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[Nick Bair]

Hi, Folks.

We're ready to go digital--like, all digital. We have maxed out our current auditorium and are a few years away from a new one. But the analog snake we have now picks up all kinds of interference ever since we expanded the auditorium and relocated the sound booth. The Behringer console we purchased a few years ago is unreliable and causes as many problems as it solved when we got it. In retrospect we should not have gone cheap. Lesson learned, ready to move on.

We will make room in next year's budget for a digital stage box, but we want to move now on a digital mixing console. I'm very interested in the Yamaha 01V96VCM (http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/products/mixers/01v96/). It looks like a great choice for our setup, which is exclusively traditional worship style. It has enough mic preamps to work with our existing analog snake until we get a new stage box.

Can anybody opine as to whether this would be a good choice for FOH? I also would like to verify that this works with the mini-YGDAI cards that Yamaha sells to interface with EtherSound (since we're also looking at the Yamaha SB168-ES stage box). It seems to me like we can put this setup into place for under $8,000, which is appealing.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Jeremy Johnston]

I've recommended them in the past and I still think they are great little boards for the price and class they're in. BUT, a few new choices have joined the market that have advantages in different ways.

The Presonus Studio Live boards are pretty user friendly compared to the Yamaha O1V.  The Yamaha LS9 is more friendly to use than the O1V (though it's more expensive).  There is a new, small Soundcraft board that ought to be investigated. WE have had good success with Software Audio Console(SAC).

Depending on the number of channels you need NOW, PLUS a reasonable expectation of the future needs, the above choices all have pluses and minuses.  It would behoove you to investigate several options AFTER you determine what you need.

The O1V is a good board. It has a pretty steep learning curve and some limited expandability. It was more designed for recording purposes so there is a lot of functionality that you may never use in live worship settings. The menus and work flow aren't as straightforward as some of the other options, but it is priced pretty well. The Presonus is lower price, but some folks can't deal with non-motorized faders. I have no experience with the Soundcraft piece, but Soundcraft has a good reputation and I would expect that board to be competitive. SAC has offered us plenty of inputs and outputs and a very functional setup, but some folks can't or won't deal with mixing from mouse and keyboard (though you CAN add faders as needed) and there setup is NOT trivial.

At the dollars you mention, you're getting close to Allen & Heath iLive territory, that might be worth an option.

Make wise choices based on what you need, not advertising jargon. There are several options beyond a few years back when the O1V was the only thing in that range.

Jeremy Johnston
TD
KCC

[Chris Gruber]

Hi, Folks.

We're ready to go digital--like, all digital. We have maxed out our current auditorium and are a few years away from a new one. But the analog snake we have now picks up all kinds of interference ever since we expanded the auditorium and relocated the sound booth. The Behringer console we purchased a few years ago is unreliable and causes as many problems as it solved when we got it. In retrospect we should not have gone cheap. Lesson learned, ready to move on.

We will make room in next year's budget for a digital stage box, but we want to move now on a digital mixing console. I'm very interested in the Yamaha 01V96VCM (http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/products/mixers/01v96/). It looks like a great choice for our setup, which is exclusively traditional worship style. It has enough mic preamps to work with our existing analog snake until we get a new stage box.

Can anybody opine as to whether this would be a good choice for FOH? I also would like to verify that this works with the mini-YGDAI cards that Yamaha sells to interface with EtherSound (since we're also looking at the Yamaha SB168-ES stage box). It seems to me like we can put this setup into place for under $8,000, which is appealing.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Are you sure that the interference is coming from the snake and not the crappy Behringer mixer? Because the mixer sounds like it would be more of a problem.

[Nick Bair]

Are you sure that the interference is coming from the snake and not the crappy Behringer mixer? Because the mixer sounds like it would be more of a problem.

It could be either one. If the new mixer fixes the problems which I'm blaming on the snake, that's even better! At any rate, I know I want to go with a digital snake when we build a new auditorium, if not before.

I've recommended them in the past and I still think they are great little boards for the price and class they're in. BUT, a few new choices have joined the market that have advantages in different ways.

The Presonus Studio Live boards are pretty user friendly compared to the Yamaha O1V.  The Yamaha LS9 is more friendly to use than the O1V (though it's more expensive).  There is a new, small Soundcraft board that ought to be investigated. WE have had good success with Software Audio Console(SCA).

Depending on the number of channels you need NOW, PLUS a reasonable expectation of the future needs, the above choices all have pluses and minuses.  It would behoove you to investigate several options AFTER you determine what you need.

The O1V is a good board. It has a pretty steep learning curve and some limited expandability. It was more designed for recording purposes so there is a lot of functionality that you may never use in live worship settings. The menus and work flow aren't as straightforward as some of the other options, but it is priced pretty well. The Presonus is lower price, but some folks can't deal with non-motorized faders. I have no experience with the Soundcraft piece, but Soundcraft has a good reputation and I would expect that board to be competitive. SAC has offered us plenty of inputs and outputs and a very functional setup, but some folks can't or won't deal with mixing from mouse and keyboard (though you CAN add faders as needed) and there setup is NOT trivial.

At the dollars you mention, you're getting close to Allen & Heath iLive territory, that might be worth an option.

Make wise choices based on what you need, not advertising jargon. There are several options beyond a few years back when the O1V was the only thing in that range.

Jeremy Johnston
TD
KCC

The biggest drawback for the PreSonus boards is that they do not have a way to interface with a digital snake. The only digital input is FireWire, which can't do the long distance from stage to sound booth. Some people buy snakes that do D/A conversion on one end and A/D on the other, then route the analog outputs into the PreSonus. But that's expensive and inneficient. The Yamaha, provided it is indeed compatible with the EtherSound mini-YGDAI cards they sell, would be purely digital from the stage through post-mix, for almost the same price as the 16-channel PreSonus.

The Soundcraft and A&H boards are out of our price range, although I'm sure they're nice.

I'm thinking I just need to get my hands on the Yamaha and play with it before making a decision.

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

It could be either one. If the new mixer fixes the problems which I'm blaming on the snake, that's even better! At any rate, I know I want to go with a digital snake when we build a new auditorium, if not before.

The biggest drawback for the PreSonus boards is that they do not have a way to interface with a digital snake. The only digital input is FireWire, which can't do the long distance from stage to sound booth. Some people buy snakes that do D/A conversion on one end and A/D on the other, then route the analog outputs into the PreSonus. But that's expensive and inneficient. The Yamaha, provided it is indeed compatible with the EtherSound mini-YGDAI cards they sell, would be purely digital from the stage through post-mix, for almost the same price as the 16-channel PreSonus.

The Soundcraft and A&H boards are out of our price range, although I'm sure they're nice.

I'm thinking I just need to get my hands on the Yamaha and play with it before making a decision.

1.  If you have the time and the help, take the snake out of the equation by moving the board up front and plugging in directly to see if the noise is still there. If so, it's the board. 

2.  With digital mixers these days you can eliminate the snake altogether by putting the board at the front and using wireless control from a pad.  One possible advantage of doing it this way is that a second operator can mix monitors from the board while the other  person mixes from out front.

[Randall Hyde]

The Presonus Studio Live boards are pretty user friendly compared to the Yamaha O1V. 

I've never *listened* to a Studio Live board, but I do have a couple of observations:

1) The build quality didn't "feel" that good to me when I played around with the unit at the local GC.
2) They use 16-bit A/D using 32-bit FP arithmetic internally. Not a good combination for great sound. Again, I haven't listened to these units but they are way behind the curve on other digital boards in terms of processing.
3) They do not have motorized faders or other recallable controls. Basically, you lose half the benefits of going digital with devices like these. OTOH, this does simplify the user interface as they basically behave like analog boards with some built-in effects. However, the lack of motorized faders is a no-go for me.
4) They are inexpensive. However, I think the OP mentioned that he learned his lesson on that one.

5) I suspect I'd pick the Behringer X25 over the Presonus Studio Live if I were going to go as cheaply as possible. Behringher reliability not withstanding (and the OP has experienced this, apparently; his experience matches mine), the X25 is beautiful and seems to have a nice UI (I only saw it under glass at NAMM last January, so I wouldn't place too much faith in my experiences here). Then again, it is Behringer...

The Yamaha LS9 is more friendly to use than the O1V (though it's more expensive).  There is a new, small Soundcraft board that ought to be investigated. WE have had good success with Software Audio Console(SAC).
Depending on the number of channels you need NOW, PLUS a reasonable expectation of the future needs, the above choices all have pluses and minuses.  It would behoove you to investigate several options AFTER you determine what you need.

LS9 seems to be the console of choice for churches that aren't completely budget-sensitive but can't afford something big.

I use SAC all the time and I love it. I have trouble recommending it for churches where volunteer help is the norm -- the learning curve is too steep. SAC *does* do better in a fixed installation where the input list never changes and the whole service can be run by scenes. But God help the (SAC-) inexperienced person (literally) when something goes wrong or off-script during a service. It is incredibly expandable, though. That, plus the phenomenal sound it produces (with good preamps, stay away from Behringer, of course) makes it almost worth fighting the learning curve in a church setting.

The O1V is a good board. It has a pretty steep learning curve and some limited expandability. It was more designed for recording purposes so there is a lot of functionality that you may never use in live worship settings. The menus and work flow aren't as straightforward as some of the other options, but it is priced pretty well. The Presonus is lower price, but some folks can't deal with non-motorized faders. I have no experience with the Soundcraft piece, but Soundcraft has a good reputation and I would expect that board to be competitive. SAC has offered us plenty of inputs and outputs and a very functional setup, but some folks can't or won't deal with mixing from mouse and keyboard (though you CAN add faders as needed) and there setup is NOT trivial.

Definitely a good idea to invest in control surfaces if you go with SAC. I'm ordering a pile of Mackie MCU and XT units this week to deal with BE/GEs that come along and can't deal with "mixing in the box."

At the dollars you mention, you're getting close to Allen & Heath iLive territory, that might be worth an option.

Yes, if you're in the $20K range, iLive is the way to go.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

[Kyle Waters]

We have two of them in our portable system.  Functionaly I love them, they are very versatile.  I never have been a big fan of yamaha pre's though.  They are quite powerful little boards.  For big events we hook them both together in cascade mode and separate them out for smaller events.  Heck i've even used them hooked together as a monitor console. We are in the process of expanding them out so each of them will handle 32 inputs and 64 hooked together.  The effects are decent.  The learning curve wasnt that bad, but i am a techno junkie, i usually read the operation manual as soon as i get some thing or maybe even before.  You just have to get out of a "knob for everything" mentality to a layer mentality.  Overall i cant really say anything bad about them, They arent the best sounding boards I have ever used, but i am an allen & heath guy and have high standards.  Hope this helps

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

1.  If you have the time and the help, take the snake out of the equation by moving the board up front and plugging in directly to see if the noise is still there. If so, it's the board. 

Generally that's good troubleshooting advice, however in this scenario, if the Behringer is anything like some early Mackie boards, the problem would be the long snake wires acting as antennae for the mixer.  Moving the board on stage might remove the symptom, but that wouldn't necessarily mean the snake is bad.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Hi, Folks.

We're ready to go digital--like, all digital. We have maxed out our current auditorium and are a few years away from a new one. But the analog snake we have now picks up all kinds of interference ever since we expanded the auditorium and relocated the sound booth. The Behringer console we purchased a few years ago is unreliable and causes as many problems as it solved when we got it. In retrospect we should not have gone cheap. Lesson learned, ready to move on.

We will make room in next year's budget for a digital stage box, but we want to move now on a digital mixing console. I'm very interested in the Yamaha 01V96VCM (http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/products/mixers/01v96/). It looks like a great choice for our setup, which is exclusively traditional worship style. It has enough mic preamps to work with our existing analog snake until we get a new stage box.

Can anybody opine as to whether this would be a good choice for FOH? I also would like to verify that this works with the mini-YGDAI cards that Yamaha sells to interface with EtherSound (since we're also looking at the Yamaha SB168-ES stage box). It seems to me like we can put this setup into place for under $8,000, which is appealing.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Hi Nick.  I'm not sure if the 01v can use the EtherSound boxes - I'm guessing no, as I've never seen an in-console way to control remote head amp gain, though I could be wrong on this.

I'm an 01v96 user - I was an early adopter way back in early 2003 - and they have been wonderful boards for what I do, particularly considering how long ago I bought them, and how inexpensive they were/are.  That being said, I have mixed feelings recommending it at the moment, particularly relative to the large cost of the SB-series stage boxes, and the liklihood that you have a perfectly good analog snake.

Assuming your snake is good, and you'd be able to answer that question pretty easily if you can find a way to rent or borrow a non-garbage sound board; there really isn't any reason to replace it with a digital snake, unless your analog one doesn't meet your IO requirements.

If I'm right about the snake, the question now becomes: what are you looking for in a mixer?  How many channels?  Do you need full recall ability to support multiple stage setups/bands, etc.? What IO requirements?  If your IO requirements are small and you need full recall, the LS9-16 would be a better fit than the 01v96.  The larger LS9-32 fits in your $8000 budget and has greater IO.  If you don't need full recall, the Presonus gear may be fine, at less cost than the Yamaha offerings.

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Generally that's good troubleshooting advice, however in this scenario, if the Behringer is anything like some early Mackie boards, the problem would be the long snake wires acting as antennae for the mixer.  Moving the board on stage might remove the symptom, but that wouldn't necessarily mean the snake is bad.

TJ....

Nice catch.  I don't generally think of desks being that poorly designed or built, but that particular brand has had some real clunkers.

[Nick Bair]

Hi Nick.  I'm not sure if the 01v can use the EtherSound boxes - I'm guessing no, as I've never seen an in-console way to control remote head amp gain, though I could be wrong on this.

Found this in the PDF (http://download.yamaha.com/file/46620):

...Yamaha offers a range of Mini-YGDAI expansion cards that can simply be plugged into the 01V96VCM expansion slot to provide additional I/O in a variety of formats: ADAT, AES/EBU, TDIF, CobraNet, EtherSound, MADI or analog.

So I guess there's my answer!

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

from: TJ (Tom) Cornish on Yesterday at 09:32:00 am
Hi Nick.  I'm not sure if the 01v can use the EtherSound boxes - I'm guessing no, as I've never seen an in-console way to control remote head amp gain, though I could be wrong on this.

Found this in the PDF (http://download.yamaha.com/file/46620):
...Yamaha offers a range of Mini-YGDAI expansion cards that can simply be plugged into the 01V96VCM expansion slot to provide additional I/O in a variety of formats: ADAT, AES/EBU, TDIF, CobraNet, EtherSound, MADI or analog.

So I guess there's my answer!

But the answer is that you can use Ethernet, but not that you can control the head amps from the console via that hookup.  That would require the console to have that particular function in its capability which apparently it does not. See the highlighted part of what TJ said and think about it for a minute.  I suspect he's correct as he uses this console quite a bit.

[Dan Johnson]

Found this in the PDF (http://download.yamaha.com/file/46620):
So I guess there's my answer!

You might want to double check the 01V and SB168-ES compatibility with Yamaha.  The brochure for the SB168-ES doesn't list the 01V as a compatible console (with or without head-amp control).  It lists the LS9, M7CL, PM5D, DM1000, DM2000, DME64N, and DME24N as compatible consoles.

[Nick Bair]

These are all very good points. I tend to think that an open standard like EtherSound will work with any board that accepts the I/O cards. Otherwise, why have a standard? But wise words, nonetheless. I will check with a rep just to be sure.

Regarding pre-amp controls, the SB168-ES can be fully configured via software. I'm not in the practice of making frequent changes to channel gain except when setting initial levels; so no knobs on the board does not bother me. Besides, the preamps in the SB168-ES have an internally-switched pad that causes a .5-second dropout so you probably don't want to be messing with the gains in-program with this box anyway.

Everyone here has been a huge help, even just in terms of helping me to ask the right questions. Thanks so much.

[Frank DeWitt]

I've never *listened* to a Studio Live board, but I do have a couple of observations:


I use SAC all the time and I love it. I have trouble recommending it for churches where volunteer help is the norm -- the learning curve is too steep. SAC *does* do better in a fixed installation where the input list never changes and the whole service can be run by scenes. But God help the (SAC-) inexperienced person (literally) when something goes wrong or off-script during a service. It is incredibly expandable, though. That, plus the phenomenal sound it produces (with good preamps, stay away from Behringer, of course) makes it almost worth fighting the learning curve in a church setting.

Definitely a good idea to invest in control surfaces if you go with SAC. I'm ordering a pile of Mackie MCU and XT units this week to deal with BE/GEs that come along and can't deal with "mixing in the box."
Yes, if you're in the $20K range, iLive is the way to go.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

On the Studio live,  One more issue is that scene changes are not instant. There is a silent moment between them.

Re the SAC system.  Partial agreement,  A bear to learn and setup, but once setup I have had no problem with all sorts of volunteers.  learning it, and using it.  two things help a lot.  Lots of screen area so everything is there.  We use two 20 in wide screens.  2,  real faders for the important stuff.  we have 16 and have them assigned to things that might go wrong and are needed in a hurry.  We use motormix, it has electronic scribble strips so you know where you are.

40 ch in and out $4K and you never run into anything you can't do.  Example,  3 weeks ago, our IEM system died.  (a very old Intelix personal mixer system)  A couple of hrs work making cables and patching hardware together and we have 10 separate mixers for IEMs.  Told the worship team members to bring there laptops from home, and borrowed two more, and we have control surfaces until I can grab the right ones on ebay for $100 each.

Wedding video guy would like a special mix,  I can do that, no problem.   and more.

Frank

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

These are all very good points. I tend to think that an open standard like EtherSound will work with any board that accepts the I/O cards. Otherwise, why have a standard? But wise words, nonetheless. I will check with a rep just to be sure.

A wise person once said "The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from."  The YGDAI spec has evolved a couple times in Yamaha land - first from large cards for the 03D and 02R boards of a million years ago to the more modern 8-channel mini-ygdai standard of the original 01v, AW4416, and probably a couple others, to the yet more modern 16-channel version.  I don't have concrete information that says things won't work, but I don't think it's a given that a pretty old board like the 01v96 is fully compatible with much more recent cards.

Regarding pre-amp controls, the SB168-ES can be fully configured via software. I'm not in the practice of making frequent changes to channel gain except when setting initial levels; so no knobs on the board does not bother me. Besides, the preamps in the SB168-ES have an internally-switched pad that causes a .5-second dropout so you probably don't want to be messing with the gains in-program with this box anyway.

Everyone here has been a huge help, even just in terms of helping me to ask the right questions. Thanks so much.

You're starting to sound a little like you've already made up your mind, but let me put in one last push for the LS9, if you're set on the Yamaha digital snake (which I think you should hold off on until you test your current snake).  I think you underestimate the inconvenience of having to drop to software for channel gain controls.  It's like having to get out of your car, open the hood, and spin the flywheel manually to start your car vs. just turning the key.  It can be done, but you have a regular part of your workflow that's a lot harder than it needs to be.  The LS9 does have the remote head amp gain function, and in comparison to how expensive the Yamaha snake boxes are, isn't that much more money than the 01v96. 

I REALLY doubt you need the digital snake.

[Nick Bair]

Well I came here to learn, and you all have given me a lot to think about. I'm going to have to take a harder look at the LS9. It does cost a lot more but if I don't have to replace the snake I have more room in the budget. Then in a few years when we build a new auditorium we can go digital and know that our board supports the digital stage box.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Well I came here to learn, and you all have given me a lot to think about. I'm going to have to take a harder look at the LS9. It does cost a lot more but if I don't have to replace the snake I have more room in the budget. Then in a few years when we build a new auditorium we can go digital and know that our board supports the digital stage box.

Good for you.  Take your time, keep an open mind and look to the future as far as what capabilities for networking and/or production may need to be addressed.  Remember:

It's not "excess capability", it's "headroom".

[Arnold B. Krueger]

Hi, Folks.

We're ready to go digital--like, all digital. We have maxed out our current auditorium

Huh? The only way I know to max out an auditorium is to fill all the seats and that is generally irrelevant to choices about consoles.

But the analog snake we have now picks up all kinds of interference ever since we expanded the auditorium and relocated the sound booth.

I've seen just about everything done *wrong* with analog snakes with no bad consequences including wrapping speaker lines and extension cords for power tools around them.  With good grounding practices, balanced analog I/O is generally very robust.

Are you sure that you aren't misinterpreting grounding problems in your media booth as noise problems with the snake? I've repaired snakes that were damaged, and until I did that they were horrible. Once I fixed them, all was well.

I'm wary of your diagnosis, particularly since you describe yourself as a newbie.

The Behringer console we purchased a few years ago is unreliable and causes as many problems as it solved when we got it. In retrospect we should not have gone cheap. Lesson learned, ready to move on.

I'm not here to defend Behringer consoles, but again I can see how unseasoned installers and operators can end up with problems that they mistakenly blame on the equipment. Yes, the controls on cheap consoles can get scratchy and even intermittant prematurely but they still can get the job done.

The only console I've ever seen become really unusuable was a Mackie that had bad ribbon cables and had about 1/3 of its channels go away, and on a rotating basis. There were always bad channels but which ones they were changed every time you powered it up. Now, that's a bad console!

We will make room in next year's budget for a digital stage box,

IME digital stage boxes are a very expensive and potentially confusing option unless you go first rate from mic input to amp output. If you've got a Roland or other mid-end budget then fine, but you're talking bottom end digital here. You're not even talking LS9s.

but we want to move now on a digital mixing console. I'm very interested in the Yamaha 01V96VCM (http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/products/mixers/01v96/). It looks like a great choice for our setup, which is exclusively traditional worship style. It has enough mic preamps to work with our existing analog snake until we get a new stage box.

While I've never used an 01V96 it isn't that much different from what I do use which is a 02R96. Since you say that you can bet by with its built-in collection of mic preamps which is small, your needs are really pretty simple. Furthermore this is logical given that you are doing traditional worship.

Most digital consoles have a longer learning curve because so much of their operation is virtual. You don't have dedicated knobs for every function and you have to know how to point your knobs at what you want to control. OTOH, if you do have a digital console with minimal virtual functions and dedicated knobs for everything, either it is huge and expensive or it lacks the flexibility that make digital consoles such an improvement over analog. All of the similarly priced alternatives I've seen to the 01V96 seem to be way down on function and controls.

Can anybody opine as to whether this would be a good choice for FOH?

Yes, many people have been very sucessful with 01V96s and consoles with similar levels of virtualization. They seem to expand out very nicely as your needs grow.

I also would like to verify that this works with the mini-YGDAI cards that Yamaha sells to interface with EtherSound (since we're also looking at the Yamaha SB168-ES stage box). It seems to me like we can put this setup into place for under $8,000, which is appealing.

The whole problem with stage boxes besides their nontrivial expense is getting them to work with some kind of remote control, because you don't want to run up on stage every time you have to change the gain trim on a mic preamp.

I have been reviewing the doc for the SB168 and it appears that you will need a PC connected to your EtherSound network to actually control its gains. It has no physical gain control knobs. Do you already have an appropriate PC available with a yet another network port that you can dedicate to Ethersound?

I know from using the Yamaha remote control software for my console that using a PC for this kind of adjustment is feasible and even easy once you adapt to it. The key word is adapt. Some people seem to have problems adapting to menus and mice.

[Nick Bair]

Huh? The only way I know to max out an auditorium is to fill all the seats and that is generally irrelevant to choices about consoles.

I've seen just about everything done *wrong* with analog snakes with no bad consequences including wrapping speaker lines and extension cords for power tools around them.  With good grounding practices, balanced analog I/O is generally very robust.

Are you sure that you aren't misinterpreting grounding problems in your media booth as noise problems with the snake? I've repaired snakes that were damaged, and until I did that they were horrible. Once I fixed them, all was well.

I'm wary of your diagnosis, particularly since you describe yourself as a newbie.
 

I'm not here to defend Behringer consoles, but again I can see how unseasoned installers and operators can end up with problems that they mistakenly blame on the equipment. Yes, the controls on cheap consoles can get scratchy and even intermittant prematurely but they still can get the job done.

The only console I've ever seen become really unusuable was a Mackie that had bad ribbon cables and had about 1/3 of its channels go away, and on a rotating basis. There were always bad channels but which ones they were changed every time you powered it up. Now, that's a bad console!

IME digital stage boxes are a very expensive and potentially confusing option unless you go first rate from mic input to amp output. If you've got a Roland or other mid-end budget then fine, but you're talking bottom end digital here. You're not even talking LS9s.

While I've never used an 01V96 it isn't that much different from what I do use which is a 02R96. Since you say that you can bet by with its built-in collection of mic preamps which is small, your needs are really pretty simple. Furthermore this is logical given that you are doing traditional worship.

Most digital consoles have a longer learning curve because so much of their operation is virtual. You don't have dedicated knobs for every function and you have to know how to point your knobs at what you want to control. OTOH, if you do have a digital console with minimal virtual functions and dedicated knobs for everything, either it is huge and expensive or it lacks the flexibility that make digital consoles such an improvement over analog. All of the similarly priced alternatives I've seen to the 01V96 seem to be way down on function and controls.

Yes, many people have been very sucessful with 01V96s and consoles with similar levels of virtualization. They seem to expand out very nicely as your needs grow.

The whole problem with stage boxes besides their nontrivial expense is getting them to work with some kind of remote control, because you don't want to run up on stage every time you have to change the gain trim on a mic preamp.

I have been reviewing the doc for the SB168 and it appears that you will need a PC connected to your EtherSound network to actually control its gains. It has no physical gain control knobs. Do you already have an appropriate PC available with a yet another network port that you can dedicate to Ethersound?

I know from using the Yamaha remote control software for my console that using a PC for this kind of adjustment is feasible and even easy once you adapt to it. The key word is adapt. Some people seem to have problems adapting to menus and mice.

Regarding the maxed-out auditorium, I brought it up only because at that point I was convinced that the snake was at fault. Replacing an analog snake in a building whose days are numbered seemed wasteful. But the replies here almost universally agree that it's probably the board and not the snake. Provided I can trace the problems back to the board, the snake will probably stay put for now. When it comes time to build new I still plan to make the investment in digital, but not for now.

The newbie designation is based on number of posts, I think. I did not choose that. But I am by no means an expert. I have had the Behringer opened up and checked for cold solders to no avail. Could be bad ribbons as well, but without a replacement board I can't have it out of service for long enough to examine really closely. At the end of the day, I took a gamble and got burnt. Hopefully once we replace it I can invest the time to properly repair it and repurpose it elsewhere (perhaps in the youth room, or donate it to a smaller church in need).

FWIW, I am seriously looking at the LS9 now, even if half the cost has to come out of my own pocket. It is definitely worth the extra money, but unless the elders agree it may just not happen.

PC-wise, I have the machine and the wherewithal. Bit I would really like to use each board in a real world setting before deciding. Nobody around here even stocks them.

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[Nick Bair]

Just a quick update...

I moved some inputs around this morning in an effort to locate the source of the hum. It looks like the problem is in the board, just as many of you suggested. Thanks for your advice.

Now to decide between the VCM and the LS9...

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[Arnold B. Krueger]

Just a quick update...

I moved some inputs around this morning in an effort to locate the source of the hum. It looks like the problem is in the board, just as many of you suggested. Thanks for your advice.

The right way to isolate noise to a console is to *remove* or at least totally turn down and off * each and every* input. If there is still hum, it could be in your amplifier stack. Repeat the process of removing or turning down input connnections.

This process puts a premium on your documentation of what goes where and how everything is adjusted and set up.

[ProSoundWeb Community]