Sugarite wrote:

George previously wrote


Some of us are using world class gear in situation where you'd think it
would make a diffrence
I can make a mackie 24.4 kick ass on a midas

That is especially funny !

You *have* to be joking - right ?

Unless you're talking about the early Midas XLs which had so lost the plot it
was untrue. This is well over 15 yrs back so don't fret. I was at DDA when
Klark-Teknik Group bought Midas so I'm in a position to know.

Dave Dearden and I had a good laugh over the XL mic amp. God knows what had
happened to Midas at that point.


I can do the same with behringer
I believe my SLS and Meyers are of adaquate quality to bring forth
anything I ask of them

the preamp section, even the whole damn mixer is nearly insignificant in
"the sound"

Curious that so may ppl consider the mic pre to be critical. I'll take a
momentary back seat on this issue.


the sound is the artist, the mic, the engineer and the speakers

Certainly that's one hell of a lot of what it's about. You can't EQ a lousy
artist to soung good IMHO. No problem there.


the rest is pretty much interchangable,(mixers, amps,efx,outboard) any
thing in good repair will be just fine

I defy you to post that to rec.audio.pro, where your obnoxious attitude
hasn't driven away people who would laugh at you, especially for the Mackie
beating Midas bit. That is rich. Probably explains why you're not nearly
as crusty over there, you know you'll get shot down in flames.

I've recorded in over 100 venues from Montreal to Vancouver with just a
stereo mic, and there's nothing that demonstrates a sound system's might
like replaying shows of the same band and engineer in different venues
side-by-side. The factors that I've found to consistently produce quality
recordings are prioritized as follows:

- artists and their gear
- engineer
- mics/DI's
- console
- compression horns
- system configuration including room tuning*
- EQ quality*

* - typically the most overlooked

The rest is interchangeable within reason, including mids. Take a typical
2-way speaker, yank the passive crossover and compression driver, pop in a
nice driver and bi-amp them using a time-aligned active crossover. Takes
away about 80% of the nasties.

Here's a place you should check out if you're ever up in Ottawa:
http://zaphodbeeblebrox.com/specs.html - great page design for touring
bands btw

It uses Yorkville speakers, but is one of the best sounding rooms of its
size I've ever encountered, because everything on my list except horns are
well provided, especially for EQ and system configuration. The flown tops
are dead perfect symmetrical, and the drum riser is tuned to eliminate
low-end feedback. I've got a mic position in that room that beats
multitrackers every time.

I dunno what's got into George lately. No-one sensible denies that Behringer
offers great value for money. But to suggest it's up there with the big boys ?
Noooooo way !


Graham

Sugarite wrote:

If someone were to produce an 8-channel mic preamp/ADC that filled the
$600
gap between the ADA8000 and Presonus Digimax LT, then the DDX3216 would
become much more feasible. It's certainly not the only piece of audio
gear
whose dependence on other gear makes it less useful.

No live rig would EVER expose the diffrence
been there, done that

I can't believe you associate your business with statements like that. Ever
if it were true, no self-respecting musician or venue would be remotely
impressed by the attitude.

But it's so obviously not true. If you can't hear the difference between a
cheap mixer's preamps and a Presonus Digimax then there is something
seriously wrong with your live rig, your ears, or both. That's like saying
you can't hear the difference between an Apex 420 and a Neumann U87 through
a live rig.

It's not entirely unfashionable to suggest that live sound 'smears' the sound so
much that equipment quality issues are 'marginal' - or at least that seems to be
the received wisdom currently. In many venues with lousy acoustics I'm sure it's
often largely true.

Go back 35 yrs and compare a 'valve head' type PA to a solid state version and
you *knew* the difference. Pink Floyd didn't get a reputation for super sound by
accident and that was using early 'quasi-complementary' output stage PA amps
from WEM ! We've moved on some what since then too.

I'll follow your thread though.

To take your example, I acquired a *new* Neumann U87 many decades back at a
truly 'snip' price that I couldn't resist. It wasn't on their stolen register
either !

Somewhat timorously I *once* used it live. I had it on snare drum.

*WOW* !!!!!! is all I can say.

Anyone who reckons you can't hear the difference between that - and say a crappy
SM57 must have totally defective hearing.

It was a *revelation* - and that was live with a jazz-rock band at St Martin's
School of Art at London University.


Graham



p.s. added rec.audio.pro since I think this is of interest to this group

I dunno what's got into George lately. No-one sensible denies that Behringer
offers great value for money. But to suggest it's up there with the big boys ?
Noooooo way !


Graham

I am not saying they "sound the same" I am saying that sitting in a seat
in the audience you will not be able to tell which desk I am mixing on
the preamps are not a make or break point in the LIVE SOUND chain
any reasonable quiet preamp(the mackies and behringer qualify) that
gives me the gain I want will become invisible in a live sound mix
george

George Gleason wrote:

I dunno what's got into George lately. No-one sensible denies that Behringer
offers great value for money. But to suggest it's up there with the big boys ?
Noooooo way !


Graham

I am not saying they "sound the same" I am saying that sitting in a seat
in the audience you will not be able to tell which desk I am mixing on
the preamps are not a make or break point in the LIVE SOUND chain
any reasonable quiet preamp(the mackies and behringer qualify) that
gives me the gain I want will become invisible in a live sound mix

Like I said ( you snipped ) - in the live scenario I'm agnostic on the mic pre issue
specifically for live work.

EQ ( another issue entirely ) is something else. So-called 'British EQ' isn't
well-regarded by accident. I have spend a lot of time on this. So did Rupert Neve in
his day too. I guees I didn't end up working for his company for a while by accident
either !


Graham

"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...
Go back 35 yrs and compare a 'valve head' type PA to a solid state version
and
you *knew* the difference. Pink Floyd didn't get a reputation for super
sound by
accident and that was using early 'quasi-complementary' output stage PA
amps
from WEM ! We've moved on some what since then too.

Yeah, got told about a lot of that stuff by Jerry Wing. Amazing.

Top sausage with an awful lot of floyd stories.

Phildo

Phildo wrote:

"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...
Go back 35 yrs and compare a 'valve head' type PA to a solid state version
and
you *knew* the difference. Pink Floyd didn't get a reputation for super
sound by
accident and that was using early 'quasi-complementary' output stage PA
amps
from WEM ! We've moved on some what since then too.

Yeah, got told about a lot of that stuff by Jerry Wing. Amazing.

Top sausage with an awful lot of floyd stories.

Phildo

Ahhhhh...... those were the days ;-). Saw Floyd ( age 16 ) perform Atom Heart
Mother in Hyde Park.

Ground breaking days even. There was some massive musical stuff going on then -
not at all like today.

We ought to meet up sometime. Didn't you say you were based in Southend ?

I'm in Hertfordshire - St Albans.

My funny rabbity posted email here works btw !


Cheers, Graham

In article writes:

I dunno what's got into George lately. No-one sensible denies that Behringer
offers great value for money. But to suggest it's up there with the big boys
?
Noooooo way !

I am not saying they "sound the same" I am saying that sitting in a seat
in the audience you will not be able to tell which desk I am mixing on
the preamps are not a make or break point in the LIVE SOUND chain

One of the common complaints about Mackie (and Behringer is hardly in
the running) from "big" live sound engineers is that the preamps lack
headroom. Now I think this is manageable, but many live sound people
think it's an imposition to have to turn down the trim during a show.
Someone with experience and the ears to detect the onset of clipping
at the front end will deal with it and say he'll never mix on anything
but a Midas or better again. The "not yet big" boys will let it clip
and say "There's nothing I can do. It's the console."

While the audience may not know what's wrong, they'll hear that
something is wrong.

I a perfect world, we wouldn't need any console equalization, but that
never happens. The lower priced boards tend to start sounding harsh
when applying too much boost. Again, it's manageable though you may
not be able to do all you could do with a better console. But an
inexperienced operator will just keep trying past the point of no
return and things will start sounding painful. Again, the audience may
not know specifically what's wrong, but they know it doesn't sound as
good as the record, or as good as another show they saw.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...
Ahhhhh...... those were the days ;-). Saw Floyd ( age 16 ) perform Atom
Heart
Mother in Hyde Park.

Only time I ever got to see them was on Division Bell and that was truly
awesome.

Ground breaking days even. There was some massive musical stuff going on
then -
not at all like today.

We ought to meet up sometime. Didn't you say you were based in Southend ?

I'm in Hertfordshire - St Albans.

My funny rabbity posted email here works btw !

I'm closer to Basildon than Southend. Would be good to do lunch at some
point but I am back on the ships Feb 3rd until July so will have to be after
that. Give me a shout when you see me posting properly again and I'll buy
you lunch.

Phildo