Re: Presonus 32.4.2Al
We provided a Yammy M7 for a small festival who hired another firm that brought a SL24 for the local acts. The M7 was for the nationals that needed more inputs and more aux mixes than the SL provided.
The production co. had an issue at the stage end of the snake, so I offered to mix/babysit the support act that was about to perform. I guess my familiarity with other brands of digital mixers was a handicap for my use of the SL. I found it mostly non-intuitive from either an analog or digital platform perspective. As the band had begun playing when I started 'mixing', I didn't want to make too may wild guesses about navigating the console. The whole "you can walk up to it and mix" thing strikes me as a potential myth if you want to do more than simply push faders.... and Presonus isn't the only guilty party there.
My favorite brand for "plug it in and it works" digital mixing is Yamaha. Not intuitive if you want/need to change configuration settings, but if you hook up the outputs labeled Left & Right to a PA, plug a mic into input 1, turn up the trim until you see some blinking green or yellow lights, all you need to do is bring up the faders to hear the mic. This is true across almost all their mixers until you get to the top of the line.
With any digital mixer, the devil is in the configuration details... X32, LS9, StudioLive, Pro 1.... all present their respective manufacturer's take on signal architecture, nomenclature and UI design. Yamaha even manages to confuse things within their own brand.
