[SML] Upgrading audio mixer

[e-mail frank.wood95]

Allen & Heath have a good name. But, you need to consider the exact
usage to which it will be put.

As you will remember, I work in an amateur outfit with a Tyrone
Guthrie pattern theatre, and little spare cash. We considered the use
to which our sound system was put. Our conclusion was that most of its
use was playing in sound effects and music into straight plays. This
includes creating atmospheres to defing a location.

  The then Head of Sound and I put our heads together, ove many pints
of beer, and designed, built, and installed a system to do this. We
were both experienced Engineers, and the capital E is deliberate.

We adopted a Quadraphonic approach, using the 45HJ principles to
achieve mono/stereo/quad transformations.With the quad joysticks, you
could fly an aircraft round and round the auditorium.

The problem, eventually, was that there were too few channels, as
sound demands became larger. I, myself ran into this when doing Ariel
Dorfman's play "***** Quartet". This is set in a beachside house,
mostly. I needed constant seawash, at varying level, different motor
vehicles arriving and departing, footsteps approaching and receeding.
Spot playback for a tape maching on stage, and for an off-stage
bathroom.

Then there was the last scene. A concet hall, with a string quartet
playing out a work. Applause, interval atmosphere, with some important
dialogue over it, re-assembly, tuning-up, and the quartet again,
shifting into the playout music. I had 14 speakers in use, and was
working like a one-armed paperhanger.

Make sure that you can handle such demands.



On 2 April 2015 at 23:24, Bill Nelson via Stagecraft
<stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> Our local theatre is finally willing to spend a bit of money to get a decent
> audio mixer - the current one was designed for studio use, not in a theatre,
> and is a pain to use.
>
> The theatre has 10 wireless mikes and is unlikely to get any more. Sometimes
> we have a few musical instruments for musicals. We keep two CD players plugged
> in. Budget appears to be in the $2500 - $3000 range.
>
> I would like to drag the theatre into current gear if possible so am looking
> at relatively inexpensive digital boards, with all their
> configuration/patching flexibility. One advantage is the built in processing,
> since the theatre does not have any.
>
> I want a board where I can set it up and then novices can treat it as a basic
> analog board (basically push faders and leave most everything else alone).
>
> So far, the best match I have found is the Allen & Heath QU 24. It appears to
> be fairly easy to configure and I can get it for about $2900.
>
> Any pro/con comments?
>
> Bill
>
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-- 
Frank Wood