EMF Concert
V-Mix - Through The Paces
August.06/ 2008 Filed in: Digital
News
Guest
editorial by
Rick Earl
In the interest of fairness, I must disclose a few things before I get started… One: I’ve known Ken for a long time and worked for him for a few years. Two: I hopped on the digital bandwagon quite a few years ago and cannot remember the last BIG show I mixed on an analog console. Three: I am a geek, not just an average gek, but a dyed in the wool, pure audio junky geek; I’m always looking for the newest, best, coolest audio gadget, from mics to mixers, I love it all. Four: I am not getting paid for this, but Ken did buy me dinner after I volunteered to help with a show. Finally, I stand by what I say, if you have questions or concerns about anything I write in here, I will be happy to discuss them in open dialog.
So I came into the V Mixer after seeing and
using the S 4000 Digital snake by Roland, It was
clean, quiet, had imperceptible latency AND fit in
the passenger seat of my truck. It had its
uses, and I thought it was pretty cool, but being a
geek I don’t like converting too many times, so I
waited. Good product, but incomplete for my uses.
When I found out that Roland was making a Mixer for the snake, immediately I became very interested. This has some potential. I wasn’t too surprised to see Roland Boxes at Carey Sound, as I mentioned before, I am a geek, geeks know geeks, and Ken is a geek too. The problem is I KNOW Ken, he may be a geek, but he has his standards. First of all, the road case was not purple and it did not contain a product made in the UK. Second, It was digital, and did not have a touch screen. Somehow I did not see a match, especially after hearing some of Ken’s early digital experiences. So when I was told how cool it was, and how good it worked and how well it sounded and how many had already been installed, I knew it was time to take a closer look.
I called Ken up, asked for an opportunity to
use it, and then volunteered to help with a MUSEP
show that Carey Sound was doing. The show was
the EMF student Orchestra at Guilford College.
We showed up, set up, miced the orchestra
according to Ken’s plan. I ran the snake, all
300’, by myself, did a line check and then Ken took
off, leaving me to mix.
Mixing a symphony is one of my favorite things to do, but it was not what I was expecting to do that night. In these situations, there is no sound check, it’s usually hand on and GO! So I did. And what a ride it was. Granted, I’ve had quite a bit of digital mixing experience, but not on this console, although
immediately I knew I would be ok. First
of all, everything sounded fine, the sound was
smooth and quiet (not too many consoles are with 30
open mics) everything I needed was right where it
should be and responded flawlessly. The eq
was easy to use, I turned the knob, and it worked,
I never felt like I had to sit and tweek, endlessly
to get the sound I wanted. Later, when I
wanted some compression, I activated it on the
channel, set the threshold, and wow, nice smooth
compression. Once I felt comfortable with the
mix, I decided to add some reverb to sweeten up the
strings; it was easy to access and sounded great
too. Just so you know, I prefer reverb to be
subtle, sometimes it is hard with cheap reverbs and
down and dirty algorithms used in many units. The
Roland reverb, was everything I wanted, I knew it
was there, but it never distracted from the mix.
All in all, when the night was over, I had had fun,
I always felt in control, but knew I found a great
product.
Ken was nice enough to let me try the console
again the next night at Elon University. We
had the same orchestra playing but this was
my show, my mics, my speaker facing (well, ok, the
school’s) I was confident in the console, so I
changed my inputs a bit for my inventory and
to experiment with some other mic techniques.
I had no problems accessing the console’s
systems settings to re-patch input and outputs,
I was able to achieve every bit of the
clarity as the night before. The best part
about all of this, I had fun mixing, I wasn’t lost
in the console, I wasn’t fighting the console, I
was mixing with it. Other than the color LCD
screen being a little difficult to read in
daylight, I cannot think of any real negatives of
the design. I talked to John Carey, who’s
been getting his time on the console too, he said
he has been TRYING to get it to crash, but with no
success. Knowing the manufacturer, I am sure
they had it pretty bulletproof before it was
released.
Why is all of this important? I
feel digital is the way to go, it works, you have
much more system for the dollar and it offers
greater flexibility for the user. In fact,
digital consoles get better with age, new firmware
and software increase functionality, user libraries
help build shows quickly from past shows and
settings. The problem is, when digital is not
done right, it can make it worse. Compromises
in design that make the console sonically worse
than analog, limited controls and hierarchical
menus that confuse the operator, all take away from
the reason we want these things. Even
traditional analog systems offer compromises if
your needs exceed your budget.
Roland did things right with the V Mixer,
exceptional audio quality, ease of use, a versatile
and compact snake system all able to fit in the
back of my Nissan Versa. The analog
equivalent would barely fit in a van, require 4
people to lift and would cost at least twice as
much. RoIand has a long history with digital
audio and it shows. I would suggest anyone in the
market for a new mixing system to look at the
Roland V Mixer; I don’t think you’ll be
disappointed.
About the author-- Rick Earl, a self described audio junky geek, prior to his tenure as HE for CareySound Productions in the 90’s, worked as FOH engineer for national recording artists Firehouse. He left us for a FOH position with Millie Jackson and then spent some time with SE Systems before landing a job with Guilford Tech as a teacher and then to his current position as Technical Director for Cultural and Special Programs at Elon University in Burlington.
In the interest of fairness, I must disclose a few things before I get started… One: I’ve known Ken for a long time and worked for him for a few years. Two: I hopped on the digital bandwagon quite a few years ago and cannot remember the last BIG show I mixed on an analog console. Three: I am a geek, not just an average gek, but a dyed in the wool, pure audio junky geek; I’m always looking for the newest, best, coolest audio gadget, from mics to mixers, I love it all. Four: I am not getting paid for this, but Ken did buy me dinner after I volunteered to help with a show. Finally, I stand by what I say, if you have questions or concerns about anything I write in here, I will be happy to discuss them in open dialog.
When I found out that Roland was making a Mixer for the snake, immediately I became very interested. This has some potential. I wasn’t too surprised to see Roland Boxes at Carey Sound, as I mentioned before, I am a geek, geeks know geeks, and Ken is a geek too. The problem is I KNOW Ken, he may be a geek, but he has his standards. First of all, the road case was not purple and it did not contain a product made in the UK. Second, It was digital, and did not have a touch screen. Somehow I did not see a match, especially after hearing some of Ken’s early digital experiences. So when I was told how cool it was, and how good it worked and how well it sounded and how many had already been installed, I knew it was time to take a closer look.
Mixing a symphony is one of my favorite things to do, but it was not what I was expecting to do that night. In these situations, there is no sound check, it’s usually hand on and GO! So I did. And what a ride it was. Granted, I’ve had quite a bit of digital mixing experience, but not on this console, although
About the author-- Rick Earl, a self described audio junky geek, prior to his tenure as HE for CareySound Productions in the 90’s, worked as FOH engineer for national recording artists Firehouse. He left us for a FOH position with Millie Jackson and then spent some time with SE Systems before landing a job with Guilford Tech as a teacher and then to his current position as Technical Director for Cultural and Special Programs at Elon University in Burlington.
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