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Consoles

Oh my! The confusion! There are too many options! Picking out a console that's right for you can pick at your brain, keep you up at night, and empty your supply of Oreo cookies. Hopefully this article will give you a small check list that will help you decide on the console that's best for you.

Your console is where all of the action is. It is to your sound as your kitchen is to your meal. It takes all of the different ingredients, shapes and molds them and portions them out just right to satisfy all those who partake…we hope!

Most southern gospel groups don't need a mammoth mixing console. The obvious option that is usually the easiest to decide on is the amount of channels. However, to get some of the other options I'll recommend you look for; you will need to go with a console that probably has more channels than you will ever need.

Let's start with the microphone preamp. Different manufacturers use different preamps and they do indeed sound different. This is a good reason to listen to them if you can. Just use the same microphone with a flat EQ and listen. Some preamps are a little "warmer" sounding or have a little more headroom than others and some can even be a little noisier than others. The preamp is the first thing your signal coming from your microphone goes through in the console, so you can see how important they are.

Next would be a physical attribute in the form of aux sends. In other words how many monitor mixes will you need? Do plan on expanding to in ears? Are you using any effects? For a typical quartet using in ears for each person and one effects unit, a console with 6 aux sends would be needed. Count up one for every mix you'll need, minus your house mix.

Now, the EQ section is the hardest thing for a compact mixer to do right it seems. Having more than a three band EQ can make a world of difference. This is especially true if two of those EQ bands are frequency selectable or parametric. Some manufacturers will call them sweepable. This has been my biggest pickle with Mackie consoles in the compact series. For you Mackie fans (which I'm not one), they have released the Onyx series which incorporates more EQ per channel on their 16 channel version. They also have a nifty little firewire option as well. There are several other companies that have used this idea of more EQ on a compact mixer for years and do it well.

Having sub groups is just as nice as having subways. A bunch of people get on one subway and go downtown and another group of people get on another subway and go to the same place. This is kind of how sub groups or busses work. In the size of consoles we are talking about this month, four is probably going to be the max unless you go digital. That's next month. This will allow you to send all of your vocals to a sub group and then to your main fader. Then you can send trax and/or piano or band to a sub group and then send that to your main fader. The purpose is so that if all of the vocals are too loud or too soft you can adjust all of them with one motion instead of three or four. Same goes for the music or band. On some consoles this option can also allow you to use the subgroup to send, for example your vocal effects, in the case that you are out of auxiliaries. A lot of subgroups have a direct out you can send to your effects machine and then come back into a regular channel.

Extra! Extra! Some consoles these days have a little bit of EQ and/or built in effects. Just like with powered speakers there are pros and cons. For the budget minded, they are perfect; however I've not seen much usefulness in the built in EQ's. Some of the effects are pretty good. Soundcraft scored the best of the bunch by having Lexicon effects built into one of their small format consoles.

Again I say, listen and evaluate. See what your needs are. How many channels will you need? How many monitor mixes will you need? Will you have some sort of effects? There are tons of more options that have to do with "solo", switching aux sends between pre fader and post fader, headphone mixes, RCA in/outs, and channel level meters. Those are all preferences that you can talk with your dealer about. I've decided to start breaking my rules to make it easier on you. Some of these consoles are a little pricey, but well worth it. I am going to list my picks for compact consoles. Happy hunting and if you have any questions about why I picked the ones I did, email me.

Midas, Venice Series
Allen & Heath, Mix Wizard or GL2200 Series
Soundcraft, Spirit LX7 Series
Crest, XR Series
Yamaha

Josh Hoevelmann

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