Re: Finally pulled the trigger on a StudioLive 24.4.2
I am hugely not a fan of the way the output meters are set up on the Presonus boards. The bottom light on the meter is -80db, and the segments around 0 are 5dB jumps. Unless you are working with extraordinarily dynamic music, you are essentially working with a 3 segment display on the output, which represents 15db of range. Most boards I've used have 3db segments around 0 and don't start metering until -40 or so.
Interestingly enough, on each channel, around 0 they use a 2db separation, but put the 0 point midway up on the meter. and it only goes down to -15db. Here, they could have calibrated the 0 point higher on the meter and given me more room below so I can see what's going on.
It is nice that it reads up to +15 on the channels. If you trim out the board so that zero is zero, like you would on a normal board, that gives you 15dB of headroom to work with. With the presonus board, clip means clip, and on a digital board, clipping is far nastier than on an analogue board. With a digital board as soon as you clip, you will hear it. On an analogue board, generally, it just starts sounding worse when you hit that point. ie, on an analog board, the occasional clip light is nothing to worry about. On a digital board, you never want to see it. The Yamaha's may be calibrated that the clip light comes on before true clip, but my experience says that the Presonus is not.
Generally speaking, when looking at each channel, you want to keep the meters in the bottom 2/3s of the world. Above that and you're living on the edge.
The Presonus is a great value of a board, and will make you good money. You just have to learn to live with some of the different things that they decided to do. The iPad app is AWESOME. However, make sure that your computer and the unit are on a good UPS. If your computer crashes, or the firewire gets disconnected, it can mute the whole board. Learned that one the hard way.
