Allen & Heath GLD stage boxes question

S

Simon Coffin

Sophomore
Mar 2, 2011
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18
State College, PA
www.medianengineering.com
Greetings folks,

Somewhat related to an earlier thread I posted about new consoles for the State Theatre. The A&H GLD looks like a pretty capable iLive replacement except the stage boxes make no sense. The GLD is advertised as a 48 channel console, including internal FX returns and such, it's actually 56 inputs. So why is it not capable of using two of the AR2412s stage boxes for a nice even 48 inputs? Instead you have to use an AR2412 with an AR84 expansion plus an AB168 stage box. That just looks like a cobbled together solution. A&H also does not offer a dSnake option card despite the slot apparently being capable of the IO.

Not having any on-board IO, the GLD is depending on it's stage boxes which makes this odd ball solution look even more like an oversight.

Does anyone have any experience using Ethersound stage boxes like the Yamaha SB168-ES on the GLD or any other external IO?

Cheers,
 
Re: Allen & Heath GLD stage boxes question

You can have an AR2412 and AB168 on stage, such as for SL and SR locations. The AR84 from the second port is great for wireless rack.

The AR84 can be swapped for an AB168.

Seems to work great.
 
Re: Allen & Heath GLD stage boxes question

I've always preferred the stage boxes rack mounted and then use xlr drop boxes on stage to patch inputs. This setup works well if you are running monitors, or FOH with the inputs on stage. The GLD is obviously built with another style in mind. The AB168 is a pretty cool idea and could be very handy as a drum drop, but somehow having three different style of stage boxes looks haphazard to me. My need for neatness and order is rebelling.....

A company in Norway, maybe Denmark can't remember exactly, makes a case for a GLD-80 with 2 side by side 2u rack mounts under the console. They show them used for drawers, but could be used for an AR84. That would be a cool setup.

The GLD strikes me as such a great platform that could be so much better. Add another two or three dSnake ports, increase local IO to 8x8, add the hot swappable power supplies from the dLive series and develop an input gain sharing scheme and you would have a serious Midas Pro2 competitor.

Cheers,
 
Re: Allen & Heath GLD stage boxes question

I'm a big GLD fanboy, so take it all with a grain of salt. The stage box line up is a bit different than something like Yamaha Rios where you just put them on a network wherever you want. However, the trade off is that the A&H requires zero setup or network management.

I find that the I/O on the surface is enough for all of my local sources, even when I'm doing corporate with a lot of playback at FOH. If it's not enough then go ahead and add an AR box at FOH. After that you figure out what you need on stage. If you need 24, 32, or 40 then you can use the daisy chained boxes. If you need all 48 on stage then just loom two cat5 cables together and use the main and expansion ports. Most other platforms require two cat5 lines anyway.

I've never considered using any expansion cards for more stage box capacity. You'll lose pre-amp control and maybe at that point you just need a different solution. I've put a Dante card in one of my systems and find that it gives you a massive amount of options. If you have Ulx-D wireless or computer sources it frees up inputs. If you need more outputs there are a lot of Dante to line out options as well as Lab PLM or similar Dante enabled amps. That said, in most configurations I run out of output buses before I run out of physical outputs.

For the case, especially a GLD-80 is a very small console. I would keep the case as low profile as possible. Since there is very little connectivity on the back, I don't see a lot of need for a big doghouse. I definitely would not put an AR84 under the console. The cabling going to it would be very annoying and also one of the perks of a little i/o device like that is the flexibility of being able to put it where it's needed. I would be much more inclined to racking it with your wireless directly, or something along those lines.

For what it's worth,
thomas d.
 
Re: Allen & Heath GLD stage boxes question

I love the GLD's. I find their workflow extremely easy to use and very powerful. I find their sound to be excellent.

I've used them with/without Waves Soundgrid integration. They speak nicely with each other via Ace, Dante or Waves cards so that you can have front of house and monitor consoles.

And the price makes them competitive with the Midas M32, but the sound makes them competitive with some of the world's best systems.

Just my opinion.

Art
 
The GLD is certainly a powerful little set up and has served me well for several years, but it is really a simple system and works very well for it's intended purpose. If you want a richer feature set, then you need d-live. I have both and love them both for different reasons.
 
It has more to do with a limitation in the dSnake protocol which I believe is only using 100Mb/sec Ethernet. It can only handle I/O for 60 channels (40 down, 20 up), so you can get 40 channels on stage using a single cable run. If additional channels are needed, you would need a second run using the expander port at the console.

I have both the GLD 80 and the 112, and really like these consoles. They are very capable and extremely flexible. I do primarily festival type events, and they are great for that. Having the ability to drag and drop channels into any fader position on the fly is great when dealing with multiple bands.

The GLD is definitely worth a look.
 
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