Live Mixing With PC

I have used both. I have only used the newer one recently, and it has been a while since I have used the older one. The newer one I used was actually for a live show even. While I still missed a more conventional work environment, it was still fast and esy to use and sounded pretty nice. The old one I remember being about the same. I am sure the converters and preamps are a little nicer in the newer one, but in a live setting it may be pretty close. basically, the older ones used to cost almost what the newer ones now do. In the audio industry, almost all of your high ticket items like that lose their value pretty quickly. There are however a few different items that do retain their value and even go up in value. Often times though this may take 30 years or more to happen though. Personally, unless there is something I am not aware of concerning the older 02R's, I don't see why it would not be the right tool for the job you need it to do.
 
xstatic said:
Cuemix is niot usable for the style of stuff being discussed in this thread since cuemix is pre DAW application in its routing. This means no compression, EQ, etc... and if you do decide to use those things, then the MOTU will certainly add some latency to the chain.
Ahhh. I thought he just wanted something to mix the audio.
All compression/fx/etc done w/ outboard gear.

Though, you can use cuemix and some VST FX in real time. But the more you use, the more latency (or click-pops) you'll get.
 
Yes, I do want to be able to add effects. We only have one hardware reverb/effects unit and a couple graphic EQ units that we could use. We use the channel EQ on our current board (so that would need to be supplied with whatever we replace it with) and we don't currently have any compressors.... So those will be an added benifite.


I dug up some more info on the O2R and found a giant diagram of the top view:
http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/Images/ProAudio/Product/Views/02rv2_front_l.gif

From what I can tell, it looks like it has bank switching on only 4 faders, so we'll always have instant access to the first 16 faders PLUS 4 of the other faders. Right? When I was just looking at a small picture of the mixer, I thought those four colored faders were for controlling submix busses, but if it is actually controlling 4 additional input channels, then that's even better! :) For our needs 20 faders would work perfectly and hopefully we won’t even have to worry about bank switching during the music.... We will probably need extra channels for misc stuff like CD-player and computer/multimedia for videos, etc... but for mixing the music that should be more than enough. :)

I'm trying to figure out the other functions too from looking at the mixer, and I like the EQ layout. The screen will also be very handy for tweaking effects I'm sure.

I also see two rows of "sel" and "on" buttons on each channel, why two rows? Does one control effects and the other control aux sends or something?

Anyways, I will send an email to our worship pastor homefully sometime tomorrow with the link and info I have found on it. It sounds very promising now that I have found a good quality mixer within our price range I agree that this would be the better setup. I just didn't think something like this was possible as it seemed all the larger digital consoles were way out of budget.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm getting very excited about this. :cool:

-tkr
 
Well, now I feel kind of bad. The original O2R may not fit all of your requirements. It only has 8 xlr preamps stock (not the 16 that I thought) amd the only way to get 8 more with fader control is to add an externaly 8 channel preamp. It looks like the original 02R gets its 40 inputs from 16 analog inputs, 16 tape returns, and 4 stereo channels. This all promprted me to do a little more research though since I am also looking to add a couple of smaller digital consoles to my inventory for smaller rentals and such.

The yamah O1V96 looks like it may fit the bill with a little bit of expansion. They cost about $2100 brand new, and if you add an external 8 channel preamp/converter you will have 20 xlr inputs and 4 line inputs. It looks like the O1V only has 4 aux outputs in a stock configuration, but you can add an 8 channel analog output card to that, or any 8 channel D/A converter (using ADAT optical). I would imagine that for about $2500 or less you could get a used one with an output card and a used 8 channel preamp/converter.

I apologize if I did get your hopes up with the O2R. If you can live with only having 16 channels of preamps, it may still fit the bill. If you do need more though, it may not be the right console for you. For me, I want at least 20 channels of preamps for my smaller rentals. The 02R would also give you 6 dedicated aux sends (monitor mixes) plus 2 more aux sends that would feed the internal FX engines. The newer O1V however would only have 4 dedicated aux outputs (stock) but would have better internal effects (newer) and has software upgrades available for FX, channel strips, or master outputs. I would suggest you maybe hit yamaha's website and take a look at some of the manuals.
 
Grrr.... I didn't even think to look at the back. I knew the newer O2R had mic pres on each channel so I assumed the older one did two.... :(

Yes, we do need need more mic inputs as we mic drums as well as vocals and guitar. There are 7 mics just on the drums alone, so 8 mic pres won't work. I guess we could get something like an M-Audio Octane to add more preamps. I think we could get by with 16 mic pres and then have the 1/4" for the CD-player and other misc devices.

That's going to raise the cost significantly though, $1250 I was pretty sure we could swing it as our worship leader thinks we paid either $1300 or $1800 for ours (he wasn't sure which).... But with an 8-channel mic pre, that's pushing the $2000 range. I guess it depends on how much we get back if we return our current mixer.

Does anyone know of any cheap 8-channel preamps that would be at least as good as our current mackie preamps? I know the mackies aren't much to write home about, so it doesn't have to be super extravagent. ;)

-tkr
 
In that price range you have m-audio, presonus, focusright and mackie all making 8 channel pres that convert to ADAT optical if I remember right. I still think you could easily do it all for less than $2000 though with the preamp:) You ought to be able to find a used 8 channel preamp for just a few hundred or so. Either way though, this route looks MUCH less expensive than the other route and still easier:) It does seem like 16 channels would be adequate for what you need:)

Origianlly I did not necessarily have a specific set up in mind for you. Originally I was just playing devils advocate to get you to see all sides of the issue. I see too mnay people buying things because of features that they like. In the end, when I buy, I always look at what the donside of the situation is and decide if that downside is managable for me and if the positives outweigh the negatives. In install and sales type situations this is extremely important. Whenever we do big shows or installs we always pick each others ideas apart. That way we can be better prepared. With live audio especially potentially disastrous things happen all the time. The people that stay busy in this industry are the people that know how to deal with those issues in a calm, professional, and timely manor.

After first reccomending the O2R to you I started to really think about it. I originally did not necessarily mean that you should go get an actual O2R, but mostly just intended on turning you in the direction of a digital console. It was probably at the top of my mind since I mixed for a client at a venue the other day that had an O2R installed at FOH. I still miss the familiarity and feel of analog consoles, but the O2R took minutes for me to get used to even after years of non use on my part. In fact, after 15 minutes I think I knew more about it than the house guy did. I had to actually show them some stuff with their layout and routing that was unintuitive. One thing to remember though, the preamps are not recallable. They are analog and as a result cannot be recalled. But then, that would have been the same scenario with a DAW setup as well.

The best part is that this thread has prompted me to probably go out and get a little digital console (maybe 2) for my inventory. In the last month I have dealt with a lot of them it seems. In the last month I have had 2 PM5D's, a yamaha M7CL48, a DM2000 and a DM10000. It looks like I may go out and get me a couple of O1V96's for my stock and a couple of outbaord converter/pre's. :D
 
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