A few weeks ago, I mixed a show on an analog console for the first time in months. No, I’m not going into a riff on “boo-hoo-hoo, analog gear sounds soooo much better than digital gear” — though the desk (a well-maintained Midas XL200) did sound very good.
Ah… The Things I Don’t Miss
Getting ready for sound check, I remembered all of the things that I don’t miss about using an analog desk. At this particular venue, the house crew was very nice, but not very helpful. To get things done in a timely fashion I asked the house engineer if I could make myself at home and patch in the outboard gear on my own. My brain practically froze because it had been so long since I had to do this. As I looked at the rear panel of the XL200, I had to dust off some long-unused brain cells. Ah, yes… the XL200 has separate TRS jacks for the insert sends and returns (balanced, thank you very much), and based off what was still patched in from the previous show, I was able to guess which line of the pairs going to each piece of outboard was the input or the output.
Patchbay Spelunking
The lighting in the venue was really poor, so I was barely able to read the rear panel markings and the labels on the wiring. The outboard rack had tons of patchable comps and gates as well as a nice assortment of effects (even if they were “kinda” old. I still love the Yamaha SPX990. They really should do a plug-in version!) As I started a line check with my crew, I ran into issues with the compressors, some of which were not working. Many of the comps were dbx 166 dual-channel comp/gates; setting the Wayback Machine, I remembered how I’d always think that the input and output connectors were fully plugged in to the rear jacks of those units — but weren’t. You always had to push pretty hard past that first “stop” to get the connectors all the way in. So, flashlight in mouth I moved the outboard racks, checked and double-checked that the connectors were all the way in (most of them were). I double-checked the INS switch on each of the XL200’s input channels to make sure the inserts were engaged, but still some of the comps didn’t work.
“No worries,” I thought. “There are plenty of comps in the rack.” So I moved on to the next one, then the next, and then the next one. Ultimately, I was never able to get a working comp on one of my vocal channels, which was a bit of a drag. That’s an issue that simply doesn’t exist when using a digital console.
Manners Manner
The other issue that sandbagged me was that the XL200 had not been “normalled” by the previous user. I think of this akin to putting the toilet seat down for your spouse: It’s a small gesture of respect that only takes a few seconds. Granted, normalling an analog desk with 40 inputs is more of a chore, but it’s the right thing to do. (Years ago, I’d joke with my students that I’d charge them a dollar per knob that they missed when normalling an MCI JH-636 console). Returning the EQs to zero was easy enough, and, of course there are bypass switches to simply take them out of circuit. As I turned the knobs to “zero,” I noticed the same mid-HF boost on almost every channel, indicating that the previous engineer probably had a serious notch in their hearing somewhere in the vicinity of 3 kHz.
The aux sends were another story. The previous show was run with monitor mixes from the FOH console, and some of those sends were now routing channels to reverb or a subwoofer send. Easy enough to turn all of those off, but zero-ing aux send (and return) settings on a digital console is simply not something we have to think about anymore.
The Digital Experience
Contrast that show with a recent experience mixing on a DiGiCo SD10. The SD10 had been a bit of a mystery to me simply because I don’t use it that often, and obviously I’m more familiar with consoles that I use more frequently. I have scenes that I’ve built on the SD10 from past shows, so I’ve been able to fumble my way, slowly becoming more adept at using it.
Somehow on this particular night, the SD10 became my friend. Maybe it was alignment of the stars, or maybe I went past the point of having worked on it for “X” number of hours, but I felt like I was getting around the desk with less effort, using custom layers to see what I needed at any moment and pushing less buttons to navigate. Thinking less and mixing more.
That’s a big part of the challenge of a digital desk. When you’re mixing on a new console for the first time, you’re learning a new operating system — and every manufacturer thinks their OS is best. Approaching an analog desk for the first time, the question might be, “Where is the VCA assignment?” Now the question is “What page of which menu will allow me to access the VCA settings?” Some manufacturers make this easier to find than others and some engineers warm up to certain desks more easily than others. The good news is that you can save all of your work, which removes the tedium of setting compressors, gates or EQs every time you start a sound check.
That’s the beauty of working in the digital domain: Even if someone “zeroes” the console, you can load a file and resume exactly where you left off the last time you used the same desk (or even one of its relatives). Just don’t forget to back up your files.
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is the tour manager and front of house engineer for Blue Öyster Cult.
