Our station are about to have ~£3500 (~€4000) to spend on a main broadcast desk.
We are all-analogue, and need a MODULAR desk with
4 × mono mic in
6 × stereo in (at least two of which should be dual input)
1 × Telco
… plus the usual frame, PSU, output module, and at least VU meters (PPMs unaffordable, sadly :().
I can’t seem to find anything within our price range; does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
I’ve already looked at Sonifex S2 and Soundcraft RM15 and they’re close, but just too expensive.
Oh, I just read that you want a MODULAR unit… Forget my posting…
What about Dateq? With an additional Mike Mixer attached. That would be my preference if analogue.
Price should fit.
I’m lucky that we could found another one of our Stanford 751 mixer. It just fits our needs.
For the Mikes we use one additional Behringer RX1201FX Rackmixer.
I know, that one’s not the best, but we too have to stay within our budget.
Otherwise I would have a look at the D&R Airmate. That one has at least a Telco incorporated an stays within budget too.
That amount would get you a reasonable mixer (modular becomes difficult) over here in the US, however the workflow tends to be different, Mic on/off on a button as opposed to a fader microswitch, no such thing as PGC, and PFL is called Cue. I still prefer the British way to radio studio boards…
However, it won’t offer all you need, but I’m hearing good vibes about the Allen & Heath XB14 boards, but not modular and only 4 Stereo ins.
www.bswusa.com shows their consoles (as we call 'em over here).
Thanks to all for the suggestions: pretty much confirms what I thought, that there ISN’T a modular mixer available in that price range.
Not sure what you mean by PGC? If it’s ‘auto-duck everything else below the mike,’ then I’m allergic to that anyway!
I agree that the A&H XB14 looks spiffy (though not quite enough inputs for us), as does the D&B Airmate USB (ditto, not enough channels).
The problem is that when we started off, we had a loaned Soundcraft modular desk. We then ‘acquired’ two aged modular Clyde Presenter 2 desks, from which we found enough working channels to make one decent desk; but now even more channels are dying.
So, attempting to convince everyone else that a non-modular desk WOULD be perfectly all right is a VERY difficult (impossible?) battle. Unfortunate, because non-modular IS actually all we can afford. >sigh<
PGC - Pre-Gain Control (a term I haven’t really used for a long time). UK desks frequently have the Pre-Gain at the top of the channel, whereas you’ll never ever see that on US desks! Move the fader where you need to, or just bend them needles and let the processing take care of it >:(
Hi Cad, you guessed right. Not much for new in the UK within your stated budget. Though take a look at Broadcast Warehouse as they import mixers from the US and Spain.
Also try Sonifex direct for any ex demo models (you take pot luck). EditSonifex also sell the S1 but this is non modular.Edit
Finally Nick Beer at West Country Broadcast can normally offer some of the best rates on new mixers and also find reasonable condition used models (services them too if asked).
PGC … right, so that’s the little GAIN pot at the top of most channel strips: right! Too complex for Americans, right enough [FX: ducks for cover]. ;D
I will check our the options Tony suggested (hadn’t considered either of those, thanks!), but meantime …
Have any of you used Axel Technology kit? I think I could configure an Oxygen 4 to JUST fit within budget, but despite being arguably the ugliest console ever built, and sporting four ‘aren’t-those-only-for-RECORDING-mixers?’ even more spectacularly ugly VU meters (UGH!), my main concern is it’s built in Italy. Not a nation I’d normally associate with quality audio kit [FX: ducks for cover—again!], but is that just my personal prejudice?
I’d especially like to know if it is likely to fall to bits in no time flat. It just has that sort of ‘nasty’ look to it. :-\
Thanks for the ideas, Serge, but Ecler seem only to make ‘club DJing’ type mixers, and Sonosax seem WAY too expensive for us and nor do they seem to have Telco channels available on their modular kit.
Thanks Rojan, but the only UK link I could find for Dateq puts them WAY outside our budget. The Entry configuration is over €4k, doesn’t have all the channels we want, and includes a telephone hybrid which we DON’T want (we’ve already got one!), and it has horrible analogue VU meters (or: worse than useless meters).
After further digging, I think we’ll go with a Soundcraft RM100 if I can persuade TPTB at our station. A suitable config. for that DOES fit within our budget (and I’m baffled as to why I hand’t spotted it before, being a fan of Soundcraft—and Sonifex for that matter).
Thanks, Tony! I meant an RM105 (RM100 was a typo).
We used a TV-production-style Soundcraft mixer (the B100) for our first few RSLs, and it was a gem.
But the owner needed it back some years ago, for spares, because it’s now obsolete.
So HOPEFULLY, that’s that. Thanks to all for your help and ideas on this.
May I suggest the D&R Airlab? I’ve used them on a number of occasions and have been very please with the features and performance. You can get them from Preco here in the UK (speak to Sarah if you ring up). We have used D&R’s Airmate (their baby console) in both our studios for around 3 years now and are very happy with them. They’ll do custom config too!
Chris, but thanks for the idea, but an Airlab configured as we would need it would be outwith our budget.
Also, we prefer mixers with as few controls as possible. Our lot are inveterate ‘tweakers’ so channels WITHOUT EQ are preferable, NO master output faders ditto, and so on.
We have so called ‘tweakers’ here too! They’re get out of the habit eventually (usually when they edit the show and realise it sounds poor). Shame we couldn’t afford anything more than the Airmate really!
Tweakers (or as I call some of them, Phantom Tweakers) are an unfortunate part and parcel of this twilight world we habit. Every TV and Radio station I have ever worked in has always succumbed to those weird moments. TV automation can get really complex and about 80% of the incidents I need to investigate always come down to someone changing a parameter somewhere. Dominoes then will fall… :
Short of applying a non-lethal current :o to every control they should NOT touch, I’ve never found a way to ‘cure’ them. (And no, I didn’t REALLY do that. But I WAS tempted …)
We have no pre-recorded shows, so they never take any notice, unless they do something totally stupid like pull down the master output fader (yes, REALLY).
Our worst offender was a presenter and sometime wedding/functions DJ who insisted on playing all his music out from his laptop copy of SAM ‘because I know it better’ and with all the SAM processing still switched on. When that went through our post-mixer hardware Behringer processor, you can presumably imagine how terrible it sounded. I literally couldn’t listen to his show because all the music ended up so heavily compressed that it was literally painful to listen to.
Oh dear! We have a ‘no laptops’ policy, partly because of the ground loop noise they cause. Our machines and mAirList work with pen drives quite happily, so if they must bring their own stuff in they can use that method.
Our output never used to sound that good (lack of money at startup, mono link and no proper audio processor) which made everything a bit worse than it should! All sorted now though, digital link, new processor and enthusiastic volunteers in the main!
A bit off-topic, but I’ve triialled the Claesson Edwards software broadcast processor, Breakaway (http://www.claessonedwards.com) and I was VERY impressed by it.
$200 for the standard version, or $300 for the ASIO version, which offers an impressive 17mS latency. You can bundle these with their Breakaway Live processor to drive the studio monitors, and for once hear what the listener will hear, for a total of $299 or ($342 for the ASIO version).
Certainly one hell of a lot cheaper than hardware alternatives, assuming of course that you have a spare ‘old’ PC available to dedicate to it.
Move the fader where you need to, or just bend them needles and let the processing take care of it >:(