[pedro men]

hello friends, this is my first post, but i come here for quite
sometime, it's a great place to compare reviews.
i'm coming to you in search of expertise advise, wich i thank you
right away.

i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters) and i'll be
producing concerts. my question is if i should buy all that analog
equipment (mixer, compressors, EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe
invest in some good pre amps with firewire or adat or a analog to
digital converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with a
control mixer and buy some quality plug ins. in adittion i believe
that i could record the live act, wich is important to me.

i never worked live in completly digital way, so i am afraid of being
thinking of something that is not only expensier but it as problems in
the end quality

cheers and thanks a lot
pedro

[Scott Dorsey]

pedro men wrote:
i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters) and i'll be
producing concerts. my question is if i should buy all that analog
equipment (mixer, compressors, EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe
invest in some good pre amps with firewire or adat or a analog to
digital converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with a
control mixer and buy some quality plug ins. in adittion i believe
that i could record the live act, wich is important to me.

When you book acts, they will have riders, and it will be your job to supply
what is on those riders. Ask some of the acts you're going to be working
with what they want.

i never worked live in completly digital way, so i am afraid of being
thinking of something that is not only expensier but it as problems in
the end quality

There are some excellent digital consoles out there today. Some of them
can be frustrating to get used to. Will your bands be happy with them?
Hell if I know. Ask them.

Pro Tools is a recording system and not a PA system. I agree it might
be good to take splits off your PA system for recording, and some of the
new digital consoles can make that easier. But then, some of the newer
analogue consoles have built in converters for that kind of thing as
well (the Mackie Onyx for instance). But you want the recording system
to be as far separated from the PA system as possible, and again you want
to supply whatever the bands themselves are comfortable with.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Sergio Sanmiguel[_2_]]

On Mar 4, 8:42*am, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
pedro men wrote:

i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters) and i'll be
producing concerts. my question is if i should buy all that analog
equipment (mixer, compressors, EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe
invest in some good pre amps with firewire or adat or a analog to
digital converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with a
control mixer and buy some quality plug ins. in adittion i believe
that i could record the live act, wich is important to me.

When you book acts, they will have riders, and it will be your job to supply
what is on those riders. *Ask some of the acts you're going to be working
with what they want.

i never worked live in completly digital way, so i am afraid of being
thinking of something that is not only expensier but it as problems in
the end quality

There are some excellent digital consoles out there today. *Some of them
can be frustrating to get used to. *Will your bands be happy with them?
Hell if I know. *Ask them.

Pro Tools is a recording system and not a PA system. *I agree it might
be good to take splits off your PA system for recording, and some of the
new digital consoles can make that easier. *But then, some of the newer
analogue consoles have built in converters for that kind of thing as
well (the Mackie Onyx for instance). *But you want the recording system
to be as far separated from the PA system as possible, and again you want
to supply whatever the bands themselves are comfortable with.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. *C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Digidesign does have a Live system called Venue:
http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=20
Its self contained & supposedly you wont need anything else...

Most of FOH engineers this days can work with full digital systems &
analogs (or hybrid)... I prefer analog systems but also love the idea
of digital snakes.
~
Serg

[tsvisser]

what is your budget?

are we talking over $50k or is it something more modest?

[Scott Dorsey]

Sergio Sanmiguel wrote:

Digidesign does have a Live system called Venue:
http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=3D100&navid=3D20
Its self contained & supposedly you wont need anything else...

Except for the things the bands demand in their riders.

Venue gives me the willies, to be honest, but even so most of the
hard stuff is being done in hardware that can keep running even when
the front end crashes.

I'd still feel more comfortable with a Yamaha or InnovaSon digital
rig.

Most of FOH engineers this days can work with full digital systems &
analogs (or hybrid)... I prefer analog systems but also love the idea
of digital snakes.

The digital systems get better and better every day, but part of the
problem is that it's easy to add nifty features to the digital system
but expensive to add more controls. Consequently we wind up with
systems that have vast numbers of seldom-used features and controls that
are overlayed so they do dozens of things in dozens of different modes.

This isn't a problem inherent in digital mixers, mind you, it's a problem
inherent in the market.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

On Mar 4, 8:01 am, pedro men wrote:
hello friends, this is my first post, but i come here for quite
sometime, it's a great place to compare reviews.
i'm coming to you in search of expertise advise, wich i thank you
right away.

i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters) and i'll be
producing concerts. my question is if i should buy all that analog
equipment (mixer, compressors, EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe
invest in some good pre amps with firewire or adat or a analog to
digital converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with a
control mixer and buy some quality plug ins.

A digital console, if it's sufficiently advanced, can be a reasonable
choice these days. Building a digital console yourself out of a
computer, an interface (that probably won't have enough inputs)
software, a control surface, and processing software processing
plugins is really a misguided effort and will require far more study,
experimenting, doing it wrong the first few times, and frustration
than you need as a new club owner.

One problem is that you'll have a completely non-standard system, so
if a band comes in with their own engineer, he won't have any idea how
to use your setup. Another thing is that all this software crap has
latency - a delay time between when something goes in the microphone
and comes out the loudspeaker. It increases every time you insert a
plug-in, and even a bare system can have too much latency to be
practical in a live situation. And how long do you think it will take
you (the operator) to find a knob to do something when the system
starts to feed back? No, not a good idea at all.

in adittion i believe
that i could record the live act, wich is important to me.

Look into the Mackie Onyx mixers with the optional Firewire interface
card. If you can live with 16 channels or submix to 16 channels, the
1640 would be a fine choice for a small club. It's all analog, has
good sounding preamps, usable EQ, plenty of auxiliary sends, four
subgroup busses, and a simple plug-in to a Firewire port for
recording. All sixteen mic preamp outputs appear as inputs to a
multitrack recording program. The main stereo mix is also available to
the recording computer so you can have a "board mix" stereo track to
make a quick CD after the gig to give to the band for reference (or
listen to it in your car on the drive home) plus each mic on its own
track so you can mix it more carefully later.

i never worked live in completly digital way, so i am afraid of being
thinking of something that is not only expensier but it as problems in
the end quality

Be very afraid. Not of audio quality - that's the easy part, but of
screwing up. That's much too easy with a digital system that isn't
very well thought out and very well understood.

[Sergio Sanmiguel[_2_]]

On Mar 4, 10:10*am, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Sergio Sanmiguel wrote:



Digidesign does have a Live system called Venue:
http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=3D100&navid=3D20
Its self contained & supposedly you wont need anything else...

Except for the things the bands demand in their riders.

Venue gives me the willies, to be honest, but even so most of the
hard stuff is being done in hardware that can keep running even when
the front end crashes.

I'd still feel more comfortable with a Yamaha or InnovaSon digital
rig.

Most of FOH engineers this days can work with full digital systems &
analogs (or hybrid)... I prefer analog systems but also love the idea
of digital snakes.

The digital systems get better and better every day, but part of the
problem is that it's easy to add nifty features to the digital system
but expensive to add more controls. *Consequently we wind up with
systems that have vast numbers of seldom-used features and controls that
are overlayed so they do dozens of things in dozens of different modes.

This isn't a problem inherent in digital mixers, mind you, it's a problem
inherent in the market.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. *C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I'm with you Scott. I Like Midas consoles, klark-teknik EQ,s
Compressors & Gates, Lexicon & Eventide FX processors. For
loudspeakers, side-fills & monitors I prefer Meyer Sound. An
assortment of Shure, Sennheiser & AKG mics, Anything that's usually on
a rider can be covered with this "basic" setup. UMO the Digidesign
approach is to make studio engineers comfortable out in the Live Music
environment...
~
S.

[tsvisser]

How do you guys feel the Allen & Heath iLive system compares to
Venue... or does it?

[Paul Stamler]

"pedro men" wrote in message
...

i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters) and i'll be
producing concerts. my question is if i should buy all that analog
equipment (mixer, compressors, EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe
invest in some good pre amps with firewire or adat or a analog to
digital converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with a
control mixer and buy some quality plug ins. in adittion i believe
that i could record the live act, wich is important to me.

Don't even *think* of mixing live sound in Pro Tools. The very thought sends
shudders down my spine. Get a decent analog mixer and, if you want to record
shows, connect something like an Alesis hard-disk recorder to the mic insert
jacks. Or, if you need instant setup recall (most folks don't) get a digital
mixing board.

KISS.

Peace,
Paul

[Arny Krueger]

"pedro men" wrote in message


i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters)
and i'll be producing concerts. my question is if i
should buy all that analog equipment (mixer, compressors,
EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe invest in some good pre
amps with firewire or adat or a analog to digital
converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with
a control mixer and buy some quality plug ins. in
adittion i believe that i could record the live act, wich
is important to me.

If I'm up on my metric conversions, 150 square meters is about 1500 square
feet, which is like 30 feet by 50 feet. Is that the whole building, or
what? Seems like its pretty small, and won't seat even 100 people. Less, if
you serve food and people are sitting around tables. Nothing wrong with
that, but it relates to the scale of proposed solutions.


i never worked live in completly digital way, so i am
afraid of being thinking of something that is not only
expensier but it as problems in the end quality

I'm a big advocate of doing live sound with a digital console, provided of
course you have a big enough venue to support the entry costs, which are
often much higher than that for analog for just the functions of a basic
mixer.

In the US, digital consoles that I would consider for doing live sound start
around $2K, which would be an 01V96 which has 12 mic preamps and 16 faders.
While it can be economically expanded to about twice as many channels,
channels 17-32 are virtual, and you have to press a button to switch the
console's front panel to switch from working with channels 17-32 to working
with channels 1-16. If you think of it as just a 16 channel mixer, it is
pricey. If you option it up to 32 channels, there will be a learning curve
until you learn how to switch back and forth on an intuitive level.

If you want to have 32 faders that you can access all at one time, then you
might be looking at a LS9-32. This will cost you about $9K . If this is in
your price range if it can be justified, read on.

What you get with a digital console is a lot of very handy extras in the
form of things like true parametric equalizers and limiters for every
channel, input or output. There are a number of built-in high-function EFX
boxes that can be easily patched all over the place. There is a
fully-functional scene memory so you can memorize the state of the mixer for
one gig or group, set it up for another gig or group, and instantly recall
the setup for another group. There will be a minium of 99 scene memories.
Interfacing a digital console to a digital recorder or mixer is a natural.
The converters in one of these digital consoles will be in the same league
as what you find in other better quality digital equipment.

It's clearly a case of you pays your money and you makes your choice.

Unless you compare a digital mixer to an analog mixer that has all of the
extra features I just mentioned, its going to be relatively pricey. At the
same price you will find higher-end analog mixers that have some of the
extra features, but won't have anything that really compares along the lines
of scene memory.

[pedro men]

On Mar 4, 1:01 pm, pedro men wrote:
hello friends, this is my first post, but i come here for quite
sometime, it's a great place to compare reviews.
i'm coming to you in search of expertise advise, wich i thank you
right away.

i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters) and i'll be
producing concerts. my question is if i should buy all that analog
equipment (mixer, compressors, EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe
invest in some good pre amps with firewire or adat or a analog to
digital converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with a
control mixer and buy some quality plug ins. in adittion i believe
that i could record the live act, wich is important to me.

i never worked live in completly digital way, so i am afraid of being
thinking of something that is not only expensier but it as problems in
the end quality

cheers and thanks a lot
pedro

thank you all for great replys
i'm glad i asked to who who knows!!!!!

i must say you answer all my doubts, and will look into all your
suggestions (the mackie onyx 1640 is a favorite for now).
of course the latency would be disasterous, "lip sync" would be a bit
strange!!!!!

i kind of imagine i could build a setup for live and post, but i guess
i was just complicating in my mind, there are already great products
for that (venue is great but kind of expensive and a bit more than i
need).

thanks again, i vow to your expertise!

ps:150 meters = 492.125984 feet for the audience, thank you Arny
Krueger for the advises

be well

[Sebastian Zuendorf]

pedro men wrote:

i must say you answer all my doubts, and will look into all your
suggestions (the mackie onyx 1640 is a favorite for now).

Although Mackie never was one of my favorite mixers at all, i guess
there are not many options that would offer the same possibilities.
For analog live mixing I would go buy a GL2200 or GL2400 (Allen&Heath)
- but those do not offer firewire interfaces so you would need an
interface or HD-recorder.

Just be sure to have enough channels and auxes available :-)

Sebastian


--
reality.sys not found! Reboot universe?

Die Partyband vom Niederrhein: http://www.stimmtso.net

[Scott Dorsey]

Sebastian Zuendorf wrote:
pedro men wrote:

i must say you answer all my doubts, and will look into all your
suggestions (the mackie onyx 1640 is a favorite for now).

Although Mackie never was one of my favorite mixers at all, i guess
there are not many options that would offer the same possibilities.
For analog live mixing I would go buy a GL2200 or GL2400 (Allen&Heath)
- but those do not offer firewire interfaces so you would need an
interface or HD-recorder.

You will sometimes see riders that say "no Mackie" or "No Behringer"
but you won't see any riders that say "No Allen and Heath."

I'd personally recommend the bottom of the line Midas or Crest console
over the top of the line Mackie, but it'll be considerably more money.

Just be sure to have enough channels and auxes available :-)

And how many that is depends on who your are going to have playing.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Sebastian Zuendorf]

(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

You will sometimes see riders that say "no Mackie" or "No Behringer"
but you won't see any riders that say "No Allen and Heath."

My riders say "no Mackie, no Behringer". I just don't like them.
My riders say "no Venice" as well, because of these damn 60mm faders
and (for the venice) defective EQs.
Personally, I'd chose GL2200 over Venice (faders, aux-routing,
acessibility).


I'd personally recommend the bottom of the line Midas or Crest console
over the top of the line Mackie, but it'll be considerably more money.

Crest would be another good choice, once one has problems regarding
acceptance for A&H. Over here (germany) there _are_ some people who
would not accept A&H - although I can't understand why.


And how many that is depends on who your are going to have playing.

Once again, one should check the riders :-)

Sebastian


--
reality.sys not found! Reboot universe?

Die Partyband vom Niederrhein: http://www.stimmtso.net

[Scott Dorsey]

Sebastian Zuendorf wrote:
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

You will sometimes see riders that say "no Mackie" or "No Behringer"
but you won't see any riders that say "No Allen and Heath."

My riders say "no Mackie, no Behringer". I just don't like them.
My riders say "no Venice" as well, because of these damn 60mm faders
and (for the venice) defective EQs.

I don't mind the Venice EQ, and at least they are defeatable, but I
agree the short faders are annoying.

Personally, I'd chose GL2200 over Venice (faders, aux-routing,
acessibility).

And THIS, in short, is why the original poster needs to contact some of
the bands he's bringing in and see what THEY want.

Crest would be another good choice, once one has problems regarding
acceptance for A&H. Over here (germany) there _are_ some people who
would not accept A&H - although I can't understand why.

I've never seen "no A&H" on a rider before, and I have seem some pretty
weird stuff on a rider. But I'm not saying it's not out there.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Sebastian Zuendorf]

(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

I don't mind the Venice EQ, and at least they are defeatable, but I
agree the short faders are annoying.

Problem with (some) Venice EQs: Recently I had some of those desk's
EQs acting as oscillators and generating sine-waves at selected
frequency/gain-settings, especially at the hi-mid band around 3k
something. This is really annoying, especially when there is a band on
stage you never worked with before and they think it is _your_ fault.
First time it happened to me I was really short on time for soundcheck
and madly trying to find the monitor-send causing the feedback (which,
of course, was none).
I told the rental guy I needed 24 channels - and he brought a Venice
240 that was later expanded by a 160 with auxes patched through to the
240 which made troubleshooting even more difficult in that situation.
After we finally had it fixed, I told the guy to service that desk.
2 months later I got the very same desk again - with the same fault!
Next thing to do was adding a "please: no Venice unless it is in fully
working condition and serviced on a regular basis"-note to all my
riders.


Personally, I'd chose GL2200 over Venice (faders, aux-routing,
acessibility).

And THIS, in short, is why the original poster needs to contact some of
the bands he's bringing in and see what THEY want.

Exactly. Don't missunderstand me: Venices are fine desks, talking
about sound in general. But nobody needs oscillating EQs and short
faders (although I use to have them in a straight line around 0dB in
live-situations which makes mixing monitors from FOH easier).


I've never seen "no A&H" on a rider before, and I have seem some pretty
weird stuff on a rider. But I'm not saying it's not out there.

Those people mainly complain about the EQs which are perfect for my
needs but might be a bit mild for some people.
Desks like Yamaha GA-series - that on the other hand I don't like for
their rough EQs - suit those guys. For me it's no use moving a knob
1/10 of a mm and having the guitar straight in my head - but some
might like it like that.
Same people like short faders for their instant response to the
smallest movement :-)

Sebastian


--
"Musiker sind schwierige Menschen.
Jeder hat andere schwierigkeiten, der eine mehr, der andere weniger.
Aber einen am Brett haben sie alle!"

Die Partyband vom Niederrhein: http://www.stimmtso.net

[Mike Rivers]

On Mar 4, 6:21 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

You will sometimes see riders that say "no Mackie" or "No Behringer"
but you won't see any riders that say "No Allen and Heath."

Do they still do that? The "No Mackie" was from the days of the 8-bus
SR console that was really flaky. Anyway, I doubt that in a club as
small as he's talking about there will be any bands with technical
riders that can't be overridden.

There's nothing wrong with an Onyx for service like this.

I'd personally recommend the bottom of the line Midas or Crest console
over the top of the line Mackie, but it'll be considerably more money.

Yup, I agree, but I sensed that what he was trying to do with his
scheme of using a DAW as a mixer was to save money.

[[email protected]]

On Mar 4, 3:46*pm, pedro men wrote:
On Mar 4, 1:01 pm, pedro men wrote:





hello friends, this is my first post, but i come here for quite
sometime, it's a great place to compare reviews.
i'm coming to you in search of expertise advise, wich i thank you
right away.

i'm going to open a small night club (150 square meters) and i'll be
producing concerts. my question is if i should buy all that analog
equipment (mixer, compressors, EQ, gates, reverb, etc,) or maybe
invest in some good pre amps with firewire or adat or a analog to
digital converter and work in a computer (i like pro tools) with a
control mixer and buy some quality plug ins. in adittion i believe
that i could record the live act, wich is important to me.

i never worked live in completly digital way, so i am afraid of being
thinking of something that is not only expensier but it as problems in
the end quality

cheers and thanks a lot
pedro

thank you all for great replys
i'm glad i asked to who who knows!!!!!

i must say you answer all my doubts, and will look into all your
suggestions (the mackie onyx 1640 is a favorite for now).
of course the latency would be disasterous, "lip sync" would be a bit
strange!!!!!

i kind of imagine i could build a setup for live and post, but i guess
i was just complicating in my mind, there are already great products
for that (venue is great but kind of expensive and a bit more than i
need).

thanks again, i vow to your expertise!

ps:150 meters = 492.125984 feet for the audience, thank you Arny
Krueger for the advises

be well- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

As a close friend of rock and roll club owners and pro live audio
vendors (moonshine Backline and Avatar Sound) in Atlanta, and also as
a film and music video producer with EFP mixing experience.. You need
to provide entirely different mixes for the club to sound pleasing and
the recording to sound pleasing.. which will sooner or later make you
need to have 2 systems... which may or may not work through the same
mics......
Go see some bands in clubs the size of the venue you want to use, make
friends wiht their sound mixer (if you like the sound there), and copy
their PA system.. it will save you lots of time.
I have no opinion on Analog v digital for a room, except that I
generally consider software on a PC (or a mac) unlikely to survive the
amount of actual physical dirt and moisture in the air in a nightclub
for more htan a few weeks... actual boards are built to survive this
kind of abuse...

If you were in Atlanta, I would suggest you go to Smith's Old Bar
upstairs, and see what they have.. it sounds excellent, and I knwo it
has been reliable..

[Scott Dorsey]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:21 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

You will sometimes see riders that say "no Mackie" or "No Behringer"
but you won't see any riders that say "No Allen and Heath."

Do they still do that? The "No Mackie" was from the days of the 8-bus
SR console that was really flaky. Anyway, I doubt that in a club as
small as he's talking about there will be any bands with technical
riders that can't be overridden.

There's nothing wrong with an Onyx for service like this.

I agree, the Onyx is fine. But you -will- still see riders like that
today.

I'd personally recommend the bottom of the line Midas or Crest console
over the top of the line Mackie, but it'll be considerably more money.

Yup, I agree, but I sensed that what he was trying to do with his
scheme of using a DAW as a mixer was to save money.

The way to save money is to have fewer channels. The mixer is expensive,
but the cabling often turns out to be even more expensive.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[thepaulthomas]

On Mar 4, 3:21 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

You will sometimes see riders that say "no Mackie" or "No Behringer"
but you won't see any riders that say "No Allen and Heath."

The Midas Venice (the bottom of their line) is grossly overpriced. The
Venice has no polarity switch on the channel strips, no pads on the
channels, and the phantom switches are located on the back of the
board next to the XLR's. The layout of the master section and the aux
masters is confusing and silly. I have really liked every other Midas
I have mixed on but the Venice really annoys me. The bigger Midas
boards are really nice but tend to leave me scratching my head for a
moment as I often forget that the inserts are _switchable_. There's
always that few seconds at the start of a sound-check when I'm
wondering why my gates or comp's aren't working... ;-)

Allen and Heath make plenty of good stuff that is reasonably priced
and loaded with a lot of features. I'm just not so sure about long
term reliability though. I've worked on Allen and Heath mixers all
over North America and it seems that a lot of them have some minor
flakiness with things like switches or meters, but there's no telling
how much action they've seen. We have a GL-2800 here at The Bottom of
the Hill in San Francisco and it's starting to get worn out even
though it's only a year and a half old. One channel just died and
several mute LED's have recently gone out. Then again, this is one
venue where I can indeed verify that we have roughly 300 shows per
year with 3-5 bands each night so those buttons and knobs see a lot of
action.

[Mike Rivers]

On Mar 4, 10:26 pm, thepaulthomas
wrote:

The Midas Venice (the bottom of their line) is grossly overpriced.

Actually, I think that what it's often compared to (the Mackie 1604
series) is underpriced, and the even less expensive look-alikes are
even more underpriced. A 16-channel mixer should just cost more than
$300.

The
Venice has no polarity switch on the channel strips, no pads on the
channels, and the phantom switches are located on the back of the
board next to the XLR's. The layout of the master section and the aux
masters is confusing and silly. I have really liked every other Midas
I have mixed on but the Venice really annoys me.

The Venice isn't really a Midas. I don't remember the company that
designed and builds it. There will be compromises with any console
below about $50,000 - fewer channels, fewer busses, fewer auxiliary
sends, fewer EQ controls, alternative switching . . . Each
manufacturer chooses the battle he's wiling to fight. If you're the
kind of user who uses polarity switches frequently, then you have to
pay for them. If you want the EQ to do anything useful, you have to
pay for it. If you just want a box of mic preamps, faders, and audio
funnel, you can get away with a $300 mixer.

Allen and Heath make plenty of good stuff that is reasonably priced
and loaded with a lot of features. I'm just not so sure about long
term reliability though.

That's the other thing that costs more money, and it's hard to
directly relate reliability with external appearance and price.
Putting better quality components on the circuit boards doesn't matter
to someone who buys a mixer that stays in one place and that he's
going to outgrow in a couple of years, but it does for a touring sound
company. Even small things like securing cables properly inside the
box matters - but that's a hand operation and adds significantly to
the labor cost. Stuff like that.

You can't have Buck Rogers without bucks.

[Sebastian Zuendorf]

Mike Rivers wrote:

The Venice isn't really a Midas. I don't remember the company that
designed and builds it.

That might be Dynacord. They belong to Bosch as well as Midas, Klark
etc.


That's the other thing that costs more money, and it's hard to
directly relate reliability with external appearance and price.
Putting better quality components on the circuit boards doesn't matter
to someone who buys a mixer that stays in one place and that he's
going to outgrow in a couple of years, but it does for a touring sound
company. Even small things like securing cables properly inside the
box matters - but that's a hand operation and adds significantly to
the labor cost. Stuff like that.

I've seen a lot of A&H desks on the road without any failures, some
with bad inserts - but that's true with Midas oder Crest desks as
well.

Sebastian


--
"Musiker sind schwierige Menschen.
Jeder hat andere schwierigkeiten, der eine mehr, der andere weniger.
Aber einen am Brett haben sie alle!"

Die Partyband vom Niederrhein: http://www.stimmtso.net

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:

If you were in Atlanta, I would suggest you go to Smith's Old Bar
upstairs, and see what they have.. it sounds excellent, and I knwo it
has been reliable..

But they don't have Woodchuck on tap any more! We want Woodchuck back!

Smith's is right near where the Little Five Points Pub used to be. That's
the first place I ever saw a Phase Linear explode.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
On Mar 4, 10:26 pm, thepaulthomas
wrote:

The Midas Venice (the bottom of their line) is grossly overpriced.


I've owned dozens of desks and mixed on hundreds
the venice is a good easy to use desk that costs 2 to 3x as much as its more
capabale compitition
if you like analouge like the venice look at the soundcraft lx or gb series
desks or A&H product
if you want to spend midas quanity of mony look at the yamaha ls9/16

personally I would SERIOUSLY look at the ls9 series from yamaha
george

when I was considering the Venice
I came to find out that the 6 auxes can not be configured all post fade(they
can on the lx7, which I bought for that reason)
the advantage of this is when you have a bigger show and rent in , or the
act brings in a diffrent house desk
the lx7 turns into a very nice 6 send monitor desk
the midas can not do that
george

[jakdedert]

Mike Rivers wrote:
snip
That's the other thing that costs more money, and it's hard to
directly relate reliability with external appearance and price.
Putting better quality components on the circuit boards doesn't matter
to someone who buys a mixer that stays in one place and that he's
going to outgrow in a couple of years, but it does for a touring sound
company. Even small things like securing cables properly inside the
box matters - but that's a hand operation and adds significantly to
the labor cost. Stuff like that.

You can't have Buck Rogers without bucks.

I'd add: trim pots substituted for 'real' pots, then using the knob as
the physical support. I've got a Soundcraft rack mixer which uses this
method. All the various controls are surface-mounted--little more than
tiny trimpots--with a large shaft. The knobs have a shoulder that forms
a bushing, which is the actual lateral support for the shaft. Take that
knob off, and there's no mechanical strength to the control at all.
Even pulling the knob off seems dicey.

'Real' pots cost money. Given that there are eight to ten (or more) per
channel strip on even a cheap analog mixer, the cost adds up quickly. A
decent pot costs half a buck or so even in quantity. At ten per
channel, you've spent $80 just on pots for 16 channel strips. Then add
knobs, a reasonable fader, switches...it's incredible that anyone can
make even a decent 'cheap' mixer for less than $500.

jak

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
On Mar 4, 10:26 pm, thepaulthomas
wrote:

The Midas Venice (the bottom of their line) is grossly overpriced.

I've owned dozens of desks and mixed on hundreds
the venice is a good easy to use desk that costs 2 to 3x as much as its more
capabale compitition
if you like analouge like the venice look at the soundcraft lx or gb series
desks or A&H product
if you want to spend midas quanity of mony look at the yamaha ls9/16

personally I would SERIOUSLY look at the ls9 series from yamaha

The Yamaha isn't bad either. Really, the best thing about the Venice is
that it's modular and easily repaired, and you can pull a module out and
fix it at your leisure. It's not as conveniently modular as the big consoles
and you have to pop the cover to get to a board, but they aren't all single
board construction and they are designed for easy repairability.

You pay a LOT extra for that, but I think it's worth it. The Crest is also
that way, and some of the Yamaha consoles are, but not all of them. I have
not actually popped the top on the LS series to see, only done a little mixing
on one at a festival.

I don't think the Onyx is a bad sounding board at all, but it is disposable
and basically not worth the effort to repair when it breaks. However, the
internal A/D converters could be a big deal if you're looking to record
concerts. And it's the first Mackie console series with usable EQ. Still
there's the "no Mackie" thing on the rider occasionally.

If you're on a budget there are plenty of older consoles that turn up
cheaply that are worth looking into, also.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

jakdedert wrote:

'Real' pots cost money. Given that there are eight to ten (or more) per
channel strip on even a cheap analog mixer, the cost adds up quickly. A
decent pot costs half a buck or so even in quantity. At ten per
channel, you've spent $80 just on pots for 16 channel strips. Then add
knobs, a reasonable fader, switches...it's incredible that anyone can
make even a decent 'cheap' mixer for less than $500.

Precisely, and the FIRST place where manufacturers cheap out is on pots.

Mackie put a lot of engineering work into cutting every penny off the cost
of their controls, but making sure they were reliable.

As opposed to Alesis, who had a really ingenious way for cutting the cost
of the controls by fabricating the resistive element directly on the PC
board by silkscreening, then using the top plate of the console to support
the wiper. Assembly costs were greatly reduced, and the parts cost too.
The only problem is that they all failed within a few months, causing Alesis
to get a really, really bad reputation for reliability.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

On Mar 5, 9:58 am, jakdedert wrote:

I'd add: trim pots substituted for 'real' pots, then using the knob as
the physical support.

I don't think it's fair to call them "trimpots" since they've been
engineered for this kind of service - board-mounted with shaft
extending through the panel. But I know what you mean. All the Mackie
mixers past the first generation have been built with these pots. They
don't often fail but a wobbly shaft doesn't instill a lot of
confidence in the mixer. And with Mackie's choice of taper for the
gain trim pots, a small bit of shaft wobble can result in a couple of
dB of gain change in the top and bottom 45 degrees or so of rotation
where the slope of the resistance vs. rotation curve is steepest.

The knobs have a shoulder that forms
a bushing, which is the actual lateral support for the shaft. Take that
knob off, and there's no mechanical strength to the control at all.

That's a step beyond what Mackie does. There's no bushing at all. The
hole in the panel is what supports the shaft. I heard that one of Greg
Mackie's contributions to the Onyx when they showed him an early model
was that they needed to make the knobs wobble less. With numerically
controlled punching and circuit board assembly, it's not hard to
maintain close tolerances and not have too much play, but a real
bushing would feel better (but of course, cost more).

'Real' pots cost money. Given that there are eight to ten (or more) per
channel strip on even a cheap analog mixer, the cost adds up quickly. A
decent pot costs half a buck or so even in quantity. At ten per
channel, you've spent $80 just on pots for 16 channel strips. Then add
knobs, a reasonable fader, switches...it's incredible that anyone can
make even a decent 'cheap' mixer for less than $500.

And on top of the half a buck per pot you need to add in several
layers of markup along the way, plus higher assembly cost. But people
who are only able or willing to pay $300 for a mixer just need to
accept this sort of construction. It isn't going to sound any worse
than one costing 3 times as much as long as it's working, but when the
pots get noisy or intermittent, which they will sooner than on a mixer
with high quality sealed, panel mounted pots, it's time to either find
another channel to use or throw the mixer away (or sell it on eBay
with the description "a few pots are noisy, probably just needs a shot
of contact cleaner").

[Don Pearce]

On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 08:09:48 -0800 (PST), Mike Rivers
wrote:

On Mar 5, 9:58 am, jakdedert wrote:

I'd add: trim pots substituted for 'real' pots, then using the knob as
the physical support.

I don't think it's fair to call them "trimpots" since they've been
engineered for this kind of service - board-mounted with shaft
extending through the panel. But I know what you mean. All the Mackie
mixers past the first generation have been built with these pots. They
don't often fail but a wobbly shaft doesn't instill a lot of
confidence in the mixer. And with Mackie's choice of taper for the
gain trim pots, a small bit of shaft wobble can result in a couple of
dB of gain change in the top and bottom 45 degrees or so of rotation
where the slope of the resistance vs. rotation curve is steepest.

The knobs have a shoulder that forms
a bushing, which is the actual lateral support for the shaft. Take that
knob off, and there's no mechanical strength to the control at all.

That's a step beyond what Mackie does. There's no bushing at all. The
hole in the panel is what supports the shaft. I heard that one of Greg
Mackie's contributions to the Onyx when they showed him an early model
was that they needed to make the knobs wobble less. With numerically
controlled punching and circuit board assembly, it's not hard to
maintain close tolerances and not have too much play, but a real
bushing would feel better (but of course, cost more).

'Real' pots cost money. Given that there are eight to ten (or more) per
channel strip on even a cheap analog mixer, the cost adds up quickly. A
decent pot costs half a buck or so even in quantity. At ten per
channel, you've spent $80 just on pots for 16 channel strips. Then add
knobs, a reasonable fader, switches...it's incredible that anyone can
make even a decent 'cheap' mixer for less than $500.

And on top of the half a buck per pot you need to add in several
layers of markup along the way, plus higher assembly cost. But people
who are only able or willing to pay $300 for a mixer just need to
accept this sort of construction. It isn't going to sound any worse
than one costing 3 times as much as long as it's working, but when the
pots get noisy or intermittent, which they will sooner than on a mixer
with high quality sealed, panel mounted pots, it's time to either find
another channel to use or throw the mixer away (or sell it on eBay
with the description "a few pots are noisy, probably just needs a shot
of contact cleaner").

But at the cheap end of things, one rule stands out above all others.
Always go for rotary rather than linear faders. That way you stand a
good chance of getting a few years of decent service. Cheap linears
may give you months at best.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

[Eeyore]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Sebastian Zuendorf wrote:
pedro men wrote:

i must say you answer all my doubts, and will look into all your
suggestions (the mackie onyx 1640 is a favorite for now).

Although Mackie never was one of my favorite mixers at all, i guess
there are not many options that would offer the same possibilities.
For analog live mixing I would go buy a GL2200 or GL2400 (Allen&Heath)
- but those do not offer firewire interfaces so you would need an
interface or HD-recorder.

You will sometimes see riders that say "no Mackie" or "No Behringer"
but you won't see any riders that say "No Allen and Heath."

We just got a GL2400 for the local pub venue.


I'd personally recommend the bottom of the line Midas or Crest console
over the top of the line Mackie, but it'll be considerably more money.

It was a Midas Venice that was being replaced. The A&H seems to be
preferred over it.

Graham

[Eeyore]

Sebastian Zuendorf wrote:

My riders say "no Venice" as well, because of these damn 60mm faders

Annoying aren't they ?


and (for the venice) defective EQs.

They do sound a bit 'thin'.

Graham

[Eeyore]

Sebastian Zuendorf wrote:

Problem with (some) Venice EQs: Recently I had some of those desk's
EQs acting as oscillators and generating sine-waves at selected
frequency/gain-settings, especially at the hi-mid band around 3k
something.

I just experienced that too. Whirl the pots back and forth several times. I
think it's because they go open-circuit.

Graham

[Eeyore]

Mike Rivers wrote:

The Venice isn't really a Midas. I don't remember the company that
designed and builds it.

Dynacord IIRC and I think they based it on previous DDA designs. In fact
Klark Teknik (of which DDA was a part) bought Midas when I was at DDA in
1988. Christ, the Midas designs then were shockingly bad, early XLs IIRC.

All ended up as part of EVI / Telex and the DDA brand was dropped.

Graham

[jakdedert]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On Mar 5, 9:58 am, jakdedert wrote:

I'd add: trim pots substituted for 'real' pots, then using the knob as
the physical support.

I don't think it's fair to call them "trimpots" since they've been
engineered for this kind of service - board-mounted with shaft
extending through the panel. But I know what you mean. All the Mackie
mixers past the first generation have been built with these pots. They
don't often fail but a wobbly shaft doesn't instill a lot of
confidence in the mixer. And with Mackie's choice of taper for the
gain trim pots, a small bit of shaft wobble can result in a couple of
dB of gain change in the top and bottom 45 degrees or so of rotation
where the slope of the resistance vs. rotation curve is steepest.

I hadn't dissected any Mackies, but the SoundCraft controls look exactly
like trimpots. Although probably purpose-engineered, the shaft is the
only visible difference.

The knobs have a shoulder that forms
a bushing, which is the actual lateral support for the shaft. Take that
knob off, and there's no mechanical strength to the control at all.

That's a step beyond what Mackie does. There's no bushing at all. The
hole in the panel is what supports the shaft. I heard that one of Greg
Mackie's contributions to the Onyx when they showed him an early model
was that they needed to make the knobs wobble less. With numerically
controlled punching and circuit board assembly, it's not hard to
maintain close tolerances and not have too much play, but a real
bushing would feel better (but of course, cost more).

I think we're describing the same thing. The knob is simply necked down
to almost exactly the panel hole size, and provides all the support,
including some protection against vertical force...and the 'feel' as
well, since the friction of the knob in the hole adds a little drag.

'Real' pots cost money. Given that there are eight to ten (or more) per
channel strip on even a cheap analog mixer, the cost adds up quickly. A
decent pot costs half a buck or so even in quantity. At ten per
channel, you've spent $80 just on pots for 16 channel strips. Then add
knobs, a reasonable fader, switches...it's incredible that anyone can
make even a decent 'cheap' mixer for less than $500.

And on top of the half a buck per pot you need to add in several
layers of markup along the way, plus higher assembly cost. But people
who are only able or willing to pay $300 for a mixer just need to
accept this sort of construction. It isn't going to sound any worse
than one costing 3 times as much as long as it's working, but when the
pots get noisy or intermittent, which they will sooner than on a mixer
with high quality sealed, panel mounted pots, it's time to either find
another channel to use or throw the mixer away (or sell it on eBay
with the description "a few pots are noisy, probably just needs a shot
of contact cleaner").

Yup...similar to how I got mine ('left out, dead')--8+4 channel--for
less than $70 on eBarf. Someone had replaced one of those pots with
something 'else' that doesn't fit right. It sounds fine, but left
output still intermittent. I opened it up to trace it out, but couldn't
get the problem to exhibit...until the second time I tried to use it on
a gig.

That's where a big chunk of the rest of the money goes; serviceability.
Just pulling all those knobs in order to open this puppy up is
daunting. Having actual 'strips' infinitely increases serviceability.
Just discrete *boards* for each channel is a rare plus, even if you
can't pull them from the top. Socketed IC's help considerably, too.

All costing $$$....

jak

[Mike Rivers]

On Mar 5, 11:14 am, (Don Pearce) wrote:

But at the cheap end of things, one rule stands out above all others.
Always go for rotary rather than linear faders. That way you stand a
good chance of getting a few years of decent service. Cheap linears
may give you months at best.

Well, maybe YOUR marketing department will try to sell that, but the
popular concept for a mixer is a box with slide pots, so they gotta
have slide pots if they want a big seller. The Mackie 1202 doesn't
have slide faders and still sells pretty well, but a lot of their
customers who don't need the extra capability buy the 1402 just to get
something that looks like they think a mixer should look like.

Functionally, particularly in a home recording setup, rotary faders
work just fine, and often as not, they aren't used as faders anyway,
just set-and-leave-it gain controls.

[Eeyore]

jakdedert wrote:

Mike Rivers wrote:
On Mar 5, 9:58 am, jakdedert wrote:

I'd add: trim pots substituted for 'real' pots, then using the knob as
the physical support.

I don't think it's fair to call them "trimpots" since they've been
engineered for this kind of service - board-mounted with shaft
extending through the panel. But I know what you mean. All the Mackie
mixers past the first generation have been built with these pots. They
don't often fail but a wobbly shaft doesn't instill a lot of
confidence in the mixer. And with Mackie's choice of taper for the
gain trim pots, a small bit of shaft wobble can result in a couple of
dB of gain change in the top and bottom 45 degrees or so of rotation
where the slope of the resistance vs. rotation curve is steepest.

I hadn't dissected any Mackies, but the SoundCraft controls look exactly
like trimpots. Although probably purpose-engineered, the shaft is the
only visible difference.

They aren't trimpots at all. They're simply ALPS RK09 series miniature pots
like these ..
http://uk.farnell.com/1191741/passiv...u=ALPS-29-0016

Graham

[jakdedert]

Eeyore wrote:

jakdedert wrote:

Mike Rivers wrote:
On Mar 5, 9:58 am, jakdedert wrote:

I'd add: trim pots substituted for 'real' pots, then using the knob as
the physical support.
I don't think it's fair to call them "trimpots" since they've been
engineered for this kind of service - board-mounted with shaft
extending through the panel. But I know what you mean. All the Mackie
mixers past the first generation have been built with these pots. They
don't often fail but a wobbly shaft doesn't instill a lot of
confidence in the mixer. And with Mackie's choice of taper for the
gain trim pots, a small bit of shaft wobble can result in a couple of
dB of gain change in the top and bottom 45 degrees or so of rotation
where the slope of the resistance vs. rotation curve is steepest.
I hadn't dissected any Mackies, but the SoundCraft controls look exactly
like trimpots. Although probably purpose-engineered, the shaft is the
only visible difference.

They aren't trimpots at all. They're simply ALPS RK09 series miniature pots
like these ..
http://uk.farnell.com/1191741/passiv...u=ALPS-29-0016

Graham


That may be what's in the Mackies, but not like what I recall in the
cheap SoundCraft.....

jak

[Scott Dorsey]

Sebastian Zuendorf wrote:
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

I don't mind the Venice EQ, and at least they are defeatable, but I
agree the short faders are annoying.

Problem with (some) Venice EQs: Recently I had some of those desk's
EQs acting as oscillators and generating sine-waves at selected
frequency/gain-settings, especially at the hi-mid band around 3k
something. This is really annoying, especially when there is a band on
stage you never worked with before and they think it is _your_ fault.
First time it happened to me I was really short on time for soundcheck
and madly trying to find the monitor-send causing the feedback (which,
of course, was none).

Wow. That's one I have never seen before, and that's really alarming.

The short faders don't really bother me, but then if I had my choice,
I'd have big 5" rotary controls in place of faders anyway...
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Sebastian Zuendorf]

(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Wow. That's one I have never seen before, and that's really alarming.

Seems to be dust/dirt/worn out pots. As it happened to different
people on mixers of different age and wear you can't be safe :-)
Only thing that made me go crazy like that was a rotten piece of wire
inside a GL2200 a year or so ago. This made the faulty channel to go
up to +10dB from time to time while I was wondering why the hell the
damn guitarist had put up his volume _again_ ;-)


The short faders don't really bother me, but then if I had my choice,
I'd have big 5" rotary controls in place of faders anyway...

I'd go for the regular size 100mm faders and a _long_ ruler :-)

Sebastian


--
"Musiker sind schwierige Menschen.
Jeder hat andere schwierigkeiten, der eine mehr, der andere weniger.
Aber einen am Brett haben sie alle!"

Die Partyband vom Niederrhein: http://www.stimmtso.net