daniel pocock
From Bridge Community Church Bristol
Our church needs a larger sound desk as the band is getting bigger and we have run out of xlr inputs on our current desk.
We are looking at getting either a 16 channel desk, and then at a later stage a small desk for when we mic up the drums, or getting a 24 channel desk now ready for when we mic up the drums.
So thats one choice to make, the other is regarding features.
We currently have built in FX on the desk which we use weekly, so that is a strong contender.
But the problem comes as the worship leader (who sometimes does PA) and myself (PA team leader) are after features that rarely appear in a desk together, so we want different desks.
One of us wants a compressor and the other wants a 4 band eq with 2 parametric mids (sweepable), out of your experiences which have you found to be the better/ more useful feature on a desk/PA setup. Would an external gate/compressor connected via inserts be better as it has more features and control. In the same way would a external EQ/GEQ be better this would be for the whole sound and not for independent channels.
Your thoughts and experiences would be much obliged.
+1 for EQ
On analogue desks you rarely find a compressor, they are more common on the digital boards. I would say that a 4-band EQ with sweepable mids is probably a good starting point, especially with boards of bigger frame sizes. If you go digital it is more common to find outboard on each channel.
Also if you are buying a desk it is better to future-proof and go bigger than having to submix the drums. It can become confusing/cumbersome if you have 2 mixing desks and is much easier to have the main controls close to your fingertips. You can then purchase as much outboard as you like!
Isn't there a way of doing both?
It totlly depends on your budget, but you could look at somethig like the presonus studiolive 24:4:2.. Its a 24 channel console which has built in compressors and gates on every channel, and 2 fx engines. WIth the 24 channel console you get your 4 point parametric eq and high pass filter..
This consoles costs about £2500..
Only a thought.
If you want anymore help, give me a shout
M
Thanks for your input, I had looked at the presonus desk but price is a little out of our range, but it does look so good. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to use as all our PA team have only ever used analogue desks.
After looking around for desks the best choices for a mixture of the features we're after seem to be the following:
allen & heath GL2400 for the 24 channel and EQ,
allen and heath mw3 16.2 for the EQ and FX
mackie 2404vlz3 for the 24 channels, compressor, and FX.
I'm up for any other suggestions or your views on these desks.
The A&H's are really nice sounding desks. We've got the 16 channel MixWiz3.
Positives...
- 4 band EQ with 2 sweepable midbands
- The signature sound is a lot nicer sounding than other major brands in that price bracket. Compared it to a Soundcraft LX7 the other day, and just a lot happier with the A&H. Give the Mackie a miss.
- You can rackmount it, so it's v.easy to transport. We've got ours in a box with some compressors and other things.
- Great routing options
The MixWiz3 16 channel is a staple of gigging bands, and you won't go wrong with it. The GL would be similar quality, but a much bigger beast. It depends therefore if you're going to need to move it around at all. The WZ3 will be easily portable.
Negatives...
- The on-board effects aren't great, but if you're mainly after a reverb or delay, it'll do the job fine.
- The desk front is a bit crowded, although you get used to it.
You sure you need 24 channels? A 16 channel desk will be fine for most bands. Here's how we've got ours set up...
1. Kick
2. Tom
3. Tom
4. Tom
5. Snare
6. Hi-hat
7. Overhead
(At a push, you can quite happily use 3 channels for the kit... 1, 5 and 7).
8. Bass
7. Keyboard
8. Electric guitar
9. Acoustic guitar
10. Lead vox
11. Backing vox
12. Preacher
13. Ambient mic
You've then got three spare channels for other instruments or vocals. I guess if you've having brass sections or things that you want to mic up in addition to the above, it's possible, but just to make sure you're getting the right tool. Another alternative would be to sub-mix a group of the inputs on a smaller desk, and send it to just one channel. Eg. You could get an 8 channel desk to mix the drumkit on and send it to one channel on a 16 channel desk.
For compressors etc, it's pretty easy to get something like a separate rack unit like an Alesis or a DBX compressor which will be cheap and workmanlike. If you've got some problem channels, you can insert it. Or just on the whole mix if you prefer...
But yeah, the A&H's are a really good choice. The MixWiz desks or the GL are both pretty common in churches.
The problem is the Pastor said that this needs to be the last desk upgrade we buy so I'm trying to cover all bases with the number of inputs, we don't have drums miced yet, just the kick.
This is the normal number of inputs we will need, but sometimes for bigger events we will have more vocals, another guitar, or/and congas:
1 lead vocal
2 backing vocal
3 backing vocal
4 accoustic guitar
5 electric guitar
6 keys left
7 keys right
8 bass
9 kick
10 tie mic
11 hand held
12 laptop left
13 laptop right
I know we can put the keys in mono, and the laptop/cd can run in through an aux return but its nice to EQ it.
So as you can see the there's not much room left for drums.
Why wouldn't you get the Mackie? My parents church have had one (cfx20) for nearly 10 years with no problems.
But having said that we got Mackie speakers srm450v2 and srm1801 subs about a year old, and one of the subs developed a buzz/crackle 3 months ago, which is now repaired.
Does Mackies reputation out shine the products?
I'd always get the most channels you can sensibly afford (within reason) - 24 does sound like a sensible option here, 16 is cutting it a bit fine in terms of room for expansion. Our church is looking at going through a similar phase at the moment (though we're probably going digital) and we're looking at 32 channels to give us more room for expansion as the band gets bigger, as we potentially have more radio mics, more PC inputs - that sort of thing. I've got through 8+ channels just miking drums before, admittedly I could cut it back but it seems a shame if the resources are there.
Having said that, I'd give going digital a serious consideration even if you have to stretch your budget - yes it'll mean retraining and that's an obvious downside, but you'll most likely get effects, compressors, gates, de-esser's and fully parametric EQ on each channel.
In terms of actual desks on the "normal" analogue route, the GL2400 is a nice desk, and good on-board EQ is way (really, way way) more important than compressors. If you want compressors after you've got a good desk you can potentially get outboard relatively cheaply and use them as inserts, but I doubt you'd need one for every channel. If you find yourself heavily compressing everything there's probably something else wrong - but that's a whole new topic ;)
A lot of great responses are on here all ready. If I had the choice of any of the desks you have listed then i would say the GL2400. Here is another desk Mackie Onyx 24.4 - not sure what its like but the specs are quite impressive. I would say that unless you have around £8000 - £10000 plus then stick to analogue consoles. I have never been that impressed with the ease of use of LS9's. What ever desk you buy i would say invest in a good flightcase. There has not been much mentioned on compressors I would say dont over compress. To many compressors can make things messy. If you have drums miced its always worth getting a 4 way gate etc. I can tell you of a church in bristol, which used to have quite a few compressors and gates racked under the sound desk, all i will say in not one was wired in and being used.
Being in Bristol there are MANY hire companies with the desks you like, it might be worth calling around and getting a cheap hire for a weekend, .
I hope that helps
A lot of great responses are on here all ready. If I had the choice of any of the desks you have listed then i would say the GL2400. Here is another desk Mackie Onyx 24.4 - not sure what its like but the specs are quite impressive. I would say that unless you have around £8000 - £10000 plus then stick to analogue consoles. I have never been that impressed with the ease of use of LS9's. What ever desk you buy i would say invest in a good flightcase. There has not been much mentioned on compressors I would say dont over compress. To many compressors can make things messy. If you have drums miced its always worth getting a 4 way gate etc. I can tell you of a church in bristol, which used to have quite a few compressors and gates racked under the sound desk, all i will say in not one was wired in and being used.
Being in Bristol there are MANY hire companies with the desks you like, it might be worth calling around and getting a cheap hire for a weekend, .
I hope that helps
Agree with Michael. We have returns on stereo inputs, feeds from PC/Video, 3 channels of radio.
Re desk upgrade and your quote "the Pastor said that this needs to be the last desk upgrade we buy", it is unlikely that will be the case since desks have a shelf-life and start to go wrong after 8-10 years - especially if used a lot and the repair man spills coffee on it (another story). I would aim for 24-32 channels, especially, as Michael pointed out, you can easily have 8 channels for drums. I don't know your situation - however with that setup and monitoring, it is likely that volume management will become important (drum screens, IEM) and microphones become even more valuable.
Re LS9. The LS9 is a very powerful desk, but you have to know your way around it! The iPad app makes it friendly and editor gives more control. It would be nice to have a bigger screen though.
You may also want to give SFL a call in Reading. They have much experience of this sort of thing.
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You should always get a desk with individual channel band EQ. That is so much more important than a compressor. Make sure you get some decent sweep controls as well (2 is better than 1!).
I'd buy an external compressor if that's something you really feel you need, but then again I'd look to an external graphic EQ on the main channels as a necessity.
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