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[Jeff Babcock]

I find I can get a "basic" mix up and running a little faster on an analog desk if I'm in a festival type situation with only a line check etc, but the difference is not that much.

HOWEVER I'd much rather have the digital features as well as not having to scan through a huge rack of knobs and buttons to find a comp or gate or whatever rack item - from a pure ergonomics perspective it's so much faster to pull it up on a screen that is in the same place every time - and I can also keep focus on the band better.  And once you do that show, save yourself a file and the next time you hit that desk you have a starting point that may save you time.

Not that I enjoy sitting down at a digital desk I've never used before.... analog can be easier in that regard..... but you'll quickly run into enough digital desks that it will become very natural using them after a while.  Just deal with it and take advantages of the new capabilities.

[Milt Hathaway]

Whatever, dude.

[Jake Scudder]

Preferences are preferences and you are certainly entitled to yours.  I just wonder how employable the guys who still hold onto "no digital" clauses are going to find themselves in the very near future if not already.  

The thing about surfaces is once you have a handle on a couple it is a 10 minute process at most to get up to "make the show happen well" speed on anything new you might come across.

My current tour is my first serious encounter with an M7CL.  It's quite different than the PM1D, 5D, and DM series stuff I'm used to from Yamaha and yet I felt totally comfortable with the desk in about 3 minutes.  Now I just have to remember not to be poking at the PM1D screen when I go back to it.

[Dick Rees]

Hey.....

I'm still having trouble remembering the boost/cut and sweep on my Venice are backwards to my A & H!!!!

[bruce reiter]

hi ya'all,

my opinion is if you want to work and get paid well you should become a master of all of the current equipment and digital mixing consoles are on the list of current equipment.
my first taste of digital mixing was with the showconsole on the extreme steel tour in 2001 since then almost every tour i have done has used a digital console ...

my favorite 2 are the digidesign venue and the yamaha pm5d these seem to be industry standard and i advise anyone who wants to work now or in the coming years to really get to know these consoles. of coarse you should also make yourself familiar with the other digital options that are out there because you will be thrown on one for a massive festival at some point on your tour.

jump on the boat  

having said that i do love a xl4! with drawmer ds201 gates and some summit tla 100's and some fx like h3000se, tc2290, lexicon pcm 70 ... ahhh the sweet sounds.

best,

bruce

[Loren Aguey]

I just started a casino gig with an LS9 and that my first experience with digital. So far I love it.

I'm glad the first show I did there was literally one channel and the duo mixed everything themselves, which gave me time to familiarize myself with the desk, without having to do any actual mixing.

Once I became "officially" comfortable on it(which was today actually, 3rd gig there) I think  its awesome. I love having all of that processing at your disposal with no outboard gear. And I also love having completely separate channels for monitor sends, basically like a separate monitor desk in the same console. No complaints so far.

[BarryWillems]

Um .. where to start.

Like was said earlier, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But give me a break. I've worked on a lot of different FOH consoles from the crappiest 8 channel analog Peavey to the latest top-of the line digital Venue in our church (love it). I've been using an 01V96 in a weekend band project for about 2 years now (love it). For all the reasons mentioned in this thread, there is no comparison and no going back when it comes to digital vs. analog.

I can make just about anything sound pretty good if it's not total crap, but it is so much easier to do it all in the digital world. And anyone who thinks digital is about pages and screens and menues to get lost in needs to work on the latest stuff. I can see WAY more and tweak WAY more WAY easier in the digital world than in the analog world, especially with the elimination of all that outboard gear.

Time to move forward.  

[Mark Hadman]

Wow.

Dave Dermont wrote on Mon, 09 June 2008 17:24

Hey Mark, I respect your opinion and it's good to have favorites, but you need to get with the freakin' program. No, really. I understand the mixing with both hands and all that, but how hard is it to press a 'select' button? Do you EQ more than one channel at a time too? THAT I gotta see!

Hey Dave, you're probably right, I probably do need to just get with the freakin program, if I don't want to be carrying a desk around the rest of my life. I might just quit before I roll over and take this crap though.

No, I've probably never EQ'd two channels at a time, but I *often* tweak the LVs balance, send a single snare hit to a reverb, adjust the delay feedback, reach for the guitar that's about to hit a lead part and maybe steal a quick look at the setlist, all in the space of one bar. I need a spare brain if I'm going to keep track of which auxes my faders currently represent and which other auxes I've left faders open on. It feels like going backwards, not forwards.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of technology, and I know some desks are closer to usable than others, and circumstances make a lot of difference. First time I used an O1V (the old model I think) live was in France a few years back and the house guy didn't speak a word of English. But we had a soundcheck, and it was a very different band requiring much less mixing even though I had to mix mons too, and I had a few hundred hours' experience using Yamaha digis in a studio, and the gig worked. It was, however, frustrating having to stand 4 feet away from a GL2200 that was being used to record the gig! I've since (as house engineer) done an hour or two on monitors on one of the newer bigger Yamahas, which was fun, and mixed FOH for a couple of support acts on traveling Digidesign and A&H iLive consoles. It doesn't faze me and I'm grateful for the opportunity to get some practice in with relatively low expectations from an unfamiliar band. And, let's face it, I would actually like to get my mitts on an XL8 for half an hour just so I can say I've used it.

But it was an absolutely ridiculous gig the other day - small festy, two minutes changeover, the last thing I needed was to see an O2R/96 at FOH, accompanied by an HE who couldn't (or wouldn't) set up a tap tempo delay on a soft key for me and, it turned out a few minutes in, hadn't actually got any FX returns routed anywhere anyway, and the vocals were distorted to hell because there weren't enough pres on the desk so they were using an overcooked B*******r A/D unit hidden away in a rack along with a couple of inexplicable B******r digiEQs ... the whole depressing experience got me thinking how I would have loved to have turned up with my own rack/mixer and fold-out table and just repatch the XLRs... Maybe one of the newer Mixwiz 16:2s (APB/Crest is just a dream), Digitech Studio Quad mk2, some dbx or Rane mojo EQ and a cheap nasty 4-way gate/comp and I'd have been perfectly happy and able to do my job in the fluid way that we've come to expect. Cheaper, easier and no bigger or heavier.

HE guys and gals and festy providers, what would you say if I turned up to YOUR smallish digi-equipped venue/festy with my 4U rack 'n' rackdesk plus extension looms and table? Probably 'where do you expect to squeeze THAT in?', I suppose...

[trace knight]

I agree in part, you can have all the latest bells and whistles on every channel, give or take, load in all sorts of plug in's and outboard digital effects, even run off a laptop using wireless........but dammit, if your gonna demand this stuff, you damm well better know how to use it, and use it well. I have to say, in the limited digital world I have had to deal with demanders, who, well basically, they know how to ask and demand, and don't have a f--king clue how to use it. It's always been a train wreck of misplaced patchs, re-organizing, and just in general plain mayhem at any show I've had to provide the wish list for.
It's great for an act who carries their own, rolls their own, and knows just what's happening. Most of the shows I have to provide for, are fast paced, promoters who have no concept of reality, promising all acts soundchecks, or should I say "rehersals" like a 15 min band change for a national act, 3 acts, then dinner, and it starts all over again, 2 shows a day. Give me a Midas anyday, I'll deal with the size and the weight. At least I can step up, and dial it in fast, and if he BE is clueless, the train wreck and insuing injuries as less painful.
God bless digital, and all it repetive savings, but god bless a good ole fashined knob desk for those times when digital just ain't the flavor this day!

tk

[bruce reiter]

Mark Hadman wrote on Mon, 09 June 2008 19:26

Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of technology, But it was an absolutely ridiculous gig the other day - small festy, two minutes changeover, the last thing I needed was to see an O2R/96 at FOH, accompanied by an HE who couldn't (or wouldn't) set up a tap tempo delay on a soft key for me and, it turned out a few minutes in, hadn't actually got any FX returns routed anywhere anyway, and the vocals were distorted to hell because there weren't enough pres on the desk so they were using an overcooked B*******r A/D unit hidden away in a rack along with a couple of inexplicable B******r digiEQs ... ...

hi mark,

it is your responsibility to know how to operate the equipment. read the manual and figure out for yourself how to use the soft key function or whatever.
ignorance is no excuse.

best,

bruce