GL2200 vs. Crest X4

[JDD]

For several weeks now, I've been looking at buying a A&H GL2200 24-channel board. However, as I got thinking about my application (house of worship) more, I relized that I need to be able to send sound to the sub groups independant of the pan. For instance, I may need to send one channel to groups L, 1, 4 and another channel to groups L, R, 2, 3, 4. To make a long story short, I'm now looking at the Crest X4-24 channel board. Does anybody have any experience with Crest boards, either positive or negative? Any thoughts on the GL2200 vs. the X4? Thank you very much.

Jeff DeHeer

[Ted]

Anyone? I don't have much experience with larger-format live consoles, only studio. Hopefully someone out there can help...

-Ted

[michaelhoddy]

I have not used that particular Crest board, so I can't comment there. I have used the GL2200 for several installations my company has done in houses of worship, and it's been the best-sounding and most flexible board in that category and price range. I actually like it better than many boards which are similar in features but more expensive. The EQ is quite usable and musical for the price, much more than the competing Mackies and lower line Soundcraft/Spirit boards.

Why the need for such specific sub grouping, out of curiousity?

[JDD]

The specific sub-grouping is necessary because of the different "zones" we need to send sound to. For instance, we run the sanctuary in mono, but we also have zones in the narthex, nurseries, choir monitors, tape recording, video cameras, etc. We are using the 6 aux-sends to send sound to our DIGI-001, so those are all spoken for. The situation is further complicated by the fact that we have a mic in the narthex, since the choir sometimes sings an introit or closing amen from there. That particular mic is not used for amplification, just for recording, so we don't want it to go to 75% of the sub-groups. Because of the unique useage of aux-sends and sub-groups, a standard L-R, 1-2, 3-4 selection would not suffice. There are certain channels that need to go to L, R, 1, 3, 4 and others that need to go to R, 2, 3, 4 and so on. Because of this, we needed to buy a board that would allow us the flexibility that we needed. Granted, I think the X4 is overkill for what we need, but I could find no other console that would satisfy our requirements.

I hope this helps clear it up a little. ;)

Jeff DeHeer