Four options: M-400, M7CL, SC48 and SD9

[dorinpetrean]

Forked from: Roland M-400 Digital Mixing System from post 133 forward.

Originally Posted by dorinpetrean

greetings to everyone here,

I have following options to deal with:

Digidesign SC48
- pros: PLE integration, great FX's, and the most important thing very good preamps.
- cons: NO digital snake option, this break my heart already.

M7CL
- pros: superb layer, versatile dynamic control, central logic, DCA, many more features available (but with lot lot more additional bucks),
- cons: preams qulity, DA convertors, low fader resolution, disaster clock even EQ's.
Obs. I'm using Yamaha boards starts from 01V and now I'm pissed off about overall quality after those many years. They made great "audio cadgets" but they are not come to close to get a good musical felling for these "musical instruments". That's what I hate the most on these boards.

Digico SD9
I don't used one and I don't hear this board before. Maybe some of you guys replace your old digital stuff with Digico boards.

M-400
- pros: enough faders because of DCA/groups support, very dynamic control, lot of features already included, M48 IEM support which is love at first side, and over all REAC options.
- cons: is NOT rider friendly,

Obs. Just want to know more about peamps quality in live situation.

It this would be your option then what would be your choose? Can be compared M-400 with M7 preamps quality? What about the other two options?

As Brad Weber recommends me I just start a new thread here as I feel a lot of you peoples will be interested to know the most coolest things about those boards included in this topic.

My options are M-400, M7CL, SC48 and SD9.

I just want to know pros and cons, features from peoples which use this boards in your past or actually push them to their limits.

[dorinpetrean]

regards to Gracetech

Originally Posted by Gracetech

The Digico's are nice but it seems like they are always the last to integrate into a solution. I have to say if you have the accoustic control in your room and over the top loudspeaker system then this may be the way you want to go.

Digidesign SC48 would be my choice and the reason is because of two things. Delay on the chanel strip and use of 3rd party plugins. Out side of that they really don't have any superiority over any of the others.

Yamaha is great and the M7 is a great console. You are looking at a work horse that will go for years with little if any maintenance. Sound quality is right on par with the other consoles.

Roland M400 is a great choice and it's funny that it's a great choice because of it's monitoring solution the M48. I have spec'd out a M400/m48 system in our new auditorium which will come on line in the next 3 months. The only reason i went with the M400 was because of the M48. Does this mean that the M400 isn't a great console? No this only means that Roland has paid attention to what people need in a sound system and that is integration. The M400 is actually quite a capable console but it would be at the bottom of the list of these consoles if it didn't have such great integration.

With everything you have to weigh the usage of your space with what you need. In my space having tight integration with all components and a great monitoring solution was key.

[dorinpetrean]

regards to pdc

Originally Posted by pdc

You shouldn't use ANYTHING just because other churches use it, because this is a application and skill set specific application. If you find a good, licensed, bonded, reputable contractor with multiple options, you will be better served.

[dorinpetrean]

regards to me

Originally Posted by dorinpetrean

80% in me want's to switch to digital snake with IEM's (RSS is great option to that point). The new console must be also rider friendly our guests and their engineers have to be happy using our PA system.
As I now only Terry Nuedorf, Brian Doerksen FOH engineer use an RSS console.

[Josh Scott]

I like the M7 as a monitor desk. It has a few sound issues when you use it as FOH, but most people won't notice unless you AB with another board and you don't have a weaker link in your sound system.

[dorinpetrean]

Originally Posted by Josh Scott

... It has a few sound issues when you use it as FOH, ... you don't have a weaker link in your sound system.

Please can you be more specific. We will do FOH+MON from the same board.
Please describe a little the cons points you already found using M7.

[Josh Scott]

We use a PM5D for FOH and the M7 doesn't sound as good. I would say they are very minor. I listen to a PM5D on our sound system every week for hours. Plug in a M7 and I could notice the difference. I don't think most people noticed, I wouldn't spend the extra 30,000 for the 5D, it wasn't the different.

We had a tour come in and the sound engineer agreed the M7 doesn't sound the best. However he unloaded and used his M7, because it was such a small difference he would rather have his settings than have to sound check on the PM5D.

I have not tried it but have been told you can get an external clock like a Big Ben and it will fix a lot of the clock problems both the M7 and PM5D have. (I have also been told it makes no difference.)

It is rare however to find a sound system that the sound board is going to be the weakest link or the part of the sound system that sounds the worst. A lot of churches buy cheap speakers, don't treat the room, and fly the speakers where they look the best. You will never hear a difference in sound quality in a room like that.

I think the M7 is a great board, and if the M7 was out when we purchased our 5D we would have gone with the M7 because of the cost.

It is a very reliable board, and Yamaha as a 24 hours emergency support line that can be very helpful.

The camp I use to work for loves their new M7. They have a lot of churches come and use their system, a lot of church techs have experience on either the M7CL or the LS9 which is great for them to be on something familiar.

Not to make things harder, for a theater I am trying to demo one of the Sound Craft boards. They look like they have better processing on their outputs and easier to expand.

Call your local sound company and try to arrange a time to get some hands on time with the boards. They all have different work flows, you might like the way you EQ on one board more than another, or like how the outputs work on another.

For example I like mixing monitor on the M7 over the PM5D because of the touch screen and the way the cue follows the mix I am working on. However, I hate the metering on the M7.

That is the best advice I can give you and the advantage of having a local sound company you purchase from. Most places would be glad to help you with your decision, let you demo a board, and train your team on how it works, and they might have some insight on a new board coming out that will fit your needs better.

[dorinpetrean]

We will replace our old sound system in our church and I'm looking to get the most from this config s.
we've got three scenarios.
nexo s12 with M7, Ext clock, digital snake (DS) from Digigram or Optocore which are way better.

d&b Q+T series with SD9 or SC48, sc48 have no option for DS that's bad situation.

RCF TTL33A, good line array even in changeling acoustics situation. This solution come last week from our technical director together with RSS M-400 but also M7 would be on option list.

[Josh Scott]

Here is some info on the clock jitter, I looked into getting a clock for our system and decided that it wan't work the money,

Here are some links on what the touring guys are saying on the clock issue
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=239900
http://www.ratsound.com/cblog/archiv...eally-Are.html

[Justin Bartlett]

We've been looking in this price range to upgrade a portable system. We're going with the A&H iLive T system, specifically the T-112 surface and iDR-32 stage box. Digital snake, great channel strip controls on the surface, color coded channel labels, and anything can be anywhere. Pretty incredible for the money.

[Mikey]

We've demo'd both the M7 and the i-Live. I have also used an SC-48, but not at church. I would take the i-live hands down over any of the others. It sounds tons better than the M7, and is considerably more flexible than the SC-48. I would give the sonic edge to the SC-48, but I really disliked the surface and controls.

[dorinpetrean]

Thank you guys for any other proposals but after many riders and engineers reviews we left space only for option above.
Therefore, I have to confirm our decision. We decided (our team and consultant) to include only SD9 and M7CL ES for a further discussion.

SC48 is the best sounding board form this thread, hands down. Anyway, because there is no option left for digital snake capability is out from list.
I like it very much, and also was very easy, even pleasant to use when I put my hands on it last year but failed because of digital snake missing option.

RSS with or without M48 couldn't be compared with M7CL ES. As we looked at M7CL layer, central logic plus any audio format options we decided that M7CL is on another scale.

I would like to see here some Digico users, especially SD users. I'm just curious about people who left Yamaha consoles switching to new SD compact series.