Greetings from Greybeard central!
OK, so I've had the ProDesk-4 for a while now, and everyone's clamoring for a report. I've had a chance to use the ProDesk-4 and have sent it back to The Mother Ship.
My first use of the ProDesk-4 was as a monitor mixer for a show that consisted of two solo performers.
When I got the call for this gig, the guy hiring me asked if I had a monitor mixer available, since his inventory was tapped out for this date. I told him about the ProDesk-4, and along with being happy he found what he needed to do the gig, he was also very interested in checking it out the console.
The show's opening act was a woman named Judith Owen, who happens to be the wife of Harry Shearer. Yeah, the wife of the guy who plays Mr. Burns (and dozens of other characters on The Simpsons) and Derek Smalls is about what you'd expect her to be.
The fact that she opened her set with a piano/vocal rendition of “Smoke on the Water” pretty much says it all.
In the interest of expediency of set changes, a digital piano was used. Most of the sound check for this act was spent addressing the low-end rumble produced by a Roland keyboard amp placed on top of a portable stage deck. I suggested not using the amp and putting the piano through the wedges, but this option did not fly with this artist. (there's that “people skills” thing again) I was able to solve the problem by placing the amp on a piece of foam I scavenged from the microphone box.
For vocals, the artist carried her own Heil PR20.
Stage monitoring for solo acoustic performers has it's own set of demands that are very different than the “make everything louder than everything else until my ears bleed” requests so often encountered with rock bands. Providing detail and nuance can be just as challenging as squeezing out pure “balls to the wall” ear-splitting volume without feedback.
The EQ section of the ProDesk-4 proved to be just the tool needed to to shape the sound to the pleasure of the artist on stage. When the performer is happy, everybody is happy.
The headlining artist for this show was Shawn Colvin. The stage monitoring instructions given to me by her road manager were “start with everything off, and she'll ask for monitor if she needs it”. We then proceeded to check her guitar inputs, (a DI and a mic) and her vocal mic. After hearing what the room sounded like during our line check, the road manager expressed confidence that Ms. Colvin would not need any stage monitors that evening, and she was right.
OK, so sitting there with the faders down might not seem like the best way to test a console. It did, however, allow me to listen to the inputs in headphones and “get a feel” for the console. It feels good. Real good.
After this gig, I took the console to what is presently my “regular” gig in a small club with a PA system that's way too big for the room.
Let's just say that the bands that play this room like it that way.
The ProDesk-4 was a wonderful console in this application. Again, it was a bit of overkill for the room, but an absolute pleasure to use. As compared to the usual console I use in this room, which is named after a city in Italy, I enjoyed having things like a logical layout and real faders to go with the great sound of the console. I especially enjoyed the variable Hi-Pass Filter. How am I going to live without one now that I sent the ProDesk-4 back?
I suppose I'll survive, but I won't be quite as happy.
That's it for now.
Carry on.