Mixers/Consoles Thoughts on PRO2 and CL5

waltg

Member
Howdy from Texas!

I currently work as A1 for student worship in a mega church down here. At the moment, we are running a Midas PRO2 (currently using every ch) for FOH and a second one for IEM in our student venue (200 seats). Having just bought a PM5 by Yamaha for our new main venue our team is putting on pressure to switch out the PRO2s for CL5s by Yamaha to get everyone on similar consoles in the across the venues. Am I right to feel that the PRO2 is a superior console to the CL5 for mixing a band of roughly 10 people in a venue seating ~200? Looking for your nitty gritty opinions here :) would it be wise to move to a CL5 even if similarity across the venues wasn't an issue? Would you agree the PRO2 preamps sound better? Heck is it even worth the cost to switch the two consoles out? Do you have a different console you would recommend?

Thanks in advance,
WG
 
Howdy from Texas!

I currently work as A1 for student worship in a mega church down here. At the moment, we are running a Midas PRO2 (currently using every ch) for FOH and a second one for IEM in our student venue (200 seats). Having just bought a PM5 by Yamaha for our new main venue our team is putting on pressure to switch out the PRO2s for CL5s by Yamaha to get everyone on similar consoles in the across the venues. Am I right to feel that the PRO2 is a superior console to the CL5 for mixing a band of roughly 10 people in a venue seating ~200? Looking for your nitty gritty opinions here :) would it be wise to move to a CL5 even if similarity across the venues wasn't an issue? Would you agree the PRO2 preamps sound better? Heck is it even worth the cost to switch the two consoles out? Do you have a different console you would recommend?

Thanks in advance,
WG
Calling @TimMc
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
To me, this argument is purely subjective. Each operator has a different preference as to what they like in syntax of operation. Ask any 5 engineers their opinion, and you will 10 different answers on how something sounds. Both boards are great boards, especially for such a small size space. Things like better mics, better IEM molds, fewer A/D D/A conversions, and better maintained /tuned instruments are far more likely to make an audible difference.

There is much to be said for an organization like yours to be on the same page from a training standpoint. So, having everyone on the same platform (ish) has some logic to it. Especially as people move into the bigger venue from the smaller one. Things like compatibility of stage boxes and such are helpful when you are all on the same line of gear. And, if you are already at capacity on the board, having room to grow and taking them up on the generous offer to "upgrade" and refresh is not a bad idea. Many people have to fight long and hard for such an opportunity. IF you have other gear that needs to be replaced first, that might be a different argument. If you had lesser wireless systems, or less than desirable FOH speakers I would fight to put the money before that prior to replacing a perfectly good set of boards.

That is my $0.02.

~Dave
 
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The differences in preamps between even halfway decent consoles these days are really, really far down on the list of things that make much noticeable difference in sound quality. I have no idea whether the PRO2 preamps sound better than the CL5 preamps, or vice versa; but I am fairly certain that getting better microphones, speakers, and room acoustic treatments would have a much, much greater impact than the differences in preamps...and quite possibly working with the musicians and sound technicians to better their skills and talents would have an even greater one. (I'm not suggesting that church musicians ought to be professional musicians, nor that those you're working with are not skilled or competent or any such thing.)

In my decidedly not mega church, somewhat smaller than your youth venue, we use a Behringer X32 and it is working out very well for us. I'm not sure that particular data point is at all applicable to your situation.
 
Am I right to feel that the PRO2 is a superior console to the CL5 for mixing a band of roughly 10 people in a venue seating ~200?

No, I wouldn't argue that the Pro2 is a superior console. It's a tool and like all tools they do a job. I prefer the CL5 95% of the time, but I'm not going to like turn my nose up at a Pro2 if its the console offered on a gig. Venue size doesn't matter, and a 10 piece band is adequate on both consoles equally (that being said, I've done a 5 piece band and max'd out a CL5 completely, but that was a very "special" musical, I don't think musical theater accurately reflects real-life input needs).


would it be wise to move to a CL5 even if similarity across the venues wasn't an issue?

Eh, it seems like a perfectly great way to set a lot of cash on fire unless you have some great impetus for a console swap. Do you eventually plan on carting in any other CL's from the other spaces to use as a monitor desk? Staying in the ecosystem would keep things easier but otherwise if you have one space rolling along just fine on a Pro2 and one on a CL and they don't have gear crossover than I think its a moot point.

The best argument I can think of for a common console type would be if you have a ton of volunteers and unifying helps clear up confusion issues. The Pro2's aren't too intuitive to use and I know that can be frustrating for a new person.


Would you agree the PRO2 preamps sound better? Heck is it even worth the cost to switch the two consoles out? Do you have a different console you would recommend?

I am so incredibly tired by folks arguing about console preamps and that being the meaningful reason to upgrade or not upgrade. Take a look at the rest of your signal chain first, are your preamps really the weak link between good sound and great sound in your setup? Rewinding to basics, Speaker Placement, Mic Placement, and proper gain staging have way more of an impact on quality of sound before we even touch the topic of preamps. I've been mixing a Broadway show for a few years on a CL5 and no one in the audience would ever know from the sound of the show what console I use. I've done the same exact show on an SD7, and guess what - they sounded almost identical, and the parts that weren't identical you could chalk up to the mixer I was auditing and not the gear.

As to the cost, like I said if your church just wants to burn money, yeah go get a new console - otherwise I'm a big fan of just using what you got until it dies or there is a truly compelling reason to swap, and I don't see a compelling reason here other than Jesus really wanting a redundant Dante network.
 
Hi all- thanks for you $0.02!
I agree with what everyone is saying here, both are suitable consoles for the job and it’s good to hear each person’s preference. I’ve always been a ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ kinda guy but being in a church where people have money to spare is certainly something I’m happy I jumped in on. Many of y’all made the great point of the versatility of the CL5, being able to stick it in a road case and move it to a different building as needed, certainly a nice perk. Currently boss man has his heart set on the CL5 so I’ll come back with a follow up post after using it for a couple of months :)

Best,
WG
 
Hi Walt-

The other thing: basically the Midas Pro series (except for the Pro X) is end-of-life for all intents and puposes. Midas support in the USA is currently almost non-existent.

Yamaha is nobody's first choice and everybody's second choice. Reliability is legendary, there is a vast ecosystem of expansion cards (Yamaha and 3rd party, like Waves and Dugan), DANTE based... and Yamaha will have parts and support typically for 10 years after EOL.

Something else to think about - it's possbile to *fully remote control* a CL console over the internet. Operator in London moves a fader and the redundant mixer in Los Angles responds in sync. I'm not talking about using the editor software, but 2 physical consoles. Both could be live, ingesting audio from a cloud source, doing the various AUX and mix-minuses, and feeding program to cloud streaming/CDNs or recorders, with hot swap capability. That means in the event of a console failure the remaining console could be operated by its Local Human; that's full redundancy for mission critical audio. For your church campus this means rather than re-routing audio to another building or studio for control (social distancing, meeting privacy, etc), you just remote the consoles (and reduce the chance of a DANTE mispatch or discovering network issues you didn't know you had).

I suggest you look at this from a management perspective and not as an end-user.
 

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