Digital vs Analog Consoles

[cmchamp]

I'm revisiting this from my earlier post 6 years ago. Wow - long lived thread.
Since then, I've worked with the Mackie TT24, the Yamaha LS9, M7CL, the Tascam DM4800 and a few Panasonic boards as well as the Mackie XBus.
Comfort level with a digital board is relative to the situation and the intuitiveness of the interface. Each interface has it's own logic flow, but I'd rather have a digital board on hand than messing with a couple of racks of outboard gear.
That said, I still prefer my outboard EFX processing for ease of adjustment, etc.
Number of buttons, pots, knobs, faders, etc. is irrelevant to me as long as there's logic in the paging, layers, banks, etc. Something the O2R missed.

[DAS]

I can handle people struggling with the mindset shift that happens in how you approach workflow differently on digital versus analog. It's just that I have a suspicion that there's a lot of opinion being offered by people who have not even worked a single gig on a recent larger-format digital desk. That's why I want to know.

If someone says "Hey, I worked a 5d on 2 shows and just never felt comfortable," that's fine. The knocks on digital desks that are being offered are age-old conjectures which smack of someone with very little seat time on any digital desk.

Agreed.

Well, to answer your question...I've worked on the Digidesign ones and the Yamahas (1 & 5), plus messed around extensively (but didn't do a show on) the DigiCo. In many respects they're kind of similar once you get past the layout and nomenclature. And they're all a big departure from analog desks, but in my assessment, now that I "get it," mostly in a good way, as I alluded to above.

[michaelhoddy]

Something the O2R missed.

Something all the first-generation Yamaha digitals and even most of the current recording boards have missed to varying degrees.

For Yamaha, which represents the lion's share of the digitals I currently work on, the 1d, 5d, M7CL and LS9 are the "easy" group, and the 01, 02, DM1k and DM2k are the "harder to use" group. I can get around any of them pretty well, but the 1d and 5d are of one mindset, the M7 and LS9 of another mindset, and all the others are variations of a third mindset with a steeper learning curve.

These days, there's a lot less usage of that third group (with the possible exception of the 01V96) as live boards though. Compared to a few years ago before the M7 and LS9 were out.

[solidwalnut]

From someone who has used both in worship settings, I have to tell you that digital has it for ease of use and scene changing ability. This is where it shines. I believe the rest of this issue is probably opinion.

For good performances from the band, it's good to be able to have different stage monitor levels from quiet to rockin' songs. It's also nice to have programmable basic effects ('verb and delay) that are also programmed right along with the scene. The ability to mute certain mics and monitors instantly is priceless. The ability to load eq curves and dynamics per channel per 'scene' is also priceless, especially when you have different players from week to week.

What can I say. I'm a control freak.

Steve