Upgrading from Midas M32

Thanks everyone for all this valuable input. Our venue does more than musical theater, but that is the majority. We aren't trying to meet riders, just want a good board for in-house use, and if outside groups want to use it. I still have a lot of research to do, but I think Digico is probably out of price range, and probably going to have a tough sell buying something discontinued. Is Midas replacing these models with something new or getting out of that product range?

There have been "leaked" pictures of the new Midas Pro### prototypes. Looks like the lovechild of M32 and Pro X but there has been no actual info released by Music Group. Perhaps introduced at this fall's Audio Engineering Society convention/show or in Jan at Winter NAMM... or maybe it's all smoke and mirrors, who knows?

I had a physically proximate chat with a Midas support rep who didn't answer my question of "what happened to Kyle Chirnside?" But he alluded to the new Midas being released "real soon now" (which was said a year ago, too) and a major announcement for TurboSound.

The price issue for your needs is channel count. Simply put, there's no cheap way to do this. The inexpensive-but-capable mixers currently max out at 32 inputs. Depending on how you handle orchestra/playback/utility audio it might be simpler to have those on a sub-mixer and feed L/R and a couple of foldback lines into the main mixer. Using the M32, you could bring 6 submixer lines back in via the main mixer's "AUX" inputs and keep all 32 XLR/AES main mixer inputs for your actor mics.

Edit ps: A friend of mine was audio director for the Tulsa Performing Arts Center and they ended up with a seriously DANTE networked Yamaha CL/QL system that he and house staff installed and provisioned. The PAC has multiple performance and meeting spaces (2 actual theaters) and they're able to send/receive audio between all of them. This was an upgrade from PM5D mixers in the theaters and Mackie analog in the other rooms; the facility users are pleased with the capabilities.
 
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@FMEng, that's a fairly new model but in my past encounters the Presonus stuff is pretty user-hostile. Crude, but for the price you pay, you can't expect a whole lot. Which is also to say if your needs/expectations aren't too high, you could end up feeling you got a really good deal. Maybe worth doing a demo of if you can, but Presonus hasn't earned a reputation that I think anyone looking for more than 16 inputs should blindly purchase their products without evaluating them first for their particular application.

From my perspective, their product development model appears to be largely based on delivering lots of filled check boxes on a spec sheet and not so much about delivering a reliable, user-friendly device that you can throw musical theater at. I wouldn't be shocked if the 64S was a direct reaction to me rejecting Presonus on a project 2 years ago in place of a QL5 for, among other reasons, having only 32 channels on the proposed mix surface and lacking Dante (note: the 64S has AVB, not Dante -- that means no Dante virtual soundcard, no integration with wireless mic receivers like ULXDQ's, compatible with fewer DSP's than Dante, and quite frankly leaves you with none of the good ones unless you drop a small fortune...) What followed was the least professional correspondence I've encountered from any manufacturer ever, from leadership at Presonus, circumventing the bid solicitation process and directly badmouthing my design to the client.

Also important -- the average cost of wireless mic's is $1k/channel. If you're mixing 32+ channels of wireless of 20+ channels of wired, I get really nervous putting $40,000-$60,000 worth of inputs into a $5k mixer. That quality of mixer undermines the value of your other investments and can be a bottleneck to how your entire system sounds all day, every day. Maybe not noticeable when everything is flat but start delving into effects, EQ's, and compressors and your mix could get pretty jagged around the edges. Similar things have been said historically about the X32, but Behringer at least has the shear brute force of market share at the sub $5k price point that they can afford the proper R&D to make a functioning console for that cost tier.

I'm not saying write Presonus off entirely, but try before you buy and apply scrutiny to how it sounds and how easy it is to use. Musical theater is one of the hardest forms of live mixing. In that application you really don't want navigating and using your mix console to be an obstacle in and of itself that you have to leap over constantly.
 
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I've been impressed with the Allen and Heath SQ series, tons of features and the price is right. That's why I was wondering about your feeling of having 2 consoles. SQ's max channel count is 48 I believe, but they link seamlessly with the SLink card.
Ultimately, you'd probably only end up mixing from one but being able to glance over and see what the band or other wireless looks like is great. I think that's why most theatre (that I've worked in) has always been large consoles, just so you can see the faders at a glance. No one has time for page flips during line mixing. And sometimes you just need to grab that brake drum mic for the one orchestral section that uses it but didn't remember to build a cue.
So getting 2 SQ7s for the price of a QL gets you 32 more faders would be my vote. And the added flexibility if you need to use it for something else, you can unlink them and use them separately.
 
I’ll toss in a dLive vote. I like mine, though I’ve never had the chance to try it in a live theater setting yet. The option cards and additional I/O boxes will easily handle your immediate and potential growth situation. Something like a C3500 paired with a CDM32 will still set you back about $20K, but I feel that it’s one of the most cost-effective “big” desks currently on the market. I have no idea what kind of theatrical rider-friendliness a dLive has, but it’s definitely gaining some traction in the other corners of the industry. I chose the dLive for personal ownership simply due to its tremendous flexibility. Hope this helps!
 
I can't quite dismiss the thought of getting another M32 (or an M32R) and possibly a DL32 stagebox to solve your channel count issue. Using the M32R as a sidecar mixer. You're already in the M32 ecosystem and, as you say, it's mainly for in-house staff to use. I've seen an M32R + DL32 bundle offerd for $4K total.

As far as scene control goes, I roll my own snippets and use QLAb via MIDI to recall M32 snippets. I'm only changing DCA assignments, DCA scribble strips labels and DCA scribble strip colors, though. I know that Palladium can control 2 M32s at once.

Seems like an inexpensive solution to me.
 
Is Midas replacing these models with something new or getting out of that product range?

The talk for the last few years was going to be a large format desk built off the back of the X32/M32 software. There is a lot that has to go into making that happen, but thats the goal. The current pro line is built off of the XL8 and that thing is very long in the tooth. The software is good, the hardware is good, and I still don't think any desk sounds better. When we bought both our Pro2's the Avid offering was the Profile and the Yamaha was the M7... so it was an easy choice. The Yamaha stuff is good though... but I've been listening to a Midas desk for so long its hard for me to listen to anything else.
 
My theatre was in this exact situation last year. Unfortunately there are very few options for reasonably priced consoles with 64+ inputs. We ultimately decided on the Yamaha QL5 with two TIO1608 stage boxes. The whole kit cost us less than $14k and we couldn't be happier with it. Our theatre focuses on musicals and the board has kept us. We're using the onboard I/O for the wireless mic rack at FOH and the Dante stage boxes for the band inputs on the stage. We're also feeding the PA via Dante. For us what really sealed the deal was the Yamaha QL editor, it's the cleanest interface of any we tested. Most of our volunteers already had experience on other Yamaha consoles and were able to come up to speed on the QL quickly.

For what it's worth we did also look at the dLive system, the only other reasonable console in that price range. In our testing the console's software was just sluggish and not intuitive. The offline editor was similarly sluggish and not laid out well for the type of programming we needed to do.
 
Hello,
We currently use a Midas M32 in our local theatre, but have been running out of channels. It looks like we will get approval to purchase a new console with higher channel count, so I am curious about opinions on which to buy. We have been completely happy with the M32. Should we be looking at larger Midas consoles? Other considerations? I'm thinking 60 mix inputs minimum.
Thanks!
More news - the Midas Heritage D debuts next week. Reported as 144 Flex input channels, 120 Flex outputs, 24 VGA, 24 POP groups/layers, up to 600 channels of connected i/o to assign to that 144x120. Pricing to follow, I'm told.
 
The specs of the Heritage D sounds a bit like those on Rolands now discontinued M5000 series.
But it may well be too pricey compared to eg. a ql5 with TiO's or similar.
 
The specs of the Heritage D sounds a bit like those on Rolands now discontinued M5000 series.
But it may well be too pricey compared to eg. a ql5 with TiO's or similar.

Price is indeed the speculative point and the pundits are thinking the D should come in around or under dLive prices. My guess is <US$20k for the minimal package and topping out <US$40k for the Full Meal Deal.

Heritage D apparently has at least 2 different mix engines and modular i/o... not sure if the legacy DLxxx stage boxes will work with the D.
 
Okay, the word is out:
MAP is US$35,000 for the mixer, no external engines. Existing DLxxx stage boxes will work with it.
 
I'd hold out if possible until the Heritage Digital is available. However on the cheap side, depending on how many of your sources are stereo, the Behringer Wing (or the Midas version - surely there will be one?) has 48 stereo channels. I'm lead to believe that the street price will be a lot better than we have been told.
 
I'd hold out if possible until the Heritage Digital is available. However on the cheap side, depending on how many of your sources are stereo, the Behringer Wing (or the Midas version - surely there will be one?) has 48 stereo channels. I'm lead to believe that the street price will be a lot better than we have been told.

I meant that the street on the Heritage will be less than we have been told. Duh.
 
The Presonus StudioLive 64S breaks the $5,000 price barrier without a stage box. I've never used a Presonus console, so I have no idea how it would fare doing theater.
I'm a little late, but I thought I would share my opinion on a PreSonus console. We have a StudioLive 32 Series III (I know it is too small for what is needed in this thread, but my problems are probably not specific to this model), and I wouldn't recommend it.

Every time there is a firmware update to fix an issue, it seems like something else gets broken.

Sometimes, when booting up, it doesn't load correctly or has missing screens for some of the faders. To solve, I just have to turn it off and back on again.

I've also experienced issues where it boots up and appears fine, but then audio doesn't pass through the outputs even though the meters show there is a level. Again, turning it off and back on fixes that as well.

I have had nothing but problems trying to get their stagebox and mixer to work together. Worked fine at first, but then started to experience problems with the clock syncing. Spent days swapping cables and trying different runs. Spent a long time on the phone waiting to just talk to their technical support, ended up hanging up after close to two hours in their queue. Finally got a response from their messaging system online though after some time. Came down to the cable in our walls not being CAT5e or better, so I replaced all the cable with CAT6, which fixed the problem... at first. No problem during the few days of testing. No problems during most of the sound check, but then at the end, audio blipped out again, due to a clock sync issue. Then again near the end of the concert. I know this particular problem is probably a combination of PreSonus and my organizations problems, but still would much rather be working with digital snake options that use Dante instead of AVB.

Their app is not the most user friendly when using an iPad, but not terrible. My major problems with it are when adjusting knobs though, it pops up a slider window, which then prevents you from modifying anything else unless you press randomly somewhere else, then repress what you need to quickly adjust. Most noticeable when adjusting a knob for something, but then you hear feedback and need to quickly mute or bring down a fader. My instinct is to quickly bring down a fader or press mute, but nothing will happen when you do that until you let your finger off the screen again, then the slider window disappears and you now can press mute (again) or bring the slider down (again). On an android phone, the app is even worse. They shrink down all the faders so they can fit more on the screen, which make it really hard for your fingers to click on anything that you actually want to click on. It just isn't optimized like it should be.

Maybe I just have had the only bad experiences, but I just can't recommend PreSonus. It was the cheaper option though, which is why we ended up with it to begin with. It is probably fine for consumer-sided things, but it just doesn't have that professional-quality experience with it.
 
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You are not the only person to dis Presonus boards; I hear a low rumble of discontent about them in lots of quarters.
It's well deserved. They should have stuck to building interfaces, converters and other digi-dodads.
 

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