Add this entry to Your Favorites | [0] Favorites [6] Comments

Please wait...

“Consoles: Analog vs. Digital

Last month I talked about different console features and what your needs might be. Well, after having mixed on both analog and digital mixers, I thought it would be good to compare the two. Just like with anything else, there are pros and cons. They are all about to be unveiled.

My first seven and a half years of mixing, I mixed on nothing but analog and didn't know any different. Well, for the last year and a half I have been mixing on a digital console. I'm about to give you my take on analog consoles versus digital ones.

My current digital console is practical and has some cool features. The best feature of my console is that all of my inputs and outputs are on stage. My snake to the front of house position consists of 2 XLR AES/EBU cables. Those are digital microphone cables. Therefore I don't have to carry a huge 24 channel snake. Also, since its digital, all of my compression and effects are built in, which is great! The particular brand I use has a dual 31 band graphic EQ on my main outs, plus a 10 band parametric. In general, most digital consoles only have a 4 to 8 band parametric on its outputs. I have no other rack gear at my FOH which is also great! Other digital consoles in general have gates/compression, 4 band parametric EQ, all built in to each channel in the console. They all usually have some sort of effects available as well. These are all pros to the digital realm.

Now, here are my cons for digital. Every single digital console I've mixed on has this weird digital high frequency distortion sound. All the way from my Roland to the big momma Yamaha PM1D, they all carry some digital noise which bugs the tar out of me. A lot of audiences don't really notice these noises, but they can mess with an engineer with critical listening. Most of the noise I've noticed is produced in higher frequencies and when the channels and board are being pushed relatively hard. I thought I was going nuts or that it was just my particular console until I consulted with some big dog FOH engineers and heard the same conclusion from them. Then I got to hear them myself, and eased my mind.

As convenient as digital may seem I like the “look and grab” style of mixing, which you don't do with digital. Even if you don't do much tweaking during the show, sound check can be frustrating, selecting the channel first and then scrolling through the EQ menu, Aux window and such to route everything. I'm a grab and go kind of guy. I'm just not too hip on having to read my screen to see what's going on instead of glancing at my board and saying, “Yep, that's the problem” or “that's it right there.”

From here let's go on with the pros to analog consoles since they mix in with the cons of digital. As I said before, with analog, you can say I want to change this about vocalist 2, grab it, and change it. With digital, it's not a huge deal, but you find the channel, select it, pick what you want to change about it, then change it. Then you change back to your screen you were at before (for me, my meter screen). I like the sound of the analog pre-amps better too. There's none of that digital noise either. With digital if something “clips” you're done for. It's much more noticeable with digital. On an analog board, if you clip something a little or even for a decent amount of time, the board forgives you and doesn't produce an audio disturbance for hitting that +3 db a couple of times.

Analog consoles to me have a warmer sound than digital consoles. To be really blunt about it, I just like the feel of mixing analog. There's no transfer to digital and back from digital to analog. It's just pure, warm, unaltered, beautiful audio. Sorry, I was having a moment.

Okay, so you have to have more outboard gear in a rack next to your console, but I'll take it. I'll even carry it myself. And I know that leads to more cables and patch cables and more room. I'll trade it all!

I know one day I probably won't have a choice. Everything will be digital, and young engineers will hear old engineers talk about the days when they had more knobs on their consoles than buttons and how sad it was to see the equipment rack companies go out of business because of digital and powered speakers. Just kidding!

KEEP ANOLOG ALIVE!!!!

Josh Hoevelmann

Reader Comments

Josh,

I'm like you . . . for live use I prefer analog. I know some companies probably make digital boards that look and operate much like an analog board, but I imagine the more knobs they include, the more it costs. It seems a bit crazy to be digging thru menus when you could just grab a knob and turn it to fix the problem. Sure, you can assign knobs with digital, but then they must be marked and they aren't always laid out in a logical format.

One advantage to digital that you didn't mention is the ability to store "scenes" in memory. To me, that's one of the handiest features of digital. This is probably more important in the recording studio than for live purposes, but I can think of situations where it would be nice in a live setting.

Have you considered the Axiom two way digital systems for the tiny "snake" convenience? That may be the best of both worlds for a live setup. They make a system where you plug all your stage inputs into a box. Each box converts up to 16 inputs to digital and sends it up a CAT5 cable, which goes into a D/A converter at the mixer. You can route as many as four banks of 16 over one wire for a total of 64 channels or you can send 32 one way and 32 the other. It gets expensive, but it looks like it would be a snap to roll in and set up.

“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”—-Mark Twain

Add Comments

If you are seeing this form you are not a Member or have not logged in. Why not consider becoming a Member?

Membership allows you to have a prepared signature of your choice applied to every comment you make, as well as the ability to choose an avatar to display next to your name to help identify your posts. Members are also given opportunity to vote weekly in our Weekly Chart as well as special Members Only contests, polls and giveaways during the year. If you are already a member, login here, otherwise please register here.

**Note: Forums membership is a seperate membership.

By posting you agree to our Comments Policy

Name:
Email:
Location:
URL:
Comment:
	Remember my personal information
	Notify me of follow-up comments?
Please enter the word you see in the image below: