Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

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Brandon Blakeney

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Jan 14, 2011
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Laurel, MS
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Some of you are probably irritated by now with my posts about various consoles and snakes LOL. I looked into some CBI and Ramtech snakes but it looks like I will be in up to 10K by the time I buy splits, disconnects, etc.... However, an iLive system seems to be a viable alternative with up to a 64 channel digital snake.

It was my understanding that you could have one IDR48 or 64 and connect two surfaces to it one for FOH and one for Monitors, but someone else told me that you do indeed have to have separate mixracks (IDR's) for each console and that they are linked??

I'm sure that the M7CL is more rider friendly, but is significantly more expensive with a digital snake. Are there any major objections here to an iLive system??
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

I don't have a personal problem with it. A BE talked about ilive at great length with me, he really liked it. He summed it up by saying "the only thing wrong with that console is that it says 'Allen & Heath' on it."

For a 500 seat club that may not be a big deal, but for a regional provider it's the kiss of lost profits. Rightly or wrongly, A&H remains unforgiven for making a crappy console 20 years ago and the stink clings to the badge, not the model. That's too bad as A&H has built some pretty decent mixers since then.

Silas was a big iLive user and is still a dealer, I think. You might PM him if he doesn't respond to your post.

Have fun, good luck.

Tim Mc
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

I think the iLive is a turd personally. It's not a rider friendly console by any means, and if you plan to try and meet riders with it, just forget about it. I'd rather have an M7/SC48 with a copper snake.



Evan
 
I have always liked the iLive. Two brains can share the same snake. Great bang for the buck, no experience with the T.

As Evan says, in the world of flavor of the month digital consoles it never caught on, but give me one instead of an LS9 or M7CL any day. Possibly in place of an Avid Profile. Once we're into real consoles though the choice becomes more difficult.
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

Yea, there is a lot more animosity towards A&H by higher end users than I realized. When I was starting out I used to see GL's and ML's everywhere and assumed it was industry standard, but I guess not. Its a shame that this industry is so "Brand" oriented sometimes. I understand why they do it, so that people won't put out cheap crap and expect to get hired for big shows, but some of it is a bit unfair. Such an example is putting No Allen & Heath on a rider for a band playing clubs.

I guess my best option for digital that is rider friendly would be to find a cheap M7CL on ebay or soundbroker and still drag a huge copper snake out to FOH. Thats a shame in my opinion...I'm not blaming anyone here....its just how it is.
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

I could be wrong but I thought that the consoles are control surfaces with limited audio in's and outs; and no processing in them. Ie, console drops dead you lose any io going in and out of the surface but all else carries on.

The brains are the 19" racks. And whilst you can have 2 surfaces controlling the one rack, it's still only the one rack so unless you're doing something like 64ch processing but only plugging 32 in and doing a digital split; and FOH/MON not touching each other's channels.. you end up having two consoles able to do the same thing.

Andrew
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

M7 over ILive Evan? Have U mixed on one? Cant agree with you there. Sonically I think its closer to the SC/Profile but without all the plug in toys. I was pleasantly surprised that the ILive sounded so good, and if not for the "rider" thing I would probably own one. (hell, I may still someday) I just cant see the ILive as a "show stopper" in terms of BE usage (maybe thats just the level i'm at?)
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

Bill Forbes said:
M7 over ILive Evan? Have U mixed on one? Cant agree with you there. Sonically I think its closer to the SC/Profile but without all the plug in toys. I was pleasantly surprised that the ILive sounded so good, and if not for the "rider" thing I would probably own one. (hell, I may still someday) I just cant see the ILive as a "show stopper" in terms of BE usage (maybe thats just the level i'm at?)
Click to expand...

I've used both M7 and iLive, would take iLive any day. I'm also wondering why the animosity. For those that have actually used it a few times and dislike it - why specifically? Other than rider friendly, what is actually wrong with it? All I have seen are how the T series aren't very physically robust, and the screen and even LED's wash out in sunlight.

We're doing installs with an iDR-64, multiple iDR-16's, and various surfaces/iPads/software for control, all running on Dante. One client wanted Midas or Digico, until they used iLive a few times. Now they have system above, and love it. If they were meeting riders, it would have been Midas.

In our install world, iLive is awesome, and we'll be playing with a Pro 2 soon. We see lots of Yamaha, usually M7 and LS9, being sold for the above. (If anyone wants an LS9, PM me)

Caleb
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

Evan Kirkendall said:
I think the iLive is a turd personally. It's not a rider friendly console by any means, and if you plan to try and meet riders with it, just forget about it. I'd rather have an M7/SC48 with a copper snake.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with Evan on this one. My PRIMARY criteria for a console is, IT HAS TO WORK. Of my 3 experiences with the I-Live, only once did I get to mix on one as the other two times it would not get up and running. The experience wasn't bad, I never felt like i was fighting the console as my past experience from some of their desks.
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

okay, answer to the first questions. no you can't currently run one Mixrack with two Control Surfaces. what you CAN do is run one Mixrack with a control surface and a computer or iPad. that being said, additional mix racks with limited or no analog I/O are very inexpensive and doing a digital split between them is also very easy. you can even 'port' inputs and outputs across the digital bus so that you can have one Mixrack with a large amount of analog I/O and then use those in and outs to go to whatever ins and outs of two Mixracks you'd like. so you could use 8 out as the outputs as FOH outs from one Mixrack, and the remaining 24 outs from that same Mixrack as monitor outs from your second Mixrack. very flexible, and powerful system, especially for the money.

i think if you talk about actual capability for the money, the iLive rig can't be beat, and this is coming from a big time Yamaha and M7 fanboy. but as soon as you add in rider acceptability, things change dramatically. at this price point, the M7 is king of RA. frankly Yamaha has ALWAYS been king of RA, at least in this country. i worked at a regional provider for many years and our PM's were always accepted. they were rarely the first choice, but they were always accepted. A&H has been fighting the uphill battle of reputation and with the iLive they are making surprising progress [they won me over, which is saying a lot]. but they've got a VERY long way to go before they'll be an 'always accepted' brand of console.

so at the end of the day it depends on your application. i work full-time at a church now and i'm almost certainly going to be installing an iLive when we go to digital next year. fixed install, no rider acceptability necessary. if i was installing in a club or buying something for a local provider where RA mattered, i'd still go Yamaha. and if i was putting in what i want to mix on, it'd be a Paragon II.... :)
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

Rick Earl said:
I have to agree with Evan on this one. My PRIMARY criteria for a console is, IT HAS TO WORK. Of my 3 experiences with the I-Live, only once did I get to mix on one as the other two times it would not get up and running. The experience wasn't bad, I never felt like i was fighting the console as my past experience from some of their desks.
Click to expand...

this is interesting. i hadn't heard many tales of failure from iLives, and that's frankly what i'm most concerned about with A&H as well. one of, if not THE reason, i've been such a Yammie guy for so long is that they ALWAYS work. at the end of the day, that's what really matters...

can you elaborate on your bad experiences?
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

Brandon Blakeney said:
Some of you are probably irritated by now with my posts about various consoles and snakes LOL. I looked into some CBI and Ramtech snakes but it looks like I will be in up to 10K by the time I buy splits, disconnects, etc.... However, an iLive system seems to be a viable alternative with up to a 64 channel digital snake.

It was my understanding that you could have one IDR48 or 64 and connect two surfaces to it one for FOH and one for Monitors, but someone else told me that you do indeed have to have separate mixracks (IDR's) for each console and that they are linked??

I'm sure that the M7CL is more rider friendly, but is significantly more expensive with a digital snake. Are there any major objections here to an iLive system??
Click to expand...

I think there is a lot of good to be said about the Ilive series. The one bad thing that stands out for me by just looking at the product is that the silkscreening is very small and hard to read when there is bright light shining on the console. Just looked at one today sitting next to an Avid product. The labelling was night and day in difference...
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

It basically comes down to either spending 5-10K on a nice ramtech snake with disconnects for my current ML3000/Series TWO consoles or putting that money towards digital consoles and hopefully a Cat 5 snake. But from what I'm gathering here, I might not be anymore rider friendly with iLive than with my current setup. As I stated before we currently have an EWI 32 ch. splitter and its developing some flakiness after being run over enough times by idiots.
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

The thing is there will always be a lag between a piece of equipment appearing on the market and it becoming acceptable on riders. If acceptability is the most important factor then you probably are not going to be a first adopter of anything.Personally I would rather see the known tried and true that has had immaculate upkeep over the new flavor de jour. My willingness to try something new tends to go up with the previous track record of the company offering the new equipment.
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

Brandon Blakeney said:
It basically comes down to either spending 5-10K on a nice ramtech snake with disconnects for my current ML3000/Series TWO consoles or putting that money towards digital consoles and hopefully a Cat 5 snake. But from what I'm gathering here, I might not be anymore rider friendly with iLive than with my current setup. As I stated before we currently have an EWI 32 ch. splitter and its developing some flakiness after being run over enough times by idiots.
Click to expand...

So what's the plan to keep the idiots from running over your expensive new Ramtech???
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

In all honesty, I'd be worried more about the total sound company package then just the FOH console. If you've got a Midas desk out front, but Mackie boxes, what's the point? Same with vice versa. If you're wanting to meet riders, you have to make sure your whole system is going to meet the rider, not just one component.

Regarding my experiences with the iLive, here are my complaints:

The whole console feels like a dashboard to a plane. I'm just not a fan of mixing on it. Same goes for the Soundcraft digital desks. They both sound "fine," but they're not "fun" to mix on or convenient IMO. They just feel like MI boards, while the M7, SC48, ect all feel like pro boards.


Evan
 
Re: Is iLive the biggest/best digital for the money?

Evan Kirkendall said:
The whole console feels like a dashboard to a plane. I'm just not a fan of mixing on it. Same goes for the Soundcraft digital desks. They both sound "fine," but they're not "fun" to mix on or convenient IMO. They just feel like MI boards, while the M7, SC48, ect all feel like pro boards.

Evan
Click to expand...

i have to agree with you here. it's ironic, though, that Yamaha specifically did not badge the M7 with the venerable PM. it was totally marketed to the HOW crowd. i don't think they ever thought it would catch on in the pro community like it did. but it's a nice, well made, easy to use package. and it largely mimics the functions of a PM4K with a bunch of outboard which managed to be enough for just about everybody in the 90's....
 
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