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[Denny Griffin]

Greetings All

I attend a small country church. 3 sets of 10 pews, left, center and right. Total Sq ft of the sanctuary is 2,000-2500.

I'm purchasing a new soundboard for the church. 32 channel Mackie, nothing fancy, but very functional.

While looking at everything,  I realized their is a snake running from the current board, to the stage, underneath the floor (this church has a basement).  The snake comes up through the bottom of the stage, and terminates at a 32 channel XLR box.  There are XLR's rat nested all over the stage from years of melneglect.

My question is this;  if I were to install 3-4 recessed boxes on the stage, would I need to keep the XLR box, or could I plug the individual snake wires directly into the recessed boxes?

I greatly appreciate any input!

Thanks and God Bless
DaFazsha

[Mike Caldwell]

What is the  condition of the fan tail end at the mixer?

Yes floor boxes work, though it always seems about six months after there installed at least one of them will be in the wrong spot! 
By XLR box my guess is your talking about the box on the end of the snake. Could it be located in the basement
and be as the connection/ patch point for the lines from stage boxes?

How are connectors in the box? Snake cable quality ranges disposable cheap junk to truly pro.

It may be a good idea to bring in someone who does system installations and give your system a look over before you get too deep into the project. In the long run that could save you some money.

[Scott Holtzman]

Greetings All

I attend a small country church. 3 sets of 10 pews, left, center and right. Total Sq ft of the sanctuary is 2,000-2500.

I'm purchasing a new soundboard for the church. 32 channel Mackie, nothing fancy, but very functional.

While looking at everything,  I realized their is a snake running from the current board, to the stage, underneath the floor (this church has a basement).  The snake comes up through the bottom of the stage, and terminates at a 32 channel XLR box.  There are XLR's rat nested all over the stage from years of melneglect.

My question is this;  if I were to install 3-4 recessed boxes on the stage, would I need to keep the XLR box, or could I plug the individual snake wires directly into the recessed boxes?

I greatly appreciate any input!

Thanks and God Bless
DaFazsha

Hi make sure you purchase a digital sound board.  Is the Mackie digital?  You don't want to invest in analog and it's harder to use.

[Mike Caldwell]

Hi make sure you purchase a digital sound board.  Is the Mackie digital?  You don't want to invest in analog and it's harder to use.

Yes, no, maybe.....depending on the level of operators and how much if any the operators "invest" themselves into operating the system.
Sometimes an ole fashion gain knob, mute button and fader with no menus or channel select buttons still has a place.

But yea Denny if you have the sound team and are doing live music with the occasional production of some sort look a digital mixer and think about the last sentence in my first post.

[Weogo Reed]

Hi Danny,

Consider the flexibility of keeping your current snake, and adding sub-snakes.
four~eight-channel sub-snakes can really clean up a stage, and still leave a lot of flexibility.

I have multiple Mackie digital mixers.
Are you looking at the Mackie DL32S mixer? 
Could you fit all of your inputs on a DL16S mixer?
Also consider other mixer brands for the varying features offered.

Thanks and good health,  Weogo

[Scott Holtzman]

Yes, no, maybe.....depending on the level of operators and how much if any the operators "invest" themselves into operating the system.
Sometimes an ole fashion gain knob, mute button and fader with no menus or channel select buttons still has a place.

But yea Denny if you have the sound team and are doing live music with the occasional production of some sort look a digital mixer and think about the last sentence in my first post.

Hi the digital mixers have some knobs it depends on which one.

Everyone knows how to use a computer or a tablet.  I find digital mixers are easier for amateurs to learn. 

You also can save your l won good scene. 

Still can use that snake.

Good luck


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tim Weaver]

I'm the Media Director at a pretty large church. I hate stage pockets with a passion. They are never where you need them, and they fill up with dirt and crud so the XLR's get stuck in the jacks. They are more of a trip hazard in my eye since they are right in the middle of everything with a bunch of cables coming out of them that don't lay flat, and someone always pinches the cord in the edge of the door which will, at best, just kill an XLR cable and at worst chop through an extension cord.

Use your existing snake and then buy several of these: https://www.audiopile.net/PSX-8 and these: https://www.audiopile.net/MTFM-4

Then buy a double handful of short 5-10 foot XLR cables. Run the subsnakes from the main snake (hidden out of sight) to the musicians, then use 5 foot cables to plug everything in. Buy your subsnakes longer than you expect so you can route them around the edges of the stage, or under carpets, or just generally out of the way.

[Taylor Phillips]

Greetings All

I attend a small country church. 3 sets of 10 pews, left, center and right. Total Sq ft of the sanctuary is 2,000-2500.

I'm purchasing a new soundboard for the church. 32 channel Mackie, nothing fancy, but very functional.

While looking at everything,  I realized their is a snake running from the current board, to the stage, underneath the floor (this church has a basement).  The snake comes up through the bottom of the stage, and terminates at a 32 channel XLR box.  There are XLR's rat nested all over the stage from years of melneglect.

My question is this;  if I were to install 3-4 recessed boxes on the stage, would I need to keep the XLR box, or could I plug the individual snake wires directly into the recessed boxes?

I greatly appreciate any input!

Thanks and God Bless
DaFazsha

As the others have said, digital is the way to go if you're getting the church a new soundboard.  I'd go with getting a stagebox and just run a data cable to the soundboard rather than a XLR snake.

As for the stage pockets, I've heard a lot of hate for them on this forum, but I've never had any issues with them.  I think the trick is placing them properly and not putting too much i/o (inputs/outputs) into one pocket.  At the churches I've volunteered at that had them, I was always able to route cables so that no one coming on or off stage would encounter a cable in their path.  Might also be worth noting that these churches completely emptied their stages after *every* service.  That said, they're not really necessary since you can use wall plates for i/o on the sides, rear, and front of the stage.  But to answer your original question - yes, you can wire the snake directly to the floor boxes, wall plates, etc. 

[Denny Griffin]

Hi Mike, and THANK YOU!

Condition is good.  Quality is average.  Nothing exceptional,  but not the cheapest either.  The current soundboard was a hand me down analog.  It's opd and tired; signal cutting in and out, changes in sound quality, etc.  If you tap the board with a finger near the slider for the particular channel giving troubles, it usually resolves the issue, but only temporarily.

Yes, we are most definitely sticking with analog. No sense in buying a race car for a two lane dirt road.  Unfortunately,  I'm donating 100% or my time and the new board for this project, so there's not really any budget for calling in a professional.

Yes, the box I'm referring to is the box at the stage end, where all the female ends of the snake plug tiny from the board side. Then, it provides numbered male connections on the top of the box.  Is this box still necessary if going with recessed floor boxes?  I didn't know if it provided any type of insulation,  noise reduction through the lines,,, or if it was just a 'point to point' connection with no other function.. I'd prefer to get rid of it and just use the recessed boxes if possible.

I appreciate you input and response,  thanks again!

[Denny Griffin]

Hi Scott! Thank you for the response.   We are going to stick with an analog board for now, for several reasons.  Not the least of which is, we're a very small church, and there's no real need to transition to digital now.  I came from a much larger church using an SQ-6, and it would just be wasted where we are.  Cost is also an issue.  Not to mention the training involved in switching from analog to digital. While in sure there will be a day in the future when it is needed,  right now analog is the best bet for our particular application.

I appreciate the response,  thansk again!

[Denny Griffin]

Hi Weogo, and thanks for responding! We're actually looking at the ProFX30v3.  It's very similar to what we currently have, just a newer version.

[Denny Griffin]

Hi Tim, and thank you for the response!  I will definitely look into these! I whole heartedly agree with everything you said about floor boxes. However this a a pretty small stage, and at absolute best, we have a 5 person worship band, consisting of acoustic guitar, bass, Cajon, and vocals.  No real electric instruments; were kinda bluegrass! 😁  I think the size of stage would allow for floor boxes to be better utilized,  that is, until I saw your thought!  I'm going to run it by our worship team and leaders and see what they think.

Thanks again!

[Scott Holtzman]

Hi Scott! Thank you for the response.   We are going to stick with an analog board for now, for several reasons.  Not the least of which is, we're a very small church, and there's no real need to transition to digital now.  I came from a much larger church using an SQ-6, and it would just be wasted where we are.  Cost is also an issue.  Not to mention the training involved in switching from analog to digital. While in sure there will be a day in the future when it is needed,  right now analog is the best bet for our particular application.

I appreciate the response,  thansk again!

I am thinking a headless would be perfect for you.  It doesn’t have to be more cold complicated it’s actually easier I hate to see you waste good money.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mike Caldwell]

Hi Mike, and THANK YOU!

Condition is good.  Quality is average.  Nothing exceptional,  but not the cheapest either.  The current soundboard was a hand me down analog.  It's opd and tired; signal cutting in and out, changes in sound quality, etc.  If you tap the board with a finger near the slider for the particular channel giving troubles, it usually resolves the issue, but only temporarily.

Yes, we are most definitely sticking with analog. No sense in buying a race car for a two lane dirt road.  Unfortunately,  I'm donating 100% or my time and the new board for this project, so there's not really any budget for calling in a professional.

Yes, the box I'm referring to is the box at the stage end, where all the female ends of the snake plug tiny from the board side. Then, it provides numbered male connections on the top of the box.  Is this box still necessary if going with recessed floor boxes?  I didn't know if it provided any type of insulation,  noise reduction through the lines,,, or if it was just a 'point to point' connection with no other function.. I'd prefer to get rid of it and just use the recessed boxes if possible.

I appreciate you input and response,  thanks again!

The snake is just point to point connections. If you get rid of the stage box each mic line from the floor box jacks will need to be either spliced into the snake cable or a series of home runs with maybe small channel count snakes back to the sound booth.
If the stage box can relocated to the basement then the lines from the floor boxes could be ran to the snake box and plugged into the channels on the box.

What are you using for stage monitors if any?
What do you have in the way of system processing?
You always want some extra channels but how many channels do you use now?
What is the rest of the system, amps, speakers, ect?

A couple months ago I did a church upgrade and part of that was replacing their older Yamaha analog
mixer with an Allen Heath CQ18, without doing anything channel or mix processing wise the system sounded better from the moment we turn it on, their sound operator noticed it as well. The main speaker system did not change.

 

 

[Kevin Maxwell]

Some people are giving away Analog consoles that are in perfect working order. A company I do a lot of work for just the other day gave away an A&H 32 channel console in a road case. That was very gently used. The problem with analog consoles compared to digital ones is the size and weight compared to the capabilities. Digital is smaller and lighter and doesn't require all of the external rack gear to get the job done. So the analog stuff isn't of much use to a lot of people.

So if you really want an analog console for all of the reasons that you mentioned I would look around to see what you might be able to get for free.

[Jonathan Johnson]

I'm with the others on keeping the snake with the box at the stage end. Put the box in an inconspicuous place and use it as a patch bay, where you can connect wall jacks, stage pockets, drop snakes, or whatever into it.

This also lets you put more jacks around the place than you'll need during any given event, and you can patch as needed, without running lines all the way back to FOH. Think of the snake box as a "remote" back-of-mixer patch bay.

On the other hand, realize that not using a digital mixer with a digital snake means that you have to physically reconnect things at the snake box as needed. With a digital snake, you can have a stage box and have EVERYTHING plugged in, and manage your patching (jack to channel) virtually. So when you've got 48 jacks placed around the stage and a 32 channel mixer, you can just reassign any input jack to any channel.

There are costs and benefits to both methods, but home-running every drop gets expensive in a hurry and limits your flexibility unless you seriously overbuild.

[Taylor Phillips]

We are going to stick with an analog board for now, for several reasons.  Not the least of which is, we're a very small church, and there's no real need to transition to digital now.  I came from a much larger church using an SQ-6, and it would just be wasted where we are.  Cost is also an issue.  Not to mention the training involved in switching from analog to digital. While in sure there will be a day in the future when it is needed,  right now analog is the best bet for our particular application.

We're actually looking at the ProFX30v3.  It's very similar to what we currently have, just a newer version.

However this a a pretty small stage, and at absolute best, we have a 5 person worship band, consisting of acoustic guitar, bass, Cajon, and vocals.  No real electric instruments; were kinda bluegrass!

The future arrived about a decade ago when it comes to digital vs analog consoles.  Aside from super small boards for people to use with their solo acts, a new, entry level analog console like the ProFX30v3 is a waste of money. What's the problem with the current board, and do you need all 30 channels?

It doesn't look like you need that large of a channel count, so if you're stuck on analog, look for a used A&H MixWizard.  Better quality than the Mackie, more auxes, and another sweepable EQ band.  Wouldn't have built in compression or USB connectivity, but you'd probably have money left over to cover that.  Even if you do need more channels, there are good quality options out there that might still be less money than the new Mackie.

[Brian Jojade]

Yes, we are most definitely sticking with analog. No sense in buying a race car for a two lane dirt road.  Unfortunately,  I'm donating 100% or my time and the new board for this project, so there's not really any budget for calling in a professional.

The ONLY reason to look at an analog console would be because you have a limited budget.  However, even in the smallest of shows, using a digital board gives you so vastly many more options, it seems crazy to buy anything else.

As others have said, you could probably get an analog mixer for free.  If you're not moving it around at all, a big heavy one that people don't like moving around would be fairly easy to find.

If you're installing floor pockets, you can either home run the lines all the way back to the console, or just run lines to your existing snake and patch in there.  If the snake is in working order, that's the easiest solution.  If someday in the future you do get a digital board, you could then put the stagebox there and run cat 5 back to home position and you're done.

If you put in more floor pocket lines than lines available, you can easily go and patch in the ones you're currently using.  That gives you ultimate flexibility.

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