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Most artists are better off renting because they are not business oriented, don't have consistent career paths, crew and management.

Yanni purchased a complete L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC system sometime last century, the cost savings of owning and maintaining it has easily amounted to millions of dollars over the decade(s) of use.

Yanni was a very stable artist so that was a good career choice.  He was married to that rich and beutiful soap actress so I think he had the cheez to fund the deal.


For those of us in the trenches that opportunity smells like a rental to me.


It's so funny to see everyone's preferences.  My love of L and Kara, Tim with JBL and Brian with D&B can't go wrong with any of those brands.  Choose a solid partner though.


I also want to make it clear I love Avantis (have one at my church) and DLive it just is non existent in the rental market.  I am not an Avid fan so the smaller Rivage or Digico are going to be the consoles most available in the rental market.  I actually only know one person in Wisconsin that rents his D-Live but he usually goes out with the console. 

You are doing your artist a disservice to reject JBL VTX or A series.

I currently am Audio Janitor for an l'Acoustic K3/KS28 rig.  Perhaps it's because I don't speak AudioFrench, but I find myself disliking most of the system tuning tools, but perhaps that's because the only official training is in-person and the system owner hasn't been keen on sending me out for that training.  It's not a bad rig but not what I would have specified even if I liked the l'Acoustic ecosystem.

My experience with S6L has been mostly that the WAVES part of the package crashed.  Never had an issue with the console itself.  YMMV, etc.  Take a look at the PM7 Rivage, I think you'll like the way it sounds and so far maintain Yamaha's "it just works" tradition.

I have yet to hear the A series but I was only saying you can't go wrong in that size gig with Kara2.  You can ground stack 2-4 on your subs at small venues and fly the whole rig for the larger ones. 


I have a new A1 working for me and this guy is awesome, been on tour with  a few decent acts and he brought me in on a some gigs with his old employer and I got to hear the K2.  I always liked Kara the K1 is even smoother but still has the blow the doors off output you need some time.  Power and grace is a nice combo.  He has the l'Acoustics training so I am very comfortable with his skills.  That's why I asked Luke if they were going to bring along an SE.


Scott

I'm curious why this would be a purchase rather than a rental from one of the usual suspects.  There's a reason Clair and the rest of them exist.  I have clients who consider purchasing parts of their system, but when asked where they're storing it, who's maintaining it, etc. they quickly come to realize why they're better off renting.

Most artists are better off renting because they are not business oriented, don't have consistent career paths, crew and management.

Yanni purchased a complete L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC system sometime last century, the cost savings of owning and maintaining it has easily amounted to millions of dollars over the decade(s) of use.









 

Yup, faulty USB cables have been a thing, well even since before USB came out.

The part that sucks about a crappy cable is it might still WORK.  Things like data transfers will have checks and re-send failed data.  Files still end up transferred, they just might take longer, and you get no warning that you've got a crap cable making life miserable.

For something real time like audio/video transfer, resending the data isn't really an option and the result is crackling and noise.  But still no warning on the screen that the data stream is getting corrupted.  THAT'S annoying!!

There are SO many variables....

Purchasing a PA this size for a tour is an interesting choice, but....

I would spec a d&b rig of appropriate size and a Yamaha desk, preferably a PM5. Reason one is that these tools just work, and I hate tools that quit working. Also, d&b is everywhere in Europe and Rivage is quite common and/or you can console convert to CL5 for one or two dates and get by just fine.

I wouldn't run any outboard anything if you are renting on European dates. No Waves, no pesky analog gear. KISS principle.

Digico are obviously very prevalent worldwide as well, so if you prefer those, have at it.

And finally, a DLive rig can travel. Get the big 3500 surface for US shows and the baby 1500 surface for fly dates. That way it's always the same desk no matter where you go.

That being said, I'd still go Yamaha. But that's me....

{...} The other odd behavior is that, unlike previous installations of Smaart, this instance takes >1 min of looking at the splash screen before it’s up and running. {...}

IIRC, during its splash screen Smaart tries to talk to any audio device that the system has drivers for (just to check if they're working), so the more audio drivers you have installed on your computer the longer Smaart will take to start (or something like that).

-Russ

I used to have huge stacks of various USB cables, most that came with devices and got tossed in the pile. A couple years ago, after seemingly never-ending issues with both production and non-production equipment like printers, I threw them all away and bought a stock of new ones from C2G. I haven't had problems with any of the new ones yet, but I figure I will have to do it all again at the 5-year mark. It involved spending a bit of money, but it was worth it not to be banging my head against the wall every time I connected a USB device.

I’ve been doing this long enough that I should have known better. But here we are. Over the several years that I’ve owned a Sound Devices USBPre 2 I’ve chronically fought a weird crackling noise on playback. It’s independent of signal level, source application, sampling rate, type of source file (mp3, wav, Smaart’s pink noise gen, etc.), and every other variable I could think of. It could often be made to go away by replugging the USB connection (clue). I never heard it going the other way using the USBPre as a source (recording mode). It got especially bad the last few days while I was doing a full system reacquaintance (how do you work this thing?) and checkout.

Well, the title says it. I swapped USB cables and problem gone. I rounded up all my USB cables and they all appear to work fine except this one. Silly me to assume that digital connections either work perfectly or not at all.

--Frank

Sounds like a great opportunity. 

We have 4 Avantis and I love mixing on them.  But I wouldn't take one on a tour of that scale.  They have no redundancy in either power supplies or networked audio.  It's a $10k console for a reason.  If you like the AH stuff, go with Dlive S.  If you like Digico, why not get one?  The console cost is a rounding error on a tour playing 10k plus venues. 

For PA, you're not buying L-Acoustics L2 for fall 2024.  You might get K2 but it's unlikely. 

I'm curious why this would be a purchase rather than a rental from one of the usual suspects.  There's a reason Clair and the rest of them exist.  I have clients who consider purchasing parts of their system, but when asked where they're storing it, who's maintaining it, etc. they quickly come to realize why they're better off renting. 

You are doing your artist a disservice to reject JBL VTX or A series.

I currently am Audio Janitor for an l'Acoustic K3/KS28 rig.  Perhaps it's because I don't speak AudioFrench, but I find myself disliking most of the system tuning tools, but perhaps that's because the only official training is in-person and the system owner hasn't been keen on sending me out for that training.  It's not a bad rig but not what I would have specified even if I liked the l'Acoustic ecosystem.

My experience with S6L has been mostly that the WAVES part of the package crashed.  Never had an issue with the console itself.  YMMV, etc.  Take a look at the PM7 Rivage, I think you'll like the way it sounds and so far maintain Yamaha's "it just works" tradition.