,000 to $100,000 budget is going to be very limiting for the type of console you seem to be looking for, even the $150,000 may be pushing it.

I might avoid the TT24 in general, it's status is a little too unclear at this time.

 

[bishopthomas]

I've never seen a price on the D5 or D-Show. Are these over $100,000? I was thinking they were in the $80,000 range, but I've never seen an actual number.

 

[Eboy87]

I've never seen a price on the D5 or D-Show. Are these over $100,000? I was thinking they were in the $80,000 range, but I've never seen an actual number.

I have no idea. I just saw a D1 system on Soundbroker for around $91k, so I'd imagine they'd be higher. I thought the Profile was around the price of a 5D, but you'd need to add racks to get to 96 ins, which would bump the price up a couple of grand.

 

[MisterTim]

I might avoid the TT24 in general, it's status is a little too unclear at this time.

Trust me, I certainly wasn't recommending it, it's a constant pain in my ass. I was just using it as an example that spending $300k is not necessary to obtain his goals.

 

[Chris15]

Trust me, I certainly wasn't recommending it, it's a constant pain in my ass. I was just using it as an example that spending $300k is not necessary to obtain his goals.

The TT24 as I understand it has little hope of achieving the 48 outputs the spec calls for...

 

[museav]

I have no idea. I just saw a D1 system on Soundbroker for around $91k, so I'd imagine they'd be higher.

The one I see there is $96k, is located in the Czech Republic and is apparently 80 analog and 16 AES in and 46 analog and 8 AES out spread across three devices, thus it would seem to need some input and possibly output expansion and would be probably over $100k with that and shipping. They also have a 96x48 Digidesign D-Show Venue system with all the accessories (cases, monitors, snakes, plug-ins, etc.) listed for $81,500 and several 'standard' configuration Yamaha PM5D-RH systems offered for $45k to $60k but those would have to be considerably expanded to get the 96x48 configuration desired.

Of course all of these are used, most on tours, so one issue is how amenable they are to purchasing gear that has been on tour or used for rentals, especially without a chance to actually see it or try it out. Are you buying a system that has had all the bugs worked out or are you buying someone else's problems? What are you getting in terms of any product warranty and support? What are the sales terms and are they viable?

The DigiCo D1 is a good example of the issue I was noting, it can support up to 224 physical inputs and 224 physical outputs but the actual mixing engine logic normally supports 64 inputs (expandable up to 160) and 48 output buses with 8 of those being dedicated to a 38x8 matrix. So a system is capable of supporting many more physical inputs and outputs than the logic directly supports. With some other consoles they may support a 96x48 physical configuration but not support that large a system with the actual mixing and processing logic.

 

[MisterTim]

The TT24 as I understand it has little hope of achieving the 48 outputs the spec calls for...

I run the following on my TT24:

24 analog inputs into the preamps
24 inputs into lightpipe via Mackie E800R preamp
8 line inputs
4 tape inputs (2x stereo) routed to card inputs 1-4
AES input routed to card input 5-6
Talkback input routed to card input 8

LCR mains
12 aux out
8 group/matrix out
4 tape outputs (2x stereo)
24 lightpipe out into Presonus Lightpipe
AES output

63 inputs, 53 outputs. And that's expandable to 87/77 by adding a 24-in/out lightpipe card. I do seriously use every single one of those ins and outs listed (not often the group/matrix out, but I have and they work fine).

So why can't the TT24 achieve 48 outputs?

 

[museav]

I run the following on my TT24:63 inputs, 53 outputs. And that's expandable to 87/77 by adding a 24-in/out lightpipe card. I do seriously use every single one of those ins and outs listed (not often the group/matrix out, but I have and they work fine).

So why can't the TT24 achieve 48 outputs?

Let's see, if I am correct there are a total of 12 auxes, LCR (or stereo plus mono), 8 Group/Matrix sends and stereo monitor outputs, that's a maximum of 25 outputs. You can have more physical outputs and you can create digital splits but you are limited to those 25 mix bus signals.

I keep saying the same thing but tis is a good example that when talking about digital consoles one needs to address both the physical inputs and the internal routing or signal paths. Having 48 physical outputs and having 48 separate mix buses can be two very different things.

 

[FortMacTech]

What about the A&H ilive series. Easy to get 96 ins with 2 drive racks and that also gives you 48 outs and you pick the console size you want.

 

[museav]

What about the A&H ilive series. Easy to get 96 ins with 2 drive racks and that also gives you 48 outs and you pick the console size you want.

Same issue yet again. Yes, you can have that many physical inputs and outputs for the mix system, however I believe the iLive mix engine is limited to 64x32.

Perhaps this general concept is best looked at from an analog analogy. With analog consoles you would often see systems that used physical patchbays to connect a large number of physical inputs and outputs to a console with a lesser number of inputs and outputs. You might have mic inputs, aux outputs, etc. all over the place for flexibility but only use a portion of them for any event with the connections being accomplished via some physical patching. With digital consoles the physical patchbays can potentially be replaced with digital patchbays. Instead of running 100 mics to a patch panel and physically patching the 48 to be used to the 48 inputs on the console you may run all 100 into the mix system and electronically patch the inputs to be used to the mix engine. Thus a digital mixing system may have more physical inputs than it has 'mixer' inputs. The same concept can also apply to outputs.

Unfortunately, we still don't know if it is a 96x48 mix that is desired or if it is 96 physical inputs and 48 physical outputs with a smaller mix being acceptable. This can be a very significant distinction in determining what consoles might support the needs.