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[Justice C. Bigler]

The great thing about digital these days is you can now easily share consoles between acts and not be limited to 8 channels for the openers on a 48 channel desk.

Hah! You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? Sadly a lot of headliners are still super stingy about sharing their high dollar digital consoles and make the support acts carry their own.

[Erik Jerde]

Hah! You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? Sadly a lot of headliners are still super stingy about sharing their high dollar digital consoles and make the support acts carry their own.

True, which is mostly super stupid, but in smaller club/concert venue land it’s pretty magical.  It’s amazing to think of how an X32 is more capable on almost every metric (almost) than the Midas legend consoles we had + all the outboard gear.  I’d still rather mix monitors on the big analog desk though!

[Tim McCulloch]

The great thing about digital these days is you can now easily share consoles between acts and not be limited to 8 channels for the openers on a 48 channel desk.

Except that *never* happens unless the support act is paying a portion of the rental fee... and I've mixed support acts on the headliner's console - the support felt it more important to have the desk than have their own mixerperson.

[Scott Helmke]

Wow, no wonder show ticket costs are so high!  (It would have to be for any reasonable ROI after buying rest of gear, labor and artist pay)
-guess I'm out of touch.

Big consoles are a loss leader.

[Craig Hauber]

Actually a little mental math yields pretty similar numbers for a typical analog FOH rig in the 80's [when  a lot of this stuff was custom built and wicked expensive] or the 90's/2K's [when channel counts rose along with oversized effects rack].  It's still admittedly a lot of money, but i don't think it's gone up appreciably.

Yes you are absolutely right.
Earlier my "mental math" was figuring console prices since the "3K/4K era" were exceeding inflation rates but totally forgot the insert and effects rack -which didn't take much effort to exceed the cost of the console itself!  (not to mention the snake cabling cost to connect everything)
So quite possibly when including inflation, modern digital FOH could actually be cheaper than the FOH package of the "good ole' days"

But still, multi-tour rentals, leases or loss-leaders aside, the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere, which means somebody's rate will increase incrementally to accommodate even if it's buried in other line items,  Clair and other premium providers haven't been in successful business as long as they have by giving stuff away!

[Tim McCulloch]

Big consoles are a loss leader.

They shouldn't be, but like so many things audio, it depends...

Mostly in that as a system provider you're expected to include a suitable console, commensurate with the level of the system provided.  If you can't make it a line item on the invoice it becomes an overhead expense.

Chip Self from Logic Systems had a PSW Study Hall article about ROI, and why large frame consoles seldom paid for themselves, but that article has been MIA for years.

[Scott Helmke]

They shouldn't be, but like so many things audio, it depends...

Mostly in that as a system provider you're expected to include a suitable console, commensurate with the level of the system provided.  If you can't make it a line item on the invoice it becomes an overhead expense.

Chip Self from Logic Systems had a PSW Study Hall article about ROI, and why large frame consoles seldom paid for themselves, but that article has been MIA for years.

You can use an SM58 on almost any gig in the past, present, or future.  Even with rental customer abuse the typical cost is about $10-20/year.  That's a money-maker.  Even plastic powered speakers on sticks can be used for huge touring shows, for backstage fills and lobby systems.

[Tim McCulloch]

You can use an SM58 on almost any gig in the past, present, or future.  Even with rental customer abuse the typical cost is about $10-20/year.  That's a money-maker.  Even plastic powered speakers on sticks can be used for huge touring shows, for backstage fills and lobby systems.

I absolutely agree, Scott.  The small, durable items that go out all the time is where most of the profit is.  In our shop, it's SRX712 used as SoS and our DBTech T4 rigs that consistently make money.  Our VerTec rigs do, too, but the observation over the decades has been that smaller stuff makes more profit over the long term.

[Doug Johnson]

Line Arrays and large format desks are cool.  But, most of the profit in our business is generated by 57s, 58s, and 1402vlzs.

[Robert Healey]

1402vlzs.

I think that the market could use a better digital equivalent to the 1202 and 1402. Like a QU12 and QU14 version of the QU16 - something with a digital snake, processing, etc, but in a smaller form factor.

Maybe iPad based mixers have taken this market and I'm the odd man out for liking physical knobs...

[ProSoundWeb Community]