Consoles:Analogue vs. Digital

[bobatasp]

Just wanted to pose the question to those of you with :larger" consoles (say, over the $15K mark): do you use an analogue or a digital console and why? I guess I'm really looking for anybody that has a good arguement for analogue OVER dgital.

[Gracetech]

The biggest argument is that if you bought a $30k analog console and a $8k digital console you would still have more of a console in the 8k digital then the 30k analog. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder but when you compare good digital consoles against good analog consoles you have to double the price or even quadruple the price to have a comparable analog console. This of course varies greatly by manufacture but for the most part holds true. Take for instance the Yamaha ls9. I would compare it to a Yamaha PM5k or even a Midas Legend 3k and it would still end up being the ls9 on top. The beauty of digital is that it doesn't stop with console functions. Past the console functions you have effects, dynamics, remote control, total recall, and silent interaction between all the components because it all happens in the digital realm. If you can get past having a set of knobs for every function on every channel you will soon grow to love digitals offerings. I replace 2 $12k consoles(AllenHeath ML3k) with Yamaha o1v96v2's and people in the audience kept coming up and saying "what did ya'll do to the sound, It's amazing". The o1v setups only cost $2400 dollars and did more than the ML3k's could ever hope to do with half of the noise floor and a all together better sound. I have since replace one of those o1v's with a LS9 and will replace the other one when i get a chance. We out grew what the o1v's could do so we had to go up. So far my techs have latched on to the LS9 a lot better than the o1v. It seems to be laid out a lot better and has less pages in the menu system which helps in not confusing them. I have used around 3/4's or maybe a little less of all the digital consoles out their and i have used just about all of the analog consoles out their. While it's hard to beat SSL, Neve, or Midas Mic pre's you can always throw some in a rack and use them with your digital console.

Now don't get my position wrong. I will work on analog console if that's what i have to work with and trust me i will probably love it but after you get spoiled to a digital console it becomes hard to shell out the major bucks for a good analog console and then all the extra gear to go with it to match a digital console.

Well i could go on and on but it really is a choice and i prefer others to make choices based on what they are comfortable with but just in case you wanted it you've been given my 2 cents.

crt

I personally use a Yamaha M7CL on sundays and a Yamaha 24 channel on Fridays, notably different sizes, but 5 months on with the M7CL I am a digital fanboy.

I have not used another desk apart from an earlier digital Yamaha which was small in format and confused me, the M7CL is as analouge as a digital desk can be and it's store functions, re-patching, copy and paste, and reduction of racks ... to no rack mount units just a sound desk, amps and speakers (love the nexo geo s) I reccomend the M7CL highly, as I said I cannot reccomeend another desk.

[Trib4l]

I know I would be unhappy having to return to analog. Digital and loving it - much less outboard to tow around and mess with.

I agree

I did a national tour last year, not for church, but for the national volleyball association, and had a simple setup, but still took 4 men to carry the roadcase onto the beach. It all could of been replaced by one LS9 ... i wish i had an ls9 for that gig

[[Director] drew ryan]

I run a Digico D5 for monitors and then for our pageant and you would have to pry it out of my cold dead hands. That being said I also run a Midas H2K and love everything about it for FOH for our regular weekend services.

When we were looking at new desks for our monitor rig we looked at the D5, Inovason SY 80, Yamaha PM1D and an ATI Paragon PII Monitor. For the official count that is 3 digital desks and 1 analog desk. The only reasons that we went with the D5 instead of the Paragon was the recall functions and the footprint. To be honest, the Paragon with the same input count would have cost us between 20 and 30K less. The Paragon sounded a bit better than the D5 and had a little better EQ response and it had gates and comps on each channel. The only outboard gear that we would have needed would have been some FX and for 20-30K we could have gotten a lot of FX. The only problem is that for the channel count that we would need in order to accomodate the services that we do would have take 2 consoles, 1 9' long desk and 1 6' long desk. We don't have that kind of space. Also we really needed the recall function due to the different types of services and the amount of people running the desk.

Most of the higherend digital desks are doing a great job with making the console feel like an analog desk with multiple work surfaces and full channel strip and fewer menues. This makes it very handy to switch to digital.

The smaller desks are still a bit clunky. I just picked up an LS9 because it meets the needs and has the low cost. Does it sound a good as a H2K or a Paragon? NO. does it sound Good? yup. Would I rather be mixing on the D5? Yup. Will this do the job with the quality that is needed? Yup. It is the right concole for the task.

[Gracetech]

I was hoping no one would bring up the Paragon. It's the only analog board that i believe in the audio industry that is worth every penny and a few more. Of course Heritage consoles sound great too but they are way over priced IMHO. Of course i have seen people drop 200k on a SSL(used) and while they are amazing boards i just can't help but think i could buy 4 PM5D for that much bread . I would love to have a rack full of ATI, Massenberg, and a few Avalon Mic pre's to go with my digital goodness but since most people will never hear that quality difference i will be happy with what i got.

crt

[[Director] drew ryan]

I have to beg to differ. we upgraded our Soundcraft Series 5 desk to a Midas H2k. One of our volunteers called up and told us that he noticed a huge difference in the RF feeds to the Green room TVs. he would be one of the people that I would generaly put into the won't hear the difference group as He is a pilot for UPS and has some significant hearing loss.

[Gracetech]

I was commenting more on the fact that when you are dealing with the room acoustics that most churches have and your high frequencies are being provided by compression drivers then the ability to decern the difference becomes little to none. Most people could hear the difference in a smaller room with smaller speakers that have quicker response times which in return have higher definition. Trust me their are people out their that notice it's just usually some thing most people don't understand unless they know what's going on.

crt

[ansius]

1) digital is limited to its bit depth (16/24/32) and samplerate (44.1/48/96) anolog is not
2) analog is more fault profe -> relayable especialy in touring, one chanel beraks fine, rest of them works, if digital hangs up -> it hangs up!
3) for digital to sound goot it has to be Realy good, better is just avarage analog than poar digital (about the same prace)
4) THD distortion happens anyway (mathematics in digital consoles use roundups it lead to THD, in analog it it has nicer charasteristics, especialy tube)

[Gracetech]

Originally Posted by ansius

1) digital is limited to its bit depth (16/24/32) and samplerate (44.1/48/96) anolog is not
2) analog is more fault profe -> relayable especialy in touring, one chanel beraks fine, rest of them works, if digital hangs up -> it hangs up!
3) for digital to sound goot it has to be Realy good, better is just avarage analog than poar digital (about the same prace)
4) THD distortion happens anyway (mathematics in digital consoles use roundups it lead to THD, in analog it it has nicer charasteristics, especialy tube)

1) Analog is as locked down as Digital is. I mean when you clip in analog world it still clips and when you clip in digital world it still clips.

2)Wives Tale. I have been the witness to 100 times more failures of entire analog consoles then digital. It happens to the best of them. The best Offense is usually a good defense. That means TLC and good clean power.

3)Their is no way to Say Analog sounds better than Digital or vice versa. It's more a culmination of components and based on consoles and the person making the judgement.

4)Everything has THD but Digital consoles have less electronics to go through which usually means up to half as much THD as a Analog counterpart. Ok, tubes only sound nicer to those that like distortion and noise. I have rarely found Tubes to come even close to accurate in reproducing the entire sound spectrum. When it does happen it sounds great but tubes are way to wishy washy to have anyplace in my rack other than in the studio.

I refuse to have people bash analog or digital. While i generally prefer a good bit of digital stuff, there are still quite a few pieces that i just won't touch. I still use analog stuff but again their are some pieces that i just don't like. Find what works for you and go with it. If it is a 1940's 4 ch tube mixer then good for you. If it is a multi touch panel digital mix engine then i'm jealous .

crt

crt

[Trib4l]

Not to mention that you will almost never see a tube in a console...only in pres. And even then, only pres that have the tubes run and powered properly will even remotely begin to affect the sound.