Live sound guys: Powered vs non powered - Digital vs analogue

[pikachu69]

Hey Guys,

I am currently building a PA for a band I have been promoted to FOH engineer for. This PA is to be used for the national pub/small club tour, up to 500 - 600 people max. Anything bigger a different system will be used.
Because setup time and space in the truck in limited i was wondering about moving to a fully powered FOH as apossed to the seperate bins/amps I have always run. I don't have alot of experience on a fully powered system so I wondered if you had any thoughts-stories-experiences that may help my decision.
I have been looking at the JBL VP series (supposed to be their top of the line stuff)
http://www2.jblpro.com/catalog/General/ProductFamily.aspx?FId=16&MId=4

VP7215/95DP x 4 FOH tops
VPSB7118DP x 4 FOH Subs
VP7212MDP x 8 Monitors

and a PRX618s as the drum fill sub.

This gives me over 12K in the FOH which should be pleanty but I wonder how clean these systems are. Any one used one?

Also Digital FOH of old school analogue?
I have the chose of a Spirit GB8 - 32 with a full rack including SSL G comp on FOH
OR Yamaha LS9 with the possibility of using Waves live plugins?

I have used both (minus the waves live bit) but benifits/drawbacks?
Discuss?

any help would be great thanks.

 

[arv_foh]

I'd get more subs. 500-600 people those rooms will be pretty big. 8x 18" would suit you much better.

I'm not really a fan of the LS9, I like the M7 much better. If it were me I'd take the Soundcraft desk if you couldn't upgrade to an M7.

 

[egan.]

I'd be a little concerned about touring powered speakers b/c those class D amps can be sensitive about power and have a propensity to overheat when run hard in hot environments. Obviously that varies box to box and I have no direct experience with the JBL's you listed so be sure to search prosoundweb etc. for opinions.
I actually quite like the LS9 in situations where I'm repeating the same set up. It's a bitch to build the settings as so much control is buried in the menu but once you have it programmed it's great. The M7 is certainly a better board and easier to step to and mix but it obviously costs significantly more money.
Assuming the M7 is out, the benefit of the spirit is a knob for every function so quicker "improv" and generally an easier user experience. The benefits of the LS9 are total recall, 2 x dynamics per channel, 8 x 32 graphics and 4 stereo fx channels.

 

[pikachu69]

I'd get more subs. 500-600 people those rooms will be pretty big. 8x 18" would suit you much better.

I'm not really a fan of the LS9, I like the M7 much better. If it were me I'd take the Soundcraft desk if you couldn't upgrade to an M7.

I was wondering about the subs not being enough. I penciled in 8 in the plan originally but the price gets up there a bit. With 4 I will get round 8k in the subs though... I will keep on looking thanks for this info.

I actually quite like the LS9 in situations where I'm repeating the same set up. It's a bitch to build the settings as so much control is buried in the menu but once you have it programmed it's great. The M7 is a certainly a better board and easier to step to and mix but it obviously costs significantly more money.
Assuming the M7 is out, the benefit of the spirit is a knob for every function so quicker "improv" and generally an easier user experience. The benefit of the LS9 are total recall, 2 x dynamics per channel, 8 x 32 graphics and 4 stereo fx channels.

Yeah as I am mixing the same band every night but have to mix different opening acts each night I thought the recall on the LS9 would be a great time saver but I love the feel of using the GB8. Hmm what to do...


Any more thoughts please let me know, esspecially concerning the powered vs non powered thing, that is my main comcern.

 

[ThatGuitarGuy]

I would check out the QSC K series speakers. We use the K8's here at my university for small shows with 300-400 people at it and I'm continually blown away at how good they sound for being so small. They have a lot of great features as well. I have no experience with their subwoofers because we pull some crappy mackies or our nice D&B subs if they aren't being used for other events.

The M7 is a nice, easy to figure out/navigate digital board that we use as well as our basic/standard digital board. We use the Digico SD9 for the bigger events.

So in short, check out the QSC K series, probably a K10 or a K12. The K12 would probably be a good route so you have headroom and what not and their KSub. K12s = $750-800 each. KSub = $1,050 each. The cost of those monitors you picked out are expensive enough that I wonder if you've considered IEM?

If you do it right you can have enough to get an M7 for about $22k.

What's your budget?

 

[pikachu69]

Budget is around $100,000 NZ dollars and this has to get the entire rig, desk, full rack, speakers, amps, mics, leads, DI's. Everything but lights. It is proving hard to do for that but I am getting close.

Any one used a Spirit SI compact 32 channel digital board?
What about Digidesign VENUE? I have only heard bad things so far.

 

[ThatGuitarGuy]

I know this will seem crazy, maybe because I'm still in shock...but look at the Digico SD11. Its probably around $16k, and it fits into a 19inch rack case. It's flipping powerful and you can expand it to over 32 channels with their snake (uses an ethernet cable). Stock it has 16 mic inputs. Multi layer faders...etc. Even has the ability to record into a DAW. Just give it a look.

 

[kvoid]

I hate the LS9. The thing is a nightmare to edit settings on thanks to the tiny screen. It does sound decent and is pretty stable. Don't know nothing about the Digidesigns. If you can afford it, I'd suggest something by Digico. Nice desks, all of 'em. The company I work at has a NO HARMAN policy, so I can't tell you anything about Soundcraft, Crown or JBL. In general, as someone else said, try to steer clear of powered solutions. You can get by with powered monitors perhaps but in general I would not recommend a powered PA (unless it was a Meyer).

Probably out of your budget, but I'd try and get a nice EAW point-sorce rig. The bitch will be powering these though.

Analog desks are much easier to operate, but have a lot less flexibility, and with a decent digital desk you will not need outboard.

If only the Behringer Aviom knockoff was out you could go all out IEM and save a bunch of money and redirect it to desk/pa. I've seen people do some cool stuff with a cheap analog mixer and a couple shure wireless transceivers/headphones though. Aviom as it stands is pretty expensive.

 

[arvoitus]

Budget is around $100,000 NZ dollars and this has to get the entire rig, desk, full rack, speakers, amps, mics, leads, DI's. Everything but lights. It is proving hard to do for that but I am getting close.

Maybe a stupid question, but do you need a multicable system as wel?

 

[Charlie E.]

I like the LS9. It has a lot of features packed into a small mixer and it is quite versatile.
If space and portability is an issue then it has a clear advantage over many other mixers.
However, I have used 2 LS9's and both have issues after a lot of use. In one venue 2 of the faders often get stuck when moving from page to page. This can be quite frustrating. In the other venue the jog wheel behaves a little erratically. When trying to scroll down to a certain scene for example all of a sudden it'll jump back up.
I don't know how much it costs to fix an LS9 but I imagine it could be quite substantial.
These may sound like minor things but I imagine that if you go on tour you will want to have as few annoyances as possible.
Also don't forget that you can control it with a laptop, tablet, iPad etc wirelessly. That's definitely a pretty cool feature.