Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

S

Simon Coffin

Sophomore
Mar 2, 2011
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18
State College, PA
www.medianengineering.com
Hi Folks,

Happy New Year to everyone.

As a New Years present of sorts, the local theater promoted me to Lead Audio Engineer with the first task of guiding the purchase of new digital consoles for FOH and Monitors. We are currently an all-analog house, so this means I can start fresh with no older equipment that must be integrated. While I have a reasonable amount of time in front of digital consoles, mostly Yamahas, I am hardly up to date and would like everyone's input.

Our budget is in the ~$30k neighborhood and needs to cover everything, consoles, stage boxes, Ethernet snakes, licensing etc.

From my perspective the most important consideration for a House console is ease of use for visiting BEs, rather then the in-the-weeds technical capability. Performers that use the consoles will all have fairly basic needs, otherwise they would carry their own. Given this, I'm especially interested in the workflow, how information is presented and the ease of use. Support for Ipads is also important and seems to vary across the products, some very well developed and others fairly basic.

Based on the type of shows we host, the following seems like reasonable starting requirements:
48 channels
64 stagebox inputs
16 mixes

The following consoles all seem to meet our requirements, but I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on suitability, reliability, vendor support, rider friendliness as well as the less tangible feel, sound and ease of use.

Yamaha CL3
Allen&Heath Dlive S5000
Midas Pro2
Digico S21?
Soundcraft Vi series

Thanks and Happy New Year
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Simon Coffin said:
Our budget is in the ~$30k neighborhood and needs to cover everything, consoles, stage boxes, Ethernet snakes, licensing etc.

Based on the type of shows we host, the following seems like reasonable starting requirements:
48 channels
64 stagebox inputs
16 mixes

The following consoles all seem to meet our requirements, but I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on suitability, reliability, vendor support, rider friendliness as well as the less tangible feel, sound and ease of use.

Yamaha CL3
Allen&Heath Dlive S5000
Midas Pro2
Digico S21?
Soundcraft Vi series

Thanks and Happy New Year
Click to expand...

It is going to be really difficult to have a complete solution by purchasing two of any of those consoles and still be under 30k. Thats before you add stageboxes, cabling, UPS, etc.

If you are looking for that level of console, then you will need to look into the used market or increase your budget accordingly.

Honestly you can't go wrong with the Yamaha stuff if your priority is ease of use of visiting BE's.

None of those consoles are slouches though, and its REALLY hard to go wrong with any on that list.
 
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Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Price wise you are more like 2x QL5 than CL3 on the Yamaha side. Note that the QL can and the CL must use the RIO boxes for inputs.

The Roland M5000 might also work for you.
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Simon Coffin said:
Hi Folks,

Happy New Year to everyone.

As a New Years present of sorts, the local theater promoted me to Lead Audio Engineer with the first task of guiding the purchase of new digital consoles for FOH and Monitors. We are currently an all-analog house, so this means I can start fresh with no older equipment that must be integrated. While I have a reasonable amount of time in front of digital consoles, mostly Yamahas, I am hardly up to date and would like everyone's input.

Our budget is in the ~$30k neighborhood and needs to cover everything, consoles, stage boxes, Ethernet snakes, licensing etc.

From my perspective the most important consideration for a House console is ease of use for visiting BEs, rather then the in-the-weeds technical capability. Performers that use the consoles will all have fairly basic needs, otherwise they would carry their own. Given this, I'm especially interested in the workflow, how information is presented and the ease of use. Support for Ipads is also important and seems to vary across the products, some very well developed and others fairly basic.

Based on the type of shows we host, the following seems like reasonable starting requirements:
48 channels
64 stagebox inputs
16 mixes

The following consoles all seem to meet our requirements, but I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on suitability, reliability, vendor support, rider friendliness as well as the less tangible feel, sound and ease of use.

Yamaha CL3
Allen&Heath Dlive S5000
Midas Pro2
Digico S21?
Soundcraft Vi series

Thanks and Happy New Year
Click to expand...

I'm familiar with all of those consoles, in that group nothing comes close to the new dLive.

Its a delight to use, great UI - easy and intuitive, huge DSP power and sounds great.

It will process 128 channels in and 64 out all with GEQs, 16 EFX, 0.58 ms latency, 96kHz and ... and ...

Check it out against a CL5, SD10, Pro6 .... :)~:-)~:smile::)~:-)~:smile::)~:-)~:smile: ... and dare I suggest, just for fun, compare it to a PM10, SD7, S6L & Midas ProX; its not as powerful, but not that far behind!

The only issue is that its new and as such has no rider acceptance ... yet!
 
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Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

What's the rest of the PA system?
How often are productions carrying their own consoles?
If you know, how does the venue charge for the use of their system? Is it included in the rental price? One lump sum for the whole system? A la carte?
Are you really doing productions in a 400 cap. theater that requires 64 inputs from stage?
Are you concerned about master/slave gain sharing or do you want an analog split?
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Jason Raboin said:
Are you really doing productions in a 400 cap. theater that requires 64 inputs from stage?
Click to expand...

My theater, 425 seat Westhampton Beach PAC, is currently old-school analog and regularly near 56-hole capacity on split. We have incorporated easy accommodation of artist consoles @ FOH and MON.

A brief history of pro sound informs us all that channel counts will always go up! Wisely buy now for that future reality.

PS: S21 will be replacing MH3-48/BSS comps/Drawmer gates @ FOH very soon. (DiGiCo OS makes traditional channel count a bit weird. If/when you acquire sufficient input holes, the S21 supports 40 stereo channels/ or 80 total). Group One is local and we personally know DiGiCo support people for many years. A fine bunch.
 
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Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

If you are all analog and trying to keep headliners from sharing channels with support acts, the channel count can get really high pretty quickly. But with digital consoles, you don't have that issue, especially if you have a decent multipin subsnake system to keep stage inputs discrete.

The jumps from 32 to 48 to 64 are very expensive, especially if you don't want to gain share and need a transformer isolated split.
 
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Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Gents,

Thanks for the responses. To answer a few questions, we currently have a 48 channel copper split snake that is regularly maxed out when we have multi band events. Each band/performer rarely needs more than 24 channels, but total inputs for an evening are often higher. 64 inputs gives us some breathing room. My preference is to patch just the band's inputs to channels on the console and saved as a scene, rather then have everything patched all the time.

The analog snake will stay for those acts that carry their own consoles, but I would really like to move the house system to an ethernet connected digital snake.

The rest of the PA is Turbosound with BSS Soundweb processing and is in fairly good shape. Right now our analog consoles are the weak link. There is a fund raising event in early summer that is earmarked for audio and will probably go to refresh monitors.

Does anyone know if all of the consoles I listed earlier have security features that can lock out certain settings/features? The more I think about it, keeping visiting BEs out of certain areas on the console makes a lot of sense.

Out of curiosity, are there any Expos coming up, where I could do some hands on comparisons?

Best,
 
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Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Simon Coffin said:
Gents,

Does anyone know if all of the consoles I listed earlier have security features that can lock out certain settings/features? The more I think about it, keeping visiting BEs out of certain areas on the console makes a lot of sense.


Best,
Click to expand...

Simon,
Anything that is "locked out" should really be in the system processing domain. If any BE comes in with a show file for your desk, it will mostly likely wipe out all desks settings. I wouldn't worry about this....as this is normal. The system processing after your desk should be able to accommodate your mixing desk within 30 seconds of restoring initial settings. That means, if i come in and completely reset your desk (or load my show file), i should be able to do nothing more than soft patch my outputs to the XLR's you plugged into the desk, and have a fully functional system.
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Simon Coffin said:
Does anyone know if all of the consoles I listed earlier have security features that can lock out certain settings/features? The more I think about it, keeping visiting BEs out of certain areas on the console makes a lot of sense.
Click to expand...

I agree with David that output processing and related system alignment settings should be in a DSP downstream of the console (ideally in a secured location), but I'm guessing that those weren't the only settings you were thinking of. Things like input patch can (and probably should) be handled by the venue system tech, especially for multi-act events. Network configuration is the one item that can bite you, but again, having a venue system tech on hand should be able prevent a situation where a BE feels the need to dig around in configuration settings.

Basically, I'd treat the digital consoles the same way you need to treat your current analog consoles, at least from a BE's perspective.
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Simon Coffin said:
Gents,

Thanks for the responses. To answer a few questions, we currently have a 48 channel copper split snake that is regularly maxed out when we have multi band events. Each band/performer rarely needs more than 24 channels, but total inputs for an evening are often higher. 64 inputs gives us some breathing room. My preference is to patch just the band's inputs to channels on the console and saved as a scene, rather then have everything patched all the time.

The analog snake will stay for those acts that carry their own consoles, but I would really like to move the house system to an ethernet connected digital snake.

The rest of the PA is Turbosound with BSS Soundweb processing and is in fairly good shape. Right now our analog consoles are the weak link. There is a fund raising event in early summer that is earmarked for audio and will probably go to refresh monitors.

Does anyone know if all of the consoles I listed earlier have security features that can lock out certain settings/features? The more I think about it, keeping visiting BEs out of certain areas on the console makes a lot of sense.

Out of curiosity, are there any Expos coming up, where I could do some hands on comparisons?

Best,
Click to expand...

The dLive I suggested allows user profiles with passwords to be entered. It should do exactly what you want including the digital snake.

If you buy the 64 channel rack you also get 8 in and 8 out on the desk for a total of 72 in and 40 out plus 16 stereo EFX returns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbLB_Gb0Se8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mjzas7cQaM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQFv8eggyio
 
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Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Gents,

The DLive really does look like the new flagship of the big tour consoles, but unfortunately doesn't fit in our budget and is too new to be available used. If anyone knows of a pair of 5000s sitting around, let me know. The Midas Pro2 fits the budget and is rider friendly, but the UI seems obtuse to me. I haven't actually used one, but looking through the documentation I'm not getting an overall sense for how it works. Maybe in person it's different. Which is why I would really like to go to an Expo and see the systems side by side.

To answer some earlier questions, yes, our processing is all done in the BSS and is locked out to visiting BEs. In fact only one person has access to it, and that is only when we make changes. My thinking as to locking console features was that especially in a multi-band night, keeping BEs out of certain areas would be an advantage.

I need to take a closer look at the Yamaha and Digico products.

Cheers,
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

The Pro 2 was befuddling to me when I read about it. When I saw it demo'd, it made sense. If you go with splitter stage boxes (DL231 - the DL431 is discontinued), both consoles can have independent headamp control (if you find that feature worth the extra cost - as there's digital trim in the consoles, you may find that it isn't.)

The big Roland looks interesting, but I've read no user comments.

(Wish "my" theater had a budget like that.)
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Gents,

So thanks to John Moore, I'll be at NAMM to checkout the latest digital console offerings. Can't wait to see them in person.

Tim, we have been using hand me down analog consoles for the last 10 years and have only recently been able to even consider new purchases, so I feel your pain. The monitor console especially has developed a few gremlins that can make for a bad night. There is nothing like the rush of standing behind something that large and complicated, but I won't shed a tear when it rolls out the door.

While thinking about the digital snake options, I realized if we use Dante we can't repatch with a Scene recall on the console since the patching is done via a Dante Controller PC. Do any consoles support patching without a separate Dante Controller PC? Are there any other limitations, strengths or weaknesses of the various protocols? Independent gain control is probably a must for us as is redundant Cat6 cabling.

Looking at the Yamaha QL5, which I think we can afford, it looks much like a slightly updated LS9. Are there any new features that are worth considering?

Best,
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

Simon Coffin said:
Looking at the Yamaha QL5, which I think we can afford, it looks much like a slightly updated LS9. Are there any new features that are worth considering?
Click to expand...

16 channels of Dugan automixing built in. If you ever find yourself with a discussion board or other situation with multiple lav mics you'll love that feature.
 
Re: Digital Console purchase for a 400 capacity theater

The Yamaha CL & QL consoles will control & recall the Dante patch without the Audinate software or even a computer connected. Its a selection made on the Dante patch screen on the console display. Yamaha has a complete solution for 'sharing' head amp gain between two consoles. Look up Gain Compensation on any of their Dante related documentation.

Just as an aside, a great many intermittent issues with old analog consoles can be resolved by simply unmating and remating the ribbons cables between the channel strips. If you need to get a few more months of life out of an old console it's well worth a day of internal maintenance.


Simon Coffin said:
Gents,

While thinking about the digital snake options, I realized if we use Dante we can't repatch with a Scene recall on the console since the patching is done via a Dante Controller PC. Do any consoles support patching without a separate Dante Controller PC? Are there any other limitations, strengths or weaknesses of the various protocols? Independent gain control is probably a must for us as is redundant Cat6 cabling.


Best,
Click to expand...
 
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