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Post by guitfiddler on Oct 22, 2024 19:04:08 GMT -6
I’ve been doing a lot of live stuff and not finding myself spending a lot of time in the studio lately. My band wants to start recording our practices. I’m looking at digital consoles. Looking at A&H SQ-5. Does anyone use one? Or is there anything comparable in that range. I was also looking at the Waves LV-1. I’m in the under $10,000 budget. Seems all these consoles have their own preamps and no separate line in. You still hit the preamp section with outboard preamps. I’m not huge on pages and pages of screens to get somewhere when setting up and routing. I am using outboard units for my FX, and outboard 2-mix processing to the mains. It would be nice to have at least 2 AES/EBU inputs and outputs. Hard to find options I want for under $10,000. We currently have a Presonus 32SC with stage box. Don’t really care for the sound.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Oct 22, 2024 19:10:16 GMT -6
With that budget Used Digico? Or Higher end Yamaha? Wasn’t that impressed with the Waves.
There is a used Innovason on EBay but no stage box and finding a Manual is all most impossible, but the routing is impressive.
A&H not bad, just compared to its SSL, Digico, CADAC siblings they are toys.
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Post by guitfiddler on Oct 22, 2024 19:13:40 GMT -6
We were looking at older Midas analog boards, but we play in different venues and we shoot the rooms before we play, and servicing those older boards isn’t going to work. I’m not sure which models you are referring to?
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Oct 22, 2024 19:23:11 GMT -6
If I had the cash Digico SD11 or 9, but you have to add in stage box. The little CADAC CDC 9 is not rider friendly but CADAC is the standard for Broadway the manual is on line you will be impressed. The Yamaha’s I can’t keep them straight anymore.
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Post by bentley on Oct 22, 2024 19:30:04 GMT -6
I’ve been doing a lot of live stuff and not finding myself spending a lot of time in the studio lately. My band wants to start recording our practices. I’m looking at digital consoles. Looking at A&H SQ-5. Does anyone use one? Or is there anything comparable in that range. I was also looking at the Waves LV-1. I’m in the under $10,000 budget. Seems all these consoles have their own preamps and no separate line in. You still hit the preamp section with outboard preamps. I’m not huge on pages and pages of screens to get somewhere when setting up and routing. I am using outboard units for my FX, and outboard 2-mix processing to the mains. Actually just saw the new Waves LV-1 Classic in person today. Very intuitive although it's the same as most digital mixers in that you have to bounce to a few screen to get to routing, etc, Seriously considering one for my live rig. Have also used the SQ-5 a time or two and build quality and ease of use are top notch. It's leaps and bounds above the X32/M32 platform. Alternatively you can look at an A&H Avantis Solo. Have heard from a dealer that they're supposed to go on sale next month. LV-1 has the ability to do hardware inserts pretty easily from what I understand. Preamps were described to me as clean unless you choose the character onboard option that was described as similar to the NLS plug ins. Overall it seemed pretty snappy and responsive. Can route to groups and send groups to busses if that's your thing. Latency compensated busses for parallel processing. I will say navigating on a large screen like the LV-1 or Avantis is so much better than on the SQ-5. |
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Post by EmRR on Oct 22, 2024 19:52:05 GMT -6
I’ve been driving an SQ-7 on a live music variety show broadcast for 3 years. It’s a dream for its price point. No real complaints. Sounds great. Handles parallel processing properly, the Yamaha don't. The menus aren't too crazy, I think I prefer them to the Yamaha approach, the only drag is the actions of the naming tool. I’m dealing with a house band and 3 guests every show, guests may be full bands. Sometimes i have a grand piano, a B3/Leslie, 2 drum kits, 4-5 acoustic guitars or banjos, 2 acoustic basses, and 7-10 singers, along with fiddle, several electric guitars, steel, and more. The FOH for the show is a Yamaha QL-5; I’d much rather have the SQ for my needs. Outputs 96k if you want. Have used it on a few other tracking remotes, has never come up short. You won’t need external “fancy” preamps, says the guy with the fanciest most esoteric preamps back at the studio. The concept of separate line in versus preamp in is mostly false in a lot of modern gear, it’s all the same circuit and it takes line level fine.
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Post by christopher on Oct 22, 2024 20:16:58 GMT -6
The reaper forum has a lot of users who use Reaper live, though I don’t know how. I’m assuming with a touchscreen? I’ll probably try Reaper as some point, some decent converters, build the mix ITB with DAW busses routed to a small $500 analog board just for faders and mutes, then to PA.
The digital boards never sound great to me, at $6000 they have to bake-in retail mark-up, a small PC, a programmer’s unique DAW, and all the analog i/o, including preamps and converters. Pretty much none of the parts have the budget to be amazing. They are awesome tools for quick setup and saving scenes though, and being able to feel like a DAW. A DAW would be better though, and probably why Avid live is a pretty popular choice.
To me they all get the job done and require some mix work to get to quality of an old analog live board. Where they destroy analog is the endless EQ/compression, presets, multi mixes etc. Midas sound ok. Soundcraft too. Presonus works just as good as the expensive stuff, (until it breaks) it just sounds a little crappier in the top end and requires extra EQ to de-ess the nastiness. Not that the expensive stuff will approach good converters, it won’t
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Post by RealNoob on Oct 22, 2024 20:35:29 GMT -6
I have mixed on the SQ7 and Avantis. I mix regularly on an M32.
Right now, in that price range, I'd be deciding between the SQ5/7 and the new Wing. Both are solid and better than the Presonus (had 3) and Behringer. The Avantis smokes them all but that's another class.
You may even look at the Wing Rack model - mix on ipad.
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Post by EmRR on Oct 23, 2024 9:32:31 GMT -6
Honestly though, if you're sticking with analog processing you should just get an analog console. Digital console hybrid seems like the worst of all worlds to me; ignoring all that the dig console can do for you while making it a pain in the ass to access the outboard you want.
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Post by svart on Oct 23, 2024 9:35:23 GMT -6
For the 4-8K one of those digital consoles cost you could easily build a setup with an interface and 500 racks with better preamps. Just seems a lot more practical this way.
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Post by copperx on Oct 23, 2024 10:21:34 GMT -6
A few days ago there was a SSL Matrix on GC Used section for about $5k. I think that would have suited you well. It's an inline console, no preamps. However, it doesn't have EQs. 16 ins and 4 stereo aux returns, two mix buses. Up to 40 channels at mixdown. Nice routing. 100% analog path. It even has analog automation if you connect it to a computer.
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Post by antipodesjosh on Oct 23, 2024 10:59:56 GMT -6
Allen and Heath make great stuff. I’ve used all kinds of house consoles at venues (often presonus, Yamaha or behringer), vastly prefer the workflow on the A&H desks.
I regularly do sound at a venue with an old A&H GLD and can get a slamming mix out of that thing.
I don’t think you could go wrong with any of their products, just pick the one that has the I/O and control surfaces you need.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Oct 23, 2024 12:50:36 GMT -6
I looked at these options and ended up with an Allen & Heath GS3000 and a pair of MOTU AO and AI instead. So many routing options and sounds better than the all in one stuff. Actually before I got the Motu units I used it with a JoeCo Blackbox for hard disk recording. 24 I/O. I never sold the Blackbox because I intended to use it for field recording on my mobile PA, but turns out I'm not doing that as much as I thought I would. If you wanted to get an analog board it's a great option to pair those up. I'll give you a pretty good deal on it, it's just gathering dust I haven't even turned it on in six months. Here's the one I have joeco.co.uk/bbr1b-joeco-multi-track-audio-recorder/ |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Oct 24, 2024 12:26:31 GMT -6
I looked at these options and ended up with an Allen & Heath GS3000 and a pair of MOTU AO and AI instead. So many routing options and sounds better than the all in one stuff. Actually before I got the Motu units I used it with a JoeCo Blackbox for hard disk recording. 24 I/O. I never sold the Blackbox because I intended to use it for field recording on my mobile PA, but turns out I'm not doing that as much as I thought I would. If you wanted to get an analog board it's a great option to pair those up. I'll give you a pretty good deal on it, it's just gathering dust I haven't even turned it on in six months. Here's the one I have joeco.co.uk/bbr1b-joeco-multi-track-audio-recorder/Doubling down here. Three of these on Reverb for $1500 each roughly. Mine also has the bluetooth add-on to connect to an iPad for virtual mixing (works great)... I'd give you an RGO member price of like $1300 if you're interested. It's a nice piece, I'm just not using it. |
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Post by veggieryan on Oct 24, 2024 12:51:00 GMT -6
I would also add Metric Halo ULN and LIO -8 mkIV interfaces as they sound much better than these digital consoles and they have one of the best DSP mixers ever made built in.
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Post by sirthought on Oct 24, 2024 13:16:54 GMT -6
Yeah, I'm sure you'd be happy with a lot of these suggestions, but I'll add that the Metric Halo stuff is incredible for doing live and broadcast mixes while recording at the same time. The DSP mixers can do multiple setups at the same time (i.e. FOH, monitor, tracking). And you can have flexibility of placing the ULN-8 around a stage setup as needed (if you like) and just connect them all with a networking cable into their MHLink.
I worked at a Pro A/V install company for years and we'd sell the crap out of digital Yamaha, A&H, and Presonus, so I know that stuff can deliver if you know what you're doing. We're really rich for options. But if you normally want a studio rig and occasionally want to track rehearsals and live shows, I think Metric Halo is a nice investment. Plus, as technology evolves, you don't have to completely throw out these things, as they offer upgrading with swap out components.
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Post by guitfiddler on Oct 27, 2024 6:48:50 GMT -6
Thanks guys, wow, a lot to think about. Again, I wish I could get just two AES/EBU in and outs. Then I could run my outboard digitally. I looked at the Advantis and it looks really nice. I like it much better than most of the boards, but it is a little out of budget and having to add a stage box is very pricey and puts me at over budget. The SQ5/7 are now what I’m looking at. I guess I’ll have to use my outboard with analog in and out. I can’t believe A&H doesn’t make a digital I/O card for these boards giving us at least 4-8 digital AES/EBU. We are currently using a Presonus 32SC with a stage box with plenty of I/O, just not real happy with the sound quality of the P32SC. The recordings sound good enough I guess.
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