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[Andy Peters]

Mario Salazar wrote on Sat, 27 January 2007 16:50

I have to say that I am a bit bummed that this console does not have pads.  I was seriously considering it over the Allen and Heath but pads are necessary, especially when doing multi-act shows.  I can't tell you how many times during a show a guy with a drum machine or processor jumps to a program that is hot as hell and that is when the pads save me.  I would hate to think of having to grab a pad and disconnect the input to insert it.  Why is it that there is always a catch in this price range?

Drum machines and the like have LINE LEVEL outputs.

Run them into the console's LINE INPUTS and you won't have any problems.

This may require a handful of XLR female to 1/4" TRS male adapters, which should be in your kit anyways.

NB: the above works just fine if you are using a passive DI to send the signal down the snake (assuming the passive DI can handle the levels without farting out).  Of course the console line input doesn't supply phantom so you can't use an active DI.

-a

[Adrian Stuart]

Firstly I have to say I quite like this console. The layout is very clear and intuitive and bang for buck is right up there but I have three gripes.

Yes, no pads, for me truly a PITA. If you have 20 line level sources coming at you from the multi, (normal for the kind of corporate show I would expect this desk to be aimed at) then that's 20 extra XLR to jack you have to find and patch. You can put a line level into the XLR of a K1, why loose the feature on what is effectively it's replacement.

Metering. That LED VU meter bridge brings a whole new meaning to the Virtually Useless meter. Ok it means the case is 3" deeper and gives it stability on it's casters but why is it not connected to the PFL bus?

Channel Metering. Great for a desk at this level I thought but the first LED doesn't light up until -10dB. Even with correct gain structure, if you have a quiet speaker on a lav or even some dynamic playback, chances are you channel metering will show diddly squat.

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Sounds like the kinds of complaints I would have if I mixed on one.

No PFL on the VU? Ouch.

No tickle-level green LED on the ladder? Ugh. The Verona gives you -18dBu, the K2 -30dBu, the M7CL -60dBFS which would be about -42dBu... the GB8's -10dBu is too high.

As far as line level XLR==>TRS patching; I'm used to that on a bunch of other mixers so it wouldn't bug me so much.

-Bink

[Ryan Lantzy]

Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Tue, 30 January 2007 20:03

Sounds like the kinds of complaints I would have if I mixed on one. No PFL on the VU? Ouch. No tickle-level green LED on the ladder? Ugh. The Verona gives you -18dBu, the K2 -30dBu, the M7CL -60dBFS which would be about -42dBu... the GB8's -10dBu is too high.

FWIW, the PFL is connected to the Center LED ladder meter.  

The fact it doesn't latch to the VU meters when PFLing is an oversight I'll agree.

[Ryan Lantzy]

Well,

I had the GB8 out at another event.  This one really put it to the test.

Every year for the last few years I've helped out a friend of mine who is a music teacher a small local high school with their annual musical.  He and his wife along with a few other concerned individuals put everything they have into directing, conducting, musical instruction, and set building for these lucky kids.

Out here in rural Pennsylvania, our schools are not very big.  Between the middle school and high school (grades 6-12) there are about 600 students.  Out of that, about 150-170 of them participate in one way or another with the annual musical.

The audio facilities provided by the school's auditorium leave a lot to desire.

We brought in a nice sized rig to provide sound for about 700 seats, with all the bells and whistles: front fills, balcony delays, and a familiar 48 channel console.



This year's production required about 15 channels of wireless headsets and lavs.  Additionally, we had about a 20 pc pit and floor mics on the stage.

Between all that and some other odds and ends we were using about 40 channels, 6 auxes, 2 matrix sends and LCR sends.

The GB8 handled all that with ease and we had a great week over all through 4 dress rehearsals and 3 shows.

We did experience one minor problem during the show.  Since we make a recording of the show for the school's archives, I had 24 channels of direct outs in use.  Actually, about 20 or so, and 4 group outs.

Several of the direct outs have demonstrated an intermittent problem where the direct out will not pass signal.  If the channel was allowed to clip, the direct out would finally pass signal.  After about an hour of troubleshooting before load out I was able to repeatedly verify the problem and rule out any other possibilities.

I made Soundcraft aware of the problem and they are currently looking into it.

Overall though, the GB8 worked well in this situation even with out VCAs or any scene automation which may have come in handy for a theater event like this.

Well, if anyone has any questions, let 'em rip.  I think the road test on this item will be wrapping up soon and time is running out.

[The Guy]

I also just got finished with a High School Show featuring the GB8.  Our show was a little different from the one Ryan did; ours was the
"Rock and Roll Revival."  More of a concert, featuring about 40 oldies and classic rock tunes, performed by students with a student backing band.  

The setup was 47 inputs on the GB8, a mix of band mics, wired vocal mics, and wireless mics.  The PA was a Turbosound Floodlight system, all in a ~1500 capacity auditorium.  The GB8 replaced the school's standard mixer inventory, which consisted of a Mackie 32/8 with 24/E expander.

The FOH Mixers were both students, as was most of the technical crew.  Both guys mixing were quite intimidated by the board at first, but after about 10 seconds of use they both commented on how much easier it was to get around on than the Mackie 8-Bus.  We used 6 of the 8 auxes, all 4 matrix outputs, and the mute groups...features that were previously unavailable on the 8-Bus board.  This was not a traditional theatrical show, and was mixed very much "on the fly."  Presets and/or mute scenes would have probably gotten us into trouble, especially since many of the performers seemed to develop colorblindness when grabbing their wireless mic from backstage.  Some of them changed every night (We had 16 channels of Sabine SWM7000 series wireless going.)

Everyone there loved the console (and they weren't enthused to go back to their old 8-bus!)  This would be a fantastic application for a mixer like the GB8...a well performing, simple to use, fairly affordable mixer.

Here's a photo of the board in use....as you can see, FOH was pretty tight!



-JB

P.S.  Thanks Road Test for this opportunity to check out the new gear!

[Sara Elliott]

You both are very welcome.
I hope that it has been a valuable experience and you now have a greater understanding of the Soundcraft GB8.
Also, Thank you, Ryan and Jim, for turning the desk on to some possible future Engineers at such an impressionable time in their decision making process of what they may want to do when they "grow up".  Little do they know.
By they way, are you going to use this desk on one more gig, before we wrap this up?  Let us know so that we can look for the posting.

[Josh Evans]

I know this is an old review but I just had a couple of questions.  
What order (how many poles) is the variable high pass filter?  Also I didn't see a mention of the output voltage when driven into clip from something like a sine wave. Id seriously be curious about the grounding scheme for the inserts as others have not met up to par in the past. Does PIN1 have the typical zero length termination to chasi or something else?  

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Josh Evans wrote on Thu, 24 May 2007 04:01

...Also I didn't see a mention of the output voltage when driven into clip from something like a sine wave....

The user guide says +20dBu max output.

Quote:

...Id seriously be curious about the grounding scheme for the inserts as others have not met up to par in the past. Does PIN1 have the typical zero length termination to chasi or something else?

I'd like to know the answer, too. I can't even begin to guess how designers answer the pin 1 problem with unbalanced jacks such as the GB8's Tip Return inserts. The problem is that the shield is part of the circuit.  

Balanced inserts would have made me more interested in this mixer.

-Bink

[Josh Evans]

Hey Bink,

Look at the small APB console (16 channel) the inserts are the cheap plastic ones so thats one way.  I assuming that just by lifting pin 1 at the console and not at the external gear is one way to go.