6 Advantages of a Big Live Sound Console

There is a strange thing that happens when technology and capitalism work together to push down prices on really great gear. Sometimes the middle just disappears. When consoles like the PreSonus StudioLive Series III and the Midas M32 can do so much for less than $4,000, it is hard to understand why you would pay $6,000, $10,000, or more for a mixer, so the market offers fewer consoles in those upper price ranges.
Features that were previously the domain of million dollar mixing consoles are now common currency because of the wholesale move to digital audio. The decision really comes down to, what do you get by investing more in a console, and is it really worth it? As usual with this kind of question, the answer is “it depends.” Here’s a list of the advantages and enhanced options found in a major live console.
Rough and Ready
If you have ever had to move a big console, one thought has no doubt occurred to you. These things are heavy! This means they get jarred and dropped, so touring consoles have been built to take the abuse. While you may or may not need to move your console around, it represents a sizable investment and is typically a long-term purchase. The more expensive consoles are built to survive abuse and are designed to be easier to repair. Plus, saying your console is made of aircraft-grade aluminum and polycarbonate just makes you sound cool.
Clean and Clear

High-end consoles integrate top-quality converters throughout their paths, as well as high headroom components and redundant power supplies, because in high-profile touring and install situations, failure isn’t an option. This allows them to mix massive numbers of channels and maintain the punch, clarity, and depth that big applications require. It also means that even if a power supply dies, the show will go on!
Under the Hood
If you are looking for a new form of transportation, you compare different things depending on your goals. If you are going to tow a trailer, horsepower is the important thing. Maybe you are concerned with gas mileage if you are a long-distance traveler. Bigger consoles have more in common with towing vehicles, and that is why being aware of their mixing engine makes so much difference.
A console like the DiGiCo S21 is more money than mid-line consoles and comes out of the box with fewer inputs and outputs, but appearances can be deceiving. These larger consoles feature scalable architecture, which allows you to implement massive additional I/O. Want to add 64 channels of MADI and 64 channels of DANTE simultaneously? No problem. Also the mixing channels on a DiGiCo can individually be set to mono or stereo for inputs and outputs, making them astoundingly expandable.
Output scaling is an even bigger deal, as it is indicative of much more DSP horsepower under the hood. Most mid-priced mixers have a fixed number of output buses, even if you add stage boxes to the rig. This means 16 outputs get used up very quickly if those outputs have to feed your speakers, your subs, internal effects sends, and building mixes for IEM systems. On a system like the Allen & Heath dLive, you can expand up to 848 inputs and outputs, which means you’ll be hard-pressed to run out of channels. Those I/O channels can be spread throughout a facility via Cat 5e cables, so those connections are also right where you need them. This kind of expansion requires a much more substantial mix engine to start with.

Figure 1: How many inputs and outputs do you need?

Flexibility
The larger-scale consoles all support 96kHz operation without a reduction in channel count or processing. Most of the midrange live sound consoles don’t allow you to increase the sampling rate beyond 48kHz. That higher sampling rate results in improved transient response, which makes drums pop and guitars soar.
Delay (or latency) management is a feature that we have come to expect in recording interfaces and DAWs but one that you may not have considered in consoles. Trust me, the system tech has put lots of thought into this as he sits behind a front of house console and looks at the PA system.
At about 1.13 milliseconds of delay per foot, those subs at the back of the stage are almost 25 milliseconds later than the subs in the air with the PA. The FOH mixer is looking at the analog compressor that the rider says has to be on the lead vocalist’s channel and doing the math on how much the lead vocal channel is later than everything else. This is the kind of headache that you don’t want to have to deal with, but getting it right can make big improvements in the quality of the sound your audience hears.
Adjusting for these kinds of things requires delay on both the input and output sides of the console and sophisticated tools to make sure everything is aligned. A console like the Midas Pro2C integrates delay management at a very high level. This can really make the difference on how a big PA sounds when you have to set it up different ways depending on the venue and crowd size.
Operability
This is where we move from the brute force and power of the big consoles to the subtlety of their tools.
Big touchscreens have a lot of wow factor. They also have to be durable, look great in any lighting condition, and work every time if they are going to replace physical controls. This dependability is not cheap, and it is not a place to skimp on costs, which is why you see big touchscreens on flagship consoles like the Yamaha CL5 series and other major consoles. The only thing better than one big touchscreen is two — or three, like on the DiGiCo S31.

Figure 2: How many touchscreens can one console have? Three, if it’s the DiGiCo S31.

Most people who mix for a living don’t spend much time changing the positions of the input faders on a big console. They have their own approach using DCAs (Digitally Controlled Amplifiers) to allow them to have their hands on exactly what they want in front of them. As an example, they might have a bank of faders up where number one is the lead vocal, number two is controlling all the drums, and three and four are bass and guitars, with additional faders controlling effects, main outputs, and sub outputs. They probably have a channel focused on one of the touchscreens so they can make quick tweaks if they need to and have the outputs and processing on a second screen.
Because they all have slightly different approaches, being able to set up your rig offline is a critical capability of high-end consoles. An engineer shows up at a gig with a thumb drive with his files on it — that allows him to configure the mixer, including routing, mix buses, effects, and special tricks that he likes to apply. Avid pioneered this application with their Venue consoles that were the forerunner to the massive S6L.
It is important to understand that the engineer didn’t need to know exactly which range of console would be available to mix on, as these files are typically portable across all manufacturer products. Most of the FOH engineers I know have their preferred rig setups for all consoles in their pocket all the time. They can literally walk up, plug in, and start mixing.

Figure 3: Yamaha’s CL Control allows you to set up the console no matter where you are.

Theater applications also call for more sophisticated scene recall, which larger-scale consoles tend to do a better job implementing. Being able to recall every setting on a console at the touch of a button is a powerful feature, until you accidentally mute the lead performer during a scene in a theatrical play. That can be a career-ending slip of the finger. These more sophisticated scene controls allow you to exclude channels or functions from recall so you can’t accidentally override them. You can also make edits to multiple scenes at once, so if a vocalist gets a new mic that requires an equalization tweak, you can apply it to all the scenes that feature that vocalist.
In a festival situation, there must ALWAYS be a live channel for emergency announcements by law. You don’t want to have that mistake on your conscience or a fine come out of your bank account if that channel gets muted through the mixer. Power is your friend, and safety always comes first. Being able to lock that channel could literally save a life.
Plug-ins
Finally, the big consoles are better at implementing plug-ins than their lower-priced cousins.
Avid brought this capability to the market with the promise of taking your Pro Tools session on the road and running the same plug-ins you do in the studio.
Both Waves and Universal Audio have ways to add their plug-ins to live consoles. These require SoundGrid expansion cards or a MADI interface, respectively, which are much more common on large consoles.

Figure 4: The UA Realtime rack software.

All mixers do essentially the same things, but so do all cars. I wouldn’t tow a boat with a Nissan Leaf, but that doesn’t mean it is not a great car. Looking at your application and your needs will dictate what kind of console makes sense for your application.

If you are getting ready to prep for a tour or are considering an upgrade to a flagship mixer, give your Sweetwater Sales Engineer a call at (800) 222-4700 so they can walk you through the best options for your application.
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