DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

  • No one wants this console

    Votes: 6 13.3%

  • Engineers can be convinced to try it

    Votes: 8 17.8%

  • Engineers are indifferent

    Votes: 4 8.9%

  • Engineers like it

    Votes: 22 48.9%

  • Engineers require it/ first choie

    Votes: 5 11.1%
  • Total voters
    45
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

I'm not going to vote on the poll, but my experience is that any engineer that wants a Digico will usually bring one, when ever we have had to source a console it's been an SC48 or an M7.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

It's hard to just ask for digico in general, as there are lots of models / sizes. The SD8 would be my 1st choice for quite a lot of tasks.
And it seems to be different depending on the part of the world you are in... I've seen a lot of riders that mention Digico.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

Spenser Hamilton said:
I'm not going to vote on the poll, but my experience is that any engineer that wants a Digico will usually bring one, when ever we have had to source a console it's been an SC48 or an M7.
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My experience (in association is a local venue) has been the same, probably driven back the lack of them installed or easily available in venues.

I'm finding that as consoles have become smaller and/or lighter, and have nearly eliminated the need for outboard racks, engineers are either bringing the console they want or using whatever the venue has. Fly dates are the only kink in that plan, but I haven't run into a fly date engineer yet who couldn't pull off the show on the PM5D/M7CL combo the venue has in place.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

Silas Pradetto said:
Looking at big boy consoles again, as we have quite a few riders come through these days. I've never seen a rider ask for DiGiCo. It's always Yamaha M7/CL/5D or Avid.

I have an SD9 sitting here now, it's alright, a bit complicated if you ask me.
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I spent three days on an SD8 a while back, and I don't look forward to the next time. I still felt like it was fighting me after three days of festival. Too many knobs that can be different things depending on whatever else is going on, knobs that don't do anything when it's doing "this" rather than "that". It seems like in retrospect it may be "too" configurable? Just my impression, I would have been happier with an M7 and there were many moments during that week I would have preferred (GASP!) analog to that thing.

That said, it may be a perfect solution for you. It is an unfamiliar beast, and unless that changes I would be prepared to do a lot of babysitting.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

I had one of the best sounding shows I have ever mixed on a Digico SD10. Mixing is easy. Routing or doing anything beyond the norm seems difficult. Also, most engineers who want a Digico are carrying it. Same for Midas. My SC48 is cross rented fairly frequently to a company that has a 5D and an M7.

The other thing about the SD9 in particular is that it doesn't have a redundant snake situation, does it? For me that takes it out of the "big boy" category.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

Whats going to make you the most money on fulfilling riders/cross renting?

Probably the Yamaha M7/CL/5D or Avid.

Anything else is leaving money on the table.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

I'm going to go a little against the grain here. I see a lot of people talking about Digicos being hard to walk up to, but I really disagree. There are some more system level things that you need to know if you're teching it, but on any console the system tech needs to be able to grasp the scene management and system stuff at a much deeper level than the guy pushing faders.

I find all of them to be extremely easy to walk up and mix on. I run into SD 10, 8, 9, and 11 (their naming is the worst thing about them), each about once or twice a year and have ZERO problems getting basic routing and processing accomplished. I'm sorry, but if you can't get with select the channel, do the thing that needs doing work flow then you have problems. Sure, there are plenty of acts that need more sophistication than that to accomplish a lot of scene recalls or whatever. Digico can do all of that, but you may or may not have that file ready to go. Those guys can either carry a console or have the budget to get a specific model. From what I've seen as a freelancer, many of those "no exceptions" act won't even accommodate different consoles from a manufactures' line up, EG. Profile w/ stage rack only, no Mixrack, no SC48, so even getting an Avid may not keep you from cross renting for those guys. As a provider there will always be a shiny new thing that the next up and coming act has to have, no exceptions. Seems like an amusing hobby trying to chase that but not a good model for a business that's trying to make a profit.

I can't say if an SD9 is right for Silas or not. It seems like a great console with a lot of features in a convenient package. There are a lot of consoles that fit that description now. However, it's getting under my skin hearing people talk about how difficult they are to use because they're expecting it to be difficult to use based on the internet.

thomas d.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

Never been a huge fan of the Digico stuff. Sounds nice, but the user interface blows. It's the only console I don't have a show file for, because well, I come across one every 2 years. I feel that its the kind of console that if the engineer wants it, he's going to carry it. Never see them on festivals and such. Always a Yamaha desk, or Avid desk. Or, in the UK, a Soundcraft digital. If you want to be ahead of the game, I'd say get a Pro2. Those desks are going to take off very soon!



Evan
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

many of the richest bands in the land use digico mainly sd7 atm

i bet clair and 8th day have more digico then midas/soundcraft/alen heath digitals combined or at least what goes out more

bigest strike to digico is reliability (so buy/carry 2)maby link 2 sd11 at foh and a 3rd for mon

with the release of the cl3 and s3l my hopes r for a SSL foh/mon/daw midrange product with 26faders+ please soon

so im chearin for ssl to take over the market in 2-3 years !!!
 
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Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

If I recall correctly, the only time I've ever even seen one of those things in person was at an Air Force Band winter concert, but I can't be too sure; I didn't get a great look at it. Point is that they are rare and you are much better off with an SC48 instead.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

I used an SD9 back in feb - not a fan. I was very lost and I couldn't get a mix together which could be blamed on the band, or me, or the console. I blame the band or the console. Personally I couldn't get the touch screen to react like I thought it should... I kept pressing, and pressing, and nothing - then when I did get it to work it was the wrong button. Not a fun console for me. I've heard others mix on them in installs and they still didn't sound good . Thumbs down.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

Most of the international artist that came over here (Israel) in this past month brought a Digico console with them. Barbara Streisand, Alicia Keys, Pet Shop Boys, Yanni all had Digicos on FOH and monitors.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

In this small corner of the world Digico and Avid are the unknown desks. There are a few around, not many. Yamaha have a share of the market, mostly LS9/MC7L, recently some CLs, but the major seller is Soundcraft Vi-series with Midas Pro up and coming.

I have some limited experience on a SD8, I really liked it. I'd rather have that console than any current AVID desk and probably any Pro-series as well.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

Mark Lonow said:
many of the richest bands in the land use digico mainly sd7 atm

i bet clair and 8th day have more digico then midas/soundcraft/alen heath digitals combined or at least what goes out more

bigest strike to digico is reliability (so buy/carry 2)maby link 2 sd11 at foh and a 3rd for mon

with the release of the cl3 and s3l my hopes r for a SSL foh/mon/daw midrange product with 26faders+ please soon

so im chearin for ssl to take over the market in 2-3 years !!!
Click to expand...

I can't speak for Clair, but as a regular Eighth Day client I can attest that they own a lot of Digico and Midas consoles along with Avid and the rest. I don't think I've seen an Allen & Heath in their shop, but I'm not the final word on that.

As for your reliability strike, I think you may be mistaken. I have almost exclusively toured with them since 2007 (D1, D5, SD7, SD8, SD9, SD10) and I have never EVER had a Digico bail on me. Even a D1 or D5. By the time I got to use these consoles, any previous bugs leading to failure must have been dealt with. ALL digital consoles at some point will have some sort of reliability issue. I have personally worked on just about every popular touring desk out there and have experienced an issue on every single one of them at one point. It's just the nature of the beast.

But let's get back to Silas's issue at hand. In my opinion, any band asking for an SD8 is not going to accept an M7CL as an alternative. If I were asking for an SD9, I probably also would not take an M7CL as an alternative. As ubiquitous as an M7 might be, they sound awful when compared to the rest. Are you trying to meet riders or does your business model not need to worry about it?

An SD9 is priced similarly to a Midas Pro2. The SD9 will process more inputs and outputs than the Pro2. The Pro2 runs at 96k, while currently the SD9 runs at 48k (rumored 96k coming). The SD9 is infinitely more flexible than the Midas, and that flexibility is often what frightens people until they get used to it. The SD9 does not have a redundant snake option (currently. Apparently there's a fiber option that will bring redundancy to this desk). The Pro2 has snake redundancy. The Avid SD48 with the digital snake option also does not offer redundancy.

I feel bad that Shane had a bad experience on an SD9. They're great sounding consoles bred from the same stuff as the flagship SD7. The SD7 is an extremely popular console among our top tours. A couple bad sounding shows sounds like engineer error more than console error. I think you should contact your Digico, Midas, and Avid reps and get all those desks in your shop and try them all out personally before making a decision. In the same spirit of giving new products a good test drive before forming my own opinions, I'm out with a Pro2 right now, putting it through its paces.
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

My first ever experience with a digital console was a Digico D1 back in 2007. I walked up to it at a gig and was given about 15 mins of a lesson/tour of the console, including setup and stage rack patching, etc. I was up and running on it straight away and found it very easy to use, everything was right in sight and it sounded awesome!

Fast forward about 3 months and I jumped on my second digi - a Yamaha 02R (the original). Now admittedly this is more of a recording desk but many of the functions of the current Yamahas are handled in a similar way. It was painfully slow, I found it a lot harder to get used to and I had to put up with one channel on the screen at a time.

Later experiences with the PM5D, M7CL and LS9 were sadly very similar - I use all from time to time but I would never say they are better than a Digico in any way. This is not to rag on only Yamaha, I am quite happy to use them, I'm just not a fan of fixed architecture consoles. I have experience on the D1, D5, SD7 and SD8, and have never had a problem with any of them.

Once you get into the digico price bracket most other manufacturers also have very versatile, ergonomic consoles.

I guess it comes down to my first introduction to digital, but to me being able to soft patch and change the entire layout of the console is one of the main benefits of a large format digital console. But I can also see how people who don't need that flexibility would see it as an unnecessary complication.

FWIW, when I get a choice of console, Digico is the first on the list.


-Gareth
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

evan might not ever see digico but i see um all the time
think there the 2nd most popular desk at the top end touring pop bands
i saw 2 digicos this past week and one was being swaped out(hence the post)

my location to clair and 8th day i have sean manya suport trucks come and go
sometimes swaping out desks mostley digicos it seams to me(they r popular)

i sean it sevral times this past year or so where the digico desk was making the day hell for somebody
never saw a show stoper tho

i like to think all digital desks r getting more stable as time goes on(but theres always those bugy updates every so often from all manufactures it seams)

sd7 sd10 sd8 are more popular then xl8 pro9 pro6 pro3
pro 2 is more popular then a sd9 for what ever reson i dont see sd9
ymmv
DiGiCo SD9 Training
 
Re: DiGiCo Rider Acceptability

Adam Robinson said:
The Pro2 has snake redundancy. The Avid SD48 with the digital snake option also does not offer redundancy.
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Actually the SD48 does have cable redundancy there are 4 Ethernet cable ports at the console, 2 (A and B) for each stage box (2 stage boxes) and (A and B ports) at the stage boxes. But don’t crisscross them it won’t work that way.
 
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