As a sound engineer I’ve been in many conversations where the topic of digital versus analog mixers have been thoroughly discussed. There is one truth that I must state before I go any further. There really is no right or wrong answer here. Every man or woman has their own cup of tea when it comes to pick of mixers. You will always have the old-school, purists who believe that analog boards are the only way to go. And of course you have the modern, tech-savvy engineer who wants to work on only the latest and greatest. If you had asked me 5 years ago if I had a preference of mixer I would have hands down picked an analog board. Only because digital consoles were so new and all I heard were horror stories about how computers that run these consoles going haywire and destroying the live sound for that show. 5 years later, it’s a whole new world. Digital mixing consoles are the norm and in my opinion, the only way to go if you are going to mix in the professional industry.
To get a foundation of what we are talking about, let’s learn the differences between analog and digital consoles. First, let’s examine analog consoles. Analog consoles have fixed controls that have specific functions that cannot be changed. The typical sections of analog consoles are broken into channel inputs, master volume controls, and auxiliary buses. Let’s first get into channel inputs. Mixing consoles will generally have anywhere from 6-24+ input channels. These “channel strips” are made up of several different parts. Per channel strip, you have an input. That input can connect a variety of analog signals through XLR or 1/4 inch ends. Within that “strip” are equalizer controls, gain control, post fader, and aux sends. This allows you to manipulate the tonal quality of your input and decide where that signal is directed (i.e. house mix, monitor mixes, or FX processors.)
With a digital console everything is practically the same, but with several big things added to the mix (pun NOT intended). Because digital boards use a set of processors to convert the digital signals to analog signals (typically referred to as A/D converters) it makes manipulating your inputs of audio very easy. For example: The digital mixing console I use to mix FOH (Front of House) is a Yamaha M7CL. The M7 has 48 inputs and 16 omni outs. As you can see in the picture below there are also 8 faders located in the middle part of the board. This is part of the “CentralLogic” feature. This gives you the ability to, with one push of a button, switch those faders to any input or output on the board. This is incredibly convenient for a sound engineer. Trust me. There have been many times where I’m mixing a concert that has 25+ inputs and having the ability to pull up channels that are located far away from me let me mix without any wasted time.
As a sound engineer it’s of the highest importance that we can mix on the fly without running all over the board to move this fader on one side of the board and one on the other. With the M7 it makes mixing FUN. Another great thing about this board is the recallable scenes option. When mixing any gig you can, once again with one push of a button, save your “scene”. This takes a “snapshot” of your mix and gives you the ability to continue to mix freely. If at anytime you wish to have the EXACT mix you had before...yes...that includes EQ’s,mix and matrix sends, and gains. Someone who has never used a feature like this could make the argument that it isn’t necessary to have this recallable feature. If you have been in some of the stressful situations that I have gone through in a live environment, you would realize that this feature WILL save your sanity.
One of the best parts of this board is the LCD (800X600) touch screen. For us younger people who feel more comfortable on, let’s say a computer over a typewriter, the digital mixing environment gives us a more comfortable environment to be creative. The touchscreen grants you access to any and all things on the board. It also gives you the feature to type in labels for channels and picture symbols. The EQ’s consist of a 4-band parametric EQ per channel. You can easily sweep your frequencies, adjust the Q, and the gain of each frequency. My favorite button on the touch screen and probably my favorite feature on this board is the “Sends on Faders”. Sends on faders allows all your aux sends to be sent to all post fade faders. So after engaging the button, instead of all your faders controlling the overall level of each channel, the faders turn into an easy way to mix your individual send on the go. This saves me SO much time when I am doing monitors.
In conclusion, it’s easy for me to say that the digital mixing console is the environment to which any sound engineer can produce the best overall sound. Digital consoles have been out long enough to have 100% faith in them to run your live shows. If you are going to make the leap from digital to analog, I suggest that you stay with Yamaha or DigiDesign. With Yamaha, their leading digital consoles are the M7, PM5D, and PM1D. These will run from $20K and up. Their are smaller versions of the M7 such as the LS9. All the same features, justa smaller footprint and capabilities. With DigiDesign, their Show and Venues are great boards. If you are looking for a superior live mixing environment and the ability to record your shows with ProTools, Digi is the way to go. The fact just make sense. Why stay in the past when the world of digital just makes life better?
