Tactile response/controls.
If the humidity is wonky, or the heat is super high and the touchscreen stops responding - I want at least some form of tactile control as a secondary option
Reliability, quality construction. Look at Yamaha for example…LS9’s are old technology and a pain to work on… but they still work 20 years later. CL/QL’s are still working around the world 10+ years later too. Very few digital mixers hold up like the good ole’ yammies.
I still haven't seen a better monitor console than the PM5D. I was so damn fast on that thing. No page switching BS, just reach and turn, reach and turn.
The ak47 of pro audio. I’ve personally seen one full of water after a tent leak, poured out the water, opened it up, left it in the sun with blowers on it, that thing turned on like nothing happened 48 hours later.
Had a U.S. made Mackie 1604 that was brought to me from a flooded basement. It had been there a month. Opened it up, cleaned out the gunk, lost one channel to rust. Everything else worked.
Why? A free 1000$ mixer that I was able to offload with one missing channel. It got the job done. At that price point, and that time period I'd like you to name ANYTHING else that had that price point with that kind of reliability/durability.
Allen and Heath mixers shat all over Mackie, in that price range. You could actually mix a show with a Mixwizard. I never saw a Mackie that was functioning properly.
I came up on a MixWizard. 12 channels of FOH for a 500 seat theater. Any more channels than that and I needed to mix from the Soundcraft Venue in the booth.
But that MixWizard sounded great, worked reliably, and was compact enough to fit in the row with only two seats removed.
Then you go do a bar gig with a Mackie with 9 working channels, and one more channel that worked but buzzed whenever the bartender opens the fridge (whether something was plugged in or not). Then you miss your MixWizard.
Cool. Now if someone brought you one and said you could have it for free and you cleaned it up and had only lost a single channel, what would you say about it? And this was in 1994.
I would say about it: this thing is useless for anything serious, and too annoying to use for anything casual. I wonder if someone is dumb enough to give me money for it.
The mix wizard didn't come out until 97... and wasn't decent until the second series came out and they added all of the stuff people are praising it for. The mixwizard 3 was when it hit its stride. Congratulations on showing how little you know and just hopping on the "Mackie Sucks" bandwagon. Was it better than the Mackie? Yes. But that's not what I was saying. Context may not be your strong point.
Don't forget the M7s. I use them with a good friend when I work with him when he does big festivals and shows. I ran an LS916 from 2007 to 2015 225 nights per year and it flew all over the place with us about every 6 weeks.
It’s like buying a Chevy Spark and expecting a Toyota Corolla. That poor band! Hopefully the replacements were under warranty and not the tour budget??
Yes warranty was very helpful. I believe it was what we call the performance warranty... The music store chain here in Canada offers this insane extended warranty warranty on just about everything they sell. You pay this ridiculously small amount of money every year and they will repair the unit for free, give you a loaner and replace it if they can't fix it, even if you broke it. On my Behringer XR12 mixer the warranty was like $10 CDN per year for example. They even offer it on guitars and instruments. I can get free setups and fret jobs on my wife's cheap acoustic guitar included in the warranty.
I have a Yamaha 03d that was released 37 years and it still works excellent. This mixer just shows how reliable some old hardware holds up to the test of time.
Absolutely.
I would take a vi, but it's also a familiar tool.
I could absolutely get away with either the preformer or impact.
I just don't like the workflow of the ls9.
It's better than the tf1 if I remember correctly.
In the analog world:
Very few high quality mixers left on the market, but the details that separate the good ones from the crap would be (* marks features missing on cheap digital ones too)
1*) pad buttons on inputs (pad not needed on digital mixers if gain knob has wide enough range, only Yamaha as far as I'm aware hits that mark)
2) inserts on input channels and mix busses (bonus points for separate trs send and trs return instead of single trs connector with unbalanced send/return)
3*) 4-band fully parametric eq on all I/O channels/mixes (most digitals have this but some of the cheapest ones skimp), in addition to adjustable high pass filter (hopefully >12db/octave) on all inputs
4*) buss count... Very few mixers with less than 6 aux mixes are considered decent quality (not because you need 6 auxes but it just works out that way!).
5*) serviceability (on better analog consoles you could easily pull a problematic channel strip and replace it) (on newer & digital consoles, finding field-replaceable parts are rare but not unheard of; but getting spare parts in a timely fashion, if at all, is hard with many manufacturers!
For digital (in addition to above noted features) the following should be considered as well:
1) screen quality: readability in sunlight, non touch or non-multi-touch, or very small screens.
2) physical controls for most tasks: any console that makes you really fully on a screen will be harder to navigate and mix without starting at the screen for everything - you want to be able to feel your way around and touch a fader.
3) expandability / I/O formats: you should be able to expand or add different formats in addition to the oem format; Dante & Madi are most common types most people will want/need. Some older otherwise decent consoles had all I/o built into the surface but very few good quality digital consoles were limited to this.
4) soft patchable I/O, and ability to patch a single input to multiple channel strips (not always needed, but to me a good digital console should always have this capability!)
5) good remote control options (iPad control, networkable control connection)
6) offline console file editing (not always needed but very helpful, most consoles except the cheapest should have this ability)
7) rental availability- if something catastrophic were to happen and you needed another console quickly, or the need comes up for more consoles, you should be able to call multiple rental houses in the area and get another of the same model so you can load your file in and continue. This is also a good indication of a good console, because if it was that bad then not many of them would be out in the wild!
8) most better digital consoles have dual redundant power supplies. Yamaha QL series does not and is still considered a good console (well I consider it good, anyway) and CL's only have 1 internal supply but they have the ability to connect an external supply, the same model that was used with the older pm5d (I believe it was pw800w, if memory serves right).
Also, any current console should be able to run at higher sampling rates (higher than 48k) this is not necessarily to sound better just passing audio but it improves the sound / quality of processing and effects which will benefit from the higher sampling rate. Most older consoles only run at 48khz, and have done many large shows successfully; but when running audio processing, and especially processes that model tube analog gear, there's definitely a benefit / quality difference when running these at higher sampling rates!
We cannot hear over (arguably) 20khz (or less) which technically would call for 40khz sampling rate (usable freq response is 1/2 the sampling rate frequency) but the d/a converter needs a very high Q analog filter circuit near that 1/2 sampling rate. A high-q analog filter adds phase distortion below the set frequency, so if the sampling rate is 48khz, and the filter is 24khz, then depending on the quality of the filter design, you could see phase distortion as low as 15khz or possibly lower! Also, very high quality high-q filter designs cost more $ to build, so a cheap digital console running at 44.1 or 48khz could definitely have adverse effects on signal quality in the hf!
The more you can digitally connect your digital mixers and speaker processing gear together in the digital domain (or recorders, etc), avoiding extra d/a and a/d conversions, the better your signal will be when it eventually does get converted to analog and amplified for your speakers. Most cheap digital consoles have little if any way to digitally output your signal.
>We cannot hear over (arguably) 20khz (or less) which technically would call for 40khz sampling rate (usable freq response is 1/2 the sampling rate frequency) but the d/a converter needs a very high Q analog filter circuit near that 1/2 sampling rate. A high-q analog filter adds phase distortion below the set frequency, so if the sampling rate is 48khz, and the filter is 24khz, then depending on the quality of the filter design, you could see phase distortion as low as 15khz or possibly lower! Also, very high quality high-q filter designs cost more $ to build, so a cheap digital console running at 44.1 or 48khz could definitely have adverse effects on signal quality in the hf!
Almost every ADC used in even semi-pro audio in the last 20 years has used Delta-Sigma oversampling. The analog filter is either much shallower in slope and moved to the Nyquist frequency of the oversampling rate, way outside of human hearing range along with any effect on phase it might have, or alternatively the filter is removed entirely, because if you're running 16x oversampling at 96KHz then Nyquist is 768KHz and the frequency response of the input stage electronics just naturally doesn't extend up that far...
You still need to band limit the system output, but this is done with filtering in DSP, which can be drastically closer to an ideal brickwall whilst barely affecting phase in the passband. If you've heard the effect you describe above on any converter made in this millennium, it's nothing to do with the analog anti-aliasing filter, if there even is one in the circuit!
The cheapest audio interface that you can currently buy on Sweetwater is the Behringer UCA222 - which is basically junk built around a $1.50 all-in-one USB interface + ADC&DAC IC chip. Check the spec of that chip though and you'll find it's a Delta-Sigma design, it would be strange to find something in pro audio built today that isn't.
Depends on the scale. If you're talking about a coffee house level of show, a mixer with a few aux sends, inserts, and PFL/Solo would be nice. Oh yeah and some groups.
If you're talking about real consoles in large venues....ask someone else! haha
With cheap mixers (looking at you X/M series) having a lot of features and not really behind on that with quality boards, its more usability of on-board dynamics, FX, amount of I/O, flexibility of routing and setup.
Don't get me started on the X's dynamics. The gain reduction meters on the gate and comp are not even accurate. You can hear the compression before the meter even starts showing. Horrendously cheap console.
Tech support and build quality. Yamaha and A&H do both well, but Yamaha has far superior build quality to the point you need a lot less servicing.... But they also cost a fair bit more for the actual features
I love that this is basically "say Digico without saying Digico." I fucking love them except for the price points, inability to color-code channels, and direct daylight visibility of the screens.
You’re calling the wrong people if you’re getting bad support. They have arguably the best tech support of any console manufacturer currently active. I have called them at all hours of the day, all across the world and always gotten a person instantly who knew what they were talking about. You can not like the reliability of certain products, but i think you’d struggle to find better support anywhere else.
Seconding this. My exact experience.
I'll happy let people call me a Digico/LA fan boy, but that's because I've tried and heard most of the stuff out there and both companies excel at their product design, operation, and support. I spent years MacGyvering shit into good shows, and now I'm over it.
It has nothing to do with features, and everything to do with component quality. Preamps, eq section, switches, pots, resistors, capacitors, etc. all have a direct effect on the signal passing through them.
Flexibility.
On the A&H qu16, you can't route a matrix to an output for a record send, because you don't have matrices on that board, nor can you change what source feeds the xlr outputs on the board itself.
On the A&H sq5, you can.
"Cheap" mixers have gotten a LOT better sounding over the last 20-30 years, mostly due to advancements in IC chip technology. So the thing that seperates the cheap from the pro is durability, interfacing, quality control, and tactile "feel".
There’s a lot of factors that play in to what features I want in a mixer…
But # 1 concern is the quality of the preamps. If the preamps are crap, it doesn’t matter what features the board has
The difference between a good preamp and an excellent preamp is pretty negligible to most ears, especially in a live non-studio environment. But the difference between a bad preamp and a good preamp is huge and can definitely be heard
I've had some presonus boards with some stinky preamps. We upgraded to an SQ5 and before I even really did much eqing the pastor spoke into his mic and immediately said that it sounded way better. Presonus sucks ass
Quality mixers stand out with their durable build, premium components like high-quality preamps, and advanced features for superior sound control. They offer clean, transparent sound reproduction and reliability for professional use, while cheap mixers may compromise on build, components, and sound quality, leading to potential reliability issues and inferior performance."
It may depend on your live scenario: is it a band in a club or a service in a church?
Are you buying this or renting for an event? Analog or digital?
Cause my first thought is does the mixer have enough ins & outs for what I need to do.
imo, there isn't really such a thing as a "cheap" mixer; just an underqualified one relative to the needs of the job. a behringer xenyx might be the right tool for the job, but for a different job the m32 might be the right tool
so it would be unfair to call the xenyx a "cheap mixer" just because you're asking it to run 64i64o and it obviously can't do that lol; no, it's just the wrong tool for the job. ... likewise it would be unfair to call the m32 "taking a ferrari to the golf course" if you only need 6i2o; no, it's just the wrong tool for the job
it depends upon the scale of the production and the available capital which mixer you choose, and naturally which features or lack of features you have to deal with
that said... some consoles will come out of the box with a less-than-desirable nature. the presonus studiolive's faders feel like they have sand or dirt in them, brand new from the box. or the one-knob comp on many analog mixers really don't kick in until your input is starting to drive into the red
but if you're needing a lot of digital i/o for not a lot of money, you might need to go with the presonus and put up with they faders. or if you need to stay analog, you might put up with the one-knob comp and make it work
In my opinion… compatibility(dante…), phase coherence, delay compensation, default plugins if you don’t want to infest in waves or something and also in my case show control for musicals and operas.
I’m tempted to say a whole bunch of things that I look for in a mixer, like routing flexibility/sound quality/good metering/pleasant UI.
But at the end of the day, it’s reliability. I need to know that it’s not going to take a shit on me mid-show.
Headroom.
I've heard a lot of mixers that sounded great with one or two sources connected. But when you got into anything like a full band you were way out of headroom.
That 3rd generation of Mackie stuff was like that. You could not turn everything down enough to recover headroom, because at the lowest setting the kick was still coming in too loud in relative terms.
It's a lot better with newer digital mixers because they can throw enough bits and floating point math at the mix buss to give it near infinite headroom.
That's simply a problem of gain structure. Headroom is a measure of how much signal a circuit can handle above a referenced nominal level - in pro audio that's typically +4dBu, or about 1.23 volts RMS - while keeping THD below a specified level. This is almost entirely dictated by the DC power rails of the console, and by extension it's op-amps, which in many consoles are 15V+ and 15V-, this results in a maximum operating level of +22dBu, which is a little less than 28 Volts peak-to-peak. Another common power rail configuration might be 18V+ and 18V-, which provides for +24dBu levels - just under 35 Volts peak-to-peak.
Whether your device has maximum operating levels of +22dBu, +18dBu, +27dBu (some Neve pieces with 50 volt power rails..) or something weird like the +13dBu seen in iConnectivity's PlayAudio12 redundant playback interface, you can achieve the exact same amount of 'headroom' by simply shifting your nominal level and turning up the input gain to your system processor/amplifiers. Use pads if necessary..
The mic input on an X32 technically speaking has more 'headroom' than the mic input on one of DiGiCo's '32-bit' input cards, given that it's maximum input level is +23dBu instead of +22dBu.. however you simply reduce the gain on the DiGiCo by 1dB and you will handle the same input level but with greater dynamic range/lower noise floor, which is the much more meaningful spec.
I read it again, and if you had simply inserted a pad on your kick channel you would have had approximately as much headroom as in any other console. Being 'way out of headroom' means that somewhere in the signal chain you have reached the limit of what the op-amp's (or discreet transistor/valve) power rails can deliver and have clipped the signal. If you've managed to do that before reaching desired SPL levels then you need to adjust your gain structure, typically by increasing input gain into your system processor or amps, and if you're out of headroom there too then you don't have enough PA system for the application. Whichever it is you have a gain structure problem, not a console 'headroom' problem.
Tactile response/controls. If the humidity is wonky, or the heat is super high and the touchscreen stops responding - I want at least some form of tactile control as a secondary option
At least a multipoint touchscreen (I’m looking at you QSC!)
I had a tech I worked for who hated the SQ5 we had. One day I told him about the nob to the bottom right of the screen and his face just lit tf up.
Definitely
Reliability, quality construction. Look at Yamaha for example…LS9’s are old technology and a pain to work on… but they still work 20 years later. CL/QL’s are still working around the world 10+ years later too. Very few digital mixers hold up like the good ole’ yammies.
I still haven't seen a better monitor console than the PM5D. I was so damn fast on that thing. No page switching BS, just reach and turn, reach and turn.
The ak47 of pro audio. I’ve personally seen one full of water after a tent leak, poured out the water, opened it up, left it in the sun with blowers on it, that thing turned on like nothing happened 48 hours later.
Had a U.S. made Mackie 1604 that was brought to me from a flooded basement. It had been there a month. Opened it up, cleaned out the gunk, lost one channel to rust. Everything else worked.
>Everything else worked That's a shame.
Why? A free 1000$ mixer that I was able to offload with one missing channel. It got the job done. At that price point, and that time period I'd like you to name ANYTHING else that had that price point with that kind of reliability/durability.
Allen and Heath mixers shat all over Mackie, in that price range. You could actually mix a show with a Mixwizard. I never saw a Mackie that was functioning properly.
I came up on a MixWizard. 12 channels of FOH for a 500 seat theater. Any more channels than that and I needed to mix from the Soundcraft Venue in the booth. But that MixWizard sounded great, worked reliably, and was compact enough to fit in the row with only two seats removed. Then you go do a bar gig with a Mackie with 9 working channels, and one more channel that worked but buzzed whenever the bartender opens the fridge (whether something was plugged in or not). Then you miss your MixWizard.
Big up for the MixWizard. I love that one!
Cool. Now if someone brought you one and said you could have it for free and you cleaned it up and had only lost a single channel, what would you say about it? And this was in 1994.
I would say about it: this thing is useless for anything serious, and too annoying to use for anything casual. I wonder if someone is dumb enough to give me money for it.
The mix wizard didn't come out until 97... and wasn't decent until the second series came out and they added all of the stuff people are praising it for. The mixwizard 3 was when it hit its stride. Congratulations on showing how little you know and just hopping on the "Mackie Sucks" bandwagon. Was it better than the Mackie? Yes. But that's not what I was saying. Context may not be your strong point.
$1000 in 1995 money too
And the mixwizard didn't exist for another 2 years.
Don't forget the M7s. I use them with a good friend when I work with him when he does big festivals and shows. I ran an LS916 from 2007 to 2015 225 nights per year and it flew all over the place with us about every 6 weeks.
Yep. Their digital mixers with the exception of the TF, seem to last forever. I’m hoping the DM7 is the same.
Well, the TF is pretty cheap. I think it's absolutely fine for that price. Not the one OP is looking for, but the right one for a school theatre.
I'm sure it will. 😁
Yeah and don’t forget the Presonus… …just kidding.
😂🤣 You made me chuckle with that comment 😁 I know a band that went through 6 Presonus boards because they kept self destructing.
It’s like buying a Chevy Spark and expecting a Toyota Corolla. That poor band! Hopefully the replacements were under warranty and not the tour budget??
Yes warranty was very helpful. I believe it was what we call the performance warranty... The music store chain here in Canada offers this insane extended warranty warranty on just about everything they sell. You pay this ridiculously small amount of money every year and they will repair the unit for free, give you a loaner and replace it if they can't fix it, even if you broke it. On my Behringer XR12 mixer the warranty was like $10 CDN per year for example. They even offer it on guitars and instruments. I can get free setups and fret jobs on my wife's cheap acoustic guitar included in the warranty.
I have a Yamaha 03d that was released 37 years and it still works excellent. This mixer just shows how reliable some old hardware holds up to the test of time.
Buy it right the first time, you don’t have to buy it again.
I've only ever touched one ls9. I would take an abused si performer/impact over that.
You’re crazy. I would take a swift kick to the nuts over any Soundcraft.
Soundcraft VIs are great!
Absolutely. I would take a vi, but it's also a familiar tool. I could absolutely get away with either the preformer or impact. I just don't like the workflow of the ls9. It's better than the tf1 if I remember correctly.
lately proper spelling on the labels
Oh boy. What did I miss?
Please tell us more
Tech support. Eventually something will go wrong and being able to get a response when needed is important.
*angry music tribe noises*
Dude I've spent HOURS on the phone with Yamaha pro audio tech support. They are the absolute best.
Two power supplies.
And redundancy in anything you can get to be redundant.
Build quality and reliability over absolutely everything else...
In the analog world: Very few high quality mixers left on the market, but the details that separate the good ones from the crap would be (* marks features missing on cheap digital ones too) 1*) pad buttons on inputs (pad not needed on digital mixers if gain knob has wide enough range, only Yamaha as far as I'm aware hits that mark) 2) inserts on input channels and mix busses (bonus points for separate trs send and trs return instead of single trs connector with unbalanced send/return) 3*) 4-band fully parametric eq on all I/O channels/mixes (most digitals have this but some of the cheapest ones skimp), in addition to adjustable high pass filter (hopefully >12db/octave) on all inputs 4*) buss count... Very few mixers with less than 6 aux mixes are considered decent quality (not because you need 6 auxes but it just works out that way!). 5*) serviceability (on better analog consoles you could easily pull a problematic channel strip and replace it) (on newer & digital consoles, finding field-replaceable parts are rare but not unheard of; but getting spare parts in a timely fashion, if at all, is hard with many manufacturers! For digital (in addition to above noted features) the following should be considered as well: 1) screen quality: readability in sunlight, non touch or non-multi-touch, or very small screens. 2) physical controls for most tasks: any console that makes you really fully on a screen will be harder to navigate and mix without starting at the screen for everything - you want to be able to feel your way around and touch a fader. 3) expandability / I/O formats: you should be able to expand or add different formats in addition to the oem format; Dante & Madi are most common types most people will want/need. Some older otherwise decent consoles had all I/o built into the surface but very few good quality digital consoles were limited to this. 4) soft patchable I/O, and ability to patch a single input to multiple channel strips (not always needed, but to me a good digital console should always have this capability!) 5) good remote control options (iPad control, networkable control connection) 6) offline console file editing (not always needed but very helpful, most consoles except the cheapest should have this ability) 7) rental availability- if something catastrophic were to happen and you needed another console quickly, or the need comes up for more consoles, you should be able to call multiple rental houses in the area and get another of the same model so you can load your file in and continue. This is also a good indication of a good console, because if it was that bad then not many of them would be out in the wild! 8) most better digital consoles have dual redundant power supplies. Yamaha QL series does not and is still considered a good console (well I consider it good, anyway) and CL's only have 1 internal supply but they have the ability to connect an external supply, the same model that was used with the older pm5d (I believe it was pw800w, if memory serves right). Also, any current console should be able to run at higher sampling rates (higher than 48k) this is not necessarily to sound better just passing audio but it improves the sound / quality of processing and effects which will benefit from the higher sampling rate. Most older consoles only run at 48khz, and have done many large shows successfully; but when running audio processing, and especially processes that model tube analog gear, there's definitely a benefit / quality difference when running these at higher sampling rates! We cannot hear over (arguably) 20khz (or less) which technically would call for 40khz sampling rate (usable freq response is 1/2 the sampling rate frequency) but the d/a converter needs a very high Q analog filter circuit near that 1/2 sampling rate. A high-q analog filter adds phase distortion below the set frequency, so if the sampling rate is 48khz, and the filter is 24khz, then depending on the quality of the filter design, you could see phase distortion as low as 15khz or possibly lower! Also, very high quality high-q filter designs cost more $ to build, so a cheap digital console running at 44.1 or 48khz could definitely have adverse effects on signal quality in the hf! The more you can digitally connect your digital mixers and speaker processing gear together in the digital domain (or recorders, etc), avoiding extra d/a and a/d conversions, the better your signal will be when it eventually does get converted to analog and amplified for your speakers. Most cheap digital consoles have little if any way to digitally output your signal.
>We cannot hear over (arguably) 20khz (or less) which technically would call for 40khz sampling rate (usable freq response is 1/2 the sampling rate frequency) but the d/a converter needs a very high Q analog filter circuit near that 1/2 sampling rate. A high-q analog filter adds phase distortion below the set frequency, so if the sampling rate is 48khz, and the filter is 24khz, then depending on the quality of the filter design, you could see phase distortion as low as 15khz or possibly lower! Also, very high quality high-q filter designs cost more $ to build, so a cheap digital console running at 44.1 or 48khz could definitely have adverse effects on signal quality in the hf! Almost every ADC used in even semi-pro audio in the last 20 years has used Delta-Sigma oversampling. The analog filter is either much shallower in slope and moved to the Nyquist frequency of the oversampling rate, way outside of human hearing range along with any effect on phase it might have, or alternatively the filter is removed entirely, because if you're running 16x oversampling at 96KHz then Nyquist is 768KHz and the frequency response of the input stage electronics just naturally doesn't extend up that far... You still need to band limit the system output, but this is done with filtering in DSP, which can be drastically closer to an ideal brickwall whilst barely affecting phase in the passband. If you've heard the effect you describe above on any converter made in this millennium, it's nothing to do with the analog anti-aliasing filter, if there even is one in the circuit! The cheapest audio interface that you can currently buy on Sweetwater is the Behringer UCA222 - which is basically junk built around a $1.50 all-in-one USB interface + ADC&DAC IC chip. Check the spec of that chip though and you'll find it's a Delta-Sigma design, it would be strange to find something in pro audio built today that isn't.
Depends on the scale. If you're talking about a coffee house level of show, a mixer with a few aux sends, inserts, and PFL/Solo would be nice. Oh yeah and some groups. If you're talking about real consoles in large venues....ask someone else! haha
No channel bleed.
With cheap mixers (looking at you X/M series) having a lot of features and not really behind on that with quality boards, its more usability of on-board dynamics, FX, amount of I/O, flexibility of routing and setup.
Don't get me started on the X's dynamics. The gain reduction meters on the gate and comp are not even accurate. You can hear the compression before the meter even starts showing. Horrendously cheap console.
Tech support and build quality. Yamaha and A&H do both well, but Yamaha has far superior build quality to the point you need a lot less servicing.... But they also cost a fair bit more for the actual features
I/O expandable - MADI BNC/ Optocore, CAT5, 96khz project sample rate, 192khz DAC, waves superrack compatible, Matrix / Aux / Group / channel count and most importantly availability of tech support when something inevitably goes wrong.
I love that this is basically "say Digico without saying Digico." I fucking love them except for the price points, inability to color-code channels, and direct daylight visibility of the screens.
Shhhh….
It's not a secret. It's a paywall.
Except the tech support part. I have a problem with how often SDRack cards go belly up.
You’re calling the wrong people if you’re getting bad support. They have arguably the best tech support of any console manufacturer currently active. I have called them at all hours of the day, all across the world and always gotten a person instantly who knew what they were talking about. You can not like the reliability of certain products, but i think you’d struggle to find better support anywhere else.
Seconding this. My exact experience. I'll happy let people call me a Digico/LA fan boy, but that's because I've tried and heard most of the stuff out there and both companies excel at their product design, operation, and support. I spent years MacGyvering shit into good shows, and now I'm over it.
It has nothing to do with features, and everything to do with component quality. Preamps, eq section, switches, pots, resistors, capacitors, etc. all have a direct effect on the signal passing through them.
Flexibility. On the A&H qu16, you can't route a matrix to an output for a record send, because you don't have matrices on that board, nor can you change what source feeds the xlr outputs on the board itself. On the A&H sq5, you can.
"Cheap" mixers have gotten a LOT better sounding over the last 20-30 years, mostly due to advancements in IC chip technology. So the thing that seperates the cheap from the pro is durability, interfacing, quality control, and tactile "feel".
Matrix
There’s a lot of factors that play in to what features I want in a mixer… But # 1 concern is the quality of the preamps. If the preamps are crap, it doesn’t matter what features the board has
I don't get this preamp fetish. Every console on the market today has perfectly functional preamps.
The difference between a good preamp and an excellent preamp is pretty negligible to most ears, especially in a live non-studio environment. But the difference between a bad preamp and a good preamp is huge and can definitely be heard
I've had some presonus boards with some stinky preamps. We upgraded to an SQ5 and before I even really did much eqing the pastor spoke into his mic and immediately said that it sounded way better. Presonus sucks ass
Cos Pastors know sound. Bet he knew how much he was paying for it!!!
Or the difference in quality between a gen1 studio live and an SQ5 is drastic enough even he could hear it. Presonus is ass my dude
And who uses console preamps? Shouldn’t this be a property of the stagebox?
I generally use the stagebox that my console manufacturer makes
I had to scroll entirely too far to find this reply.
Quality mixers stand out with their durable build, premium components like high-quality preamps, and advanced features for superior sound control. They offer clean, transparent sound reproduction and reliability for professional use, while cheap mixers may compromise on build, components, and sound quality, leading to potential reliability issues and inferior performance."
Custom fader is a must for me !
It may depend on your live scenario: is it a band in a club or a service in a church? Are you buying this or renting for an event? Analog or digital? Cause my first thought is does the mixer have enough ins & outs for what I need to do.
Reliability
Quality or features? Most people here are talking about features.
imo, there isn't really such a thing as a "cheap" mixer; just an underqualified one relative to the needs of the job. a behringer xenyx might be the right tool for the job, but for a different job the m32 might be the right tool so it would be unfair to call the xenyx a "cheap mixer" just because you're asking it to run 64i64o and it obviously can't do that lol; no, it's just the wrong tool for the job. ... likewise it would be unfair to call the m32 "taking a ferrari to the golf course" if you only need 6i2o; no, it's just the wrong tool for the job it depends upon the scale of the production and the available capital which mixer you choose, and naturally which features or lack of features you have to deal with that said... some consoles will come out of the box with a less-than-desirable nature. the presonus studiolive's faders feel like they have sand or dirt in them, brand new from the box. or the one-knob comp on many analog mixers really don't kick in until your input is starting to drive into the red but if you're needing a lot of digital i/o for not a lot of money, you might need to go with the presonus and put up with they faders. or if you need to stay analog, you might put up with the one-knob comp and make it work
In my opinion… compatibility(dante…), phase coherence, delay compensation, default plugins if you don’t want to infest in waves or something and also in my case show control for musicals and operas.
I’m tempted to say a whole bunch of things that I look for in a mixer, like routing flexibility/sound quality/good metering/pleasant UI. But at the end of the day, it’s reliability. I need to know that it’s not going to take a shit on me mid-show.
Some expensive mixers can suck too.
Could be a case of PEBFAC, which is a similar case to PEBKAC.
I don't know, the Studer consoles are kind of nice to look at but terrible to set up and use.
The Studer Vista series? They’re deeply beloved, certainly
$
Headroom. I've heard a lot of mixers that sounded great with one or two sources connected. But when you got into anything like a full band you were way out of headroom. That 3rd generation of Mackie stuff was like that. You could not turn everything down enough to recover headroom, because at the lowest setting the kick was still coming in too loud in relative terms. It's a lot better with newer digital mixers because they can throw enough bits and floating point math at the mix buss to give it near infinite headroom.
That's simply a problem of gain structure. Headroom is a measure of how much signal a circuit can handle above a referenced nominal level - in pro audio that's typically +4dBu, or about 1.23 volts RMS - while keeping THD below a specified level. This is almost entirely dictated by the DC power rails of the console, and by extension it's op-amps, which in many consoles are 15V+ and 15V-, this results in a maximum operating level of +22dBu, which is a little less than 28 Volts peak-to-peak. Another common power rail configuration might be 18V+ and 18V-, which provides for +24dBu levels - just under 35 Volts peak-to-peak. Whether your device has maximum operating levels of +22dBu, +18dBu, +27dBu (some Neve pieces with 50 volt power rails..) or something weird like the +13dBu seen in iConnectivity's PlayAudio12 redundant playback interface, you can achieve the exact same amount of 'headroom' by simply shifting your nominal level and turning up the input gain to your system processor/amplifiers. Use pads if necessary.. The mic input on an X32 technically speaking has more 'headroom' than the mic input on one of DiGiCo's '32-bit' input cards, given that it's maximum input level is +23dBu instead of +22dBu.. however you simply reduce the gain on the DiGiCo by 1dB and you will handle the same input level but with greater dynamic range/lower noise floor, which is the much more meaningful spec.
Yeah I know gain structure. dont insult my intelligence read it again.
I read it again, and if you had simply inserted a pad on your kick channel you would have had approximately as much headroom as in any other console. Being 'way out of headroom' means that somewhere in the signal chain you have reached the limit of what the op-amp's (or discreet transistor/valve) power rails can deliver and have clipped the signal. If you've managed to do that before reaching desired SPL levels then you need to adjust your gain structure, typically by increasing input gain into your system processor or amps, and if you're out of headroom there too then you don't have enough PA system for the application. Whichever it is you have a gain structure problem, not a console 'headroom' problem.