[SML] Sound board recommendations for theatuh

[Jon Ares]

Howdy folks....

Long story short, our digital board went up in a considerable plume of
smoke 5 minutes before curtain on our 2nd of 3 dress rehearsals of
"Matilda" the other night.... thanks to some good Samaritans, we got
our 20 wireless mics and 7-8 orch pit feeds run through a Midas M32
and stage box, so we're running just fine now..... but as we weigh our
options for the future, I thought I'd ask what boards people love,
understanding we're a high school, doing live theatre (with musicals
of 16-20 mics, plus orch and QLab), as well as other events, and a
handful of mics for Jazz Bands' solos (and presenters with or without
AV needs).  We don't do gigantic rock and roll shows, but we like lots
of sliders/surface to work with, rather than flipping through numerous
small layers.  We also have non-student engineers in sometimes, so we
don't want to listen to TOO much crappe about what a piece of junk
this thing is, and you really should have got a blah blah blah....

We have a matrix of needs and wants, but in short, the new board (if
we get one) will need to be easy to teach on, and hopefully something
where that knowledge can transfer to other boards they're likely to
encounter in the wild. Nothing that seems designed for studio
engineers with PhDs (I'm looking at you, Yamaha), but also something
that's not too old.  (One of the concerns I have with the Midas M32...
getting long in the tooth, and no touch screen... feels like 1998.)
What are your favorites, and why?  Bring on the flames....

 - Jon

-- 
Jon Ares
www.arescreative.com