[Ardour-Users] Ardour 2.8.5 released

[Thomas Vecchione]

John-

  There is a night and day difference between mixing on a live digital
console(LS9, M7CL, PM5D, iLive, etc.), vs mixing on one designed for
recording(Like the O2R or O1V).  The interfaces tend to be completely
different, and the live versions are much more flexible for 'live' usage.

  To those worried about stability, I have never ONCE had a digital console
lock up on me.  I have heard of it in my entire life maybe once or twice,
dealing with scene recall(Something not even possible to the same extent on
analog) in a theater setting which is the most murderous on such
functionality.  Of course I am not thinking about Behringer here, but even
those I haven't hear of lockups, just complete dead which would be expected
from them.

  Also, for the type of consoles I was discussing the surface is literally
just a control surface to a DSP box on stage, so if the surface goes
down(Beer on the surface, heard of this more often than a digital locking
up), the DSP box still stays up and continues to process audio.  In some
cases like the iLive this means you an connect with a laptop and struggle
through the rest of the show instead of being SOL.  Or if you happen to have
a redundant surface(Not unheard of even in analog) you can swap a single or
two connections(If you even need to do that) and be back up and running in
seconds rather than minutes.

  The biggest differentiators besides features like DCAs etc. on digital
consoles right now are their interfaces.  The PM5D from Yamaha is a bi of a
standard for large touring acts, at least half the shows I help the local
load in or out on run one, many touring houses have one for this reason so
that anyone can walk in with a show written for it and pop it in easily.
That being said it isn't as bad as things are with PT, and most acts tour
with their own board instead, so you will find many others still, and yes
even some analog though not as many analog anymore, digital is much more
prevalent these days.

  I am literally about to pull the trigger on a small $35k USD system here
for a second campus at my work, and have spec'd out an iLive console for it,
for many reasons.  Stability is not one thing I am worried about(Even after
talking with nettings about a demo he saw;).  Like anything I got a demo in,
and got my hands on it.  With most things I am going to be adjusting during
a show, I am one or two button presses away from it at most, usually just
one.  And I get the advantage of being able to program the outs and lock
them down to have volunteers mix on it, don't have to spec racks of
processing, etc.  Very nice and much to my liking.  The other console I was
looking at for this system was an LS9, but someone gave me a good deal on a
demo unit of the iLive and that is much better laid out in my experience so
I am trying to stretch the budget to cover it.  I will find out in a couple
of days whether I got the money or not.

      Seablade

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:56 AM, John Rigg <au at jrigg.co.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 10:13:56PM -0500, Al Thompson wrote:
> > John Rigg wrote:
> > > I think you'd have a hard time convincing most live sound engineers
> that
> > > a digital system running on commodity computer gear was reliable enough
> > > for mixing live gigs. In a live situation there's no room at all for
> > > crashes or other problems.
> > >
> >
> > I'd never use a digital console live, period.  If anything else crashes,
> > you can get around it, but if a mixing console crashes, the show stops.
> >
> > Add to that my serious preference for a "real" mixer, with faders,
> > dedicated knobs, etc, and the digital mixers have nothing to interest me.
>
> Analogue is still my preference. Last summer I used a digital mixer (an
> M7CL)
> on FOH for the first time since a bad experience with an 02R about ten
> years ago. After avoiding them for so long I was actually pleasantly
> surprised and found it to be quite useable (but still not as easy to use as
> a decent analogue mixer).
>
> It's hard to overstate the case for absolute reliability. Standing at a
> dead mixing desk in the middle of several thousand boozed-up metal fans is
> not my idea of fun.
>
> John
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