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RBC42
09-11-2009, 10:51 PM
Hello to All,
This is my first post here and I really need some advice to resolve the following situation;
Our church suffered a lightning hit which destroyed our mixer an ElectroVoice 12 channel and amplifier which were about 20 yrs old.

I have $2500 to replace the mixer and amplifier. We also want to buy some type of recorder. Our current setup has us recording to tapes and CDs. We want to drop the tapes. Recording to CD only with our current equipment is problematic as it takes too long between the time we press record and the actual recording begins. There is no way to pre-stage the CD before recording. We always miss a few words or get a short track with nothing on it.
We need a minimum of 16 channels plus stereo in(tape or CD). We would like to have 20 channels for future expansion. We also want to avoid recording directly to a PC via USB or firewire primarily because we usually have only one person in our sound booth but also because of complexity issues. So what ever we buy needs to be simple to operate since we depend on volunteers for operating ou sound equipment. I and our song leader have the most experience(and that is not a lot). We also have three others with varying amounts of experience and related expertise.

We know the amplifier that we want and the cost is about $400.00.

We are considering two different solutions
1. Purchasing a FOSTEX LR-16 which has 16 input channels and a stereo input. However if the stereo input is used it is assigned to channels 15 and 16. We really need the stereo input capability because we sometimes use split track CDs or tapes for individual solos. It has an internal 80G HD for recording, a USB port for PC hookup and a USB port to dump recorded sound to a jump drive. Complexity of operation may be a problem.

2. Purchasing a quality mixer board and some type of external recording device such as the ZOOM HD16CD or H4N.

jpleong
09-12-2009, 05:48 PM
I like option 2 the best. You can certainly find a capable board for $2300 (available money after purchasing a two-track solid state recorder).

If you're only going to ever be recording two-track (stereo) off the board, you can stick to the less expensive Zoom H2 -it does a fine job.

As far as boards go:
Soundcraft
LX7
FX16
MFX20

Yamaha
MG24/14
MG32/14

Mackie
VLZ3 1604
Onyx 24.4
Onyx 32.4

Allen & Heath
GL2400-24
ZED-428
ZED-346

One thought comes to mind... do you need to replace an amplifier, too? That'll run about $500 depending on your wattage needs.

JP

RBC42
10-05-2009, 08:57 PM
Thanks to jpleong for the advice. We decided on the A&H ZED 428, and ZOOM H4n. We have used it for about three weeks
and are really satisfied at this point. Setup was easy. It was a pretty big jump from what we had so we are still learning.

Thanks also to Ron Daniel the Sweetwater sales engineer that I dealt with. His expertise was evident as he gave me some insight on the Zoom H4n.
Delivery of the items was very prompt and every thing worked out of the box. We also bought a Samson SX1800
power amp and still stayed within our $2500.00 limit.

Thanks again for all the advice.