A lot of commentary I have heard is that many modern consoles do not have the warmth or fidelity that classic analog circuitry consoles do have. Yeah, many of these consoles are digital and the flexibility in the digital realm is hard to argue for the money invested. But are there tricks and techniques that we can employ to warm up these cold sounding consoles? One popular console today is the Yamaha LS9-32, and it earns its popularity via its size and retail price. For about $6,000 you get a complete digital console with 32 channel faders that double as graphic equalizer faders besides the usual one per channel input fader. Given the price and the feature set, there is a lot going for this console for the money. Each channel is truly digital, but with an analog preamp at the console before being digitized for further signal processing.
Warming Up
You could add fancy pre-amplifiers, and all kinds of outboard processing; but consider just judiciously backing down the pass bands on instrument channels. You do not have to have 20Hz to 20kHz of bandwidth everywhere. Selectively narrowing up various bandwidths will warm up the whole mix and let the vocals enjoy the wide bandwidth that they need. Most hard rock electric guitars barely require more than 5 kHz. So when dialing in a mix, you can start wide open but narrow up on things that do not require the bandwidth.
Preservation of tone is more than opening up bandwidth on every digital input. Sometimes carving out a bandwidth for certain instrument sources is more than leaving things wide open. The noise bandwidth above 5 kHz is unnecessary for many instruments, and in modern rock a waste of bandwidth. Yeah, you can start narrow and widen things out as well. Try both versions and find out what works best.
Why Noise Up
Yeah, having all that bandwidth is beauteous, but at some point you will need to filter back some of that noise floor for listenability’s sake. Granted, 5 kHz is a pretty severe bandwidth limitation for many sources, but why not try a 10 kHz bandwidth on guitars and vocals, and let the cymbals and other specialty percussion play with the 10 kHz and above bandwidth.
Look at all your input sources and determine which ones really need full digital bandwidth, and which ones can be dialed back a bit. Even a full fidelity bass guitar can get by with an 8 kHz bandwidth. And it is even more important to narrow up on bandwidth in live sound than when recording. Start wide and narrow up is as good as going the other way at narrow and widen out. Just make sure you do both, and test the choices before making a selection. Test each channel to see what you are missing before missing it.
Elegant Defense
You can always amplify everything, but whether it is digital or analog, choose the noise floor battles as soon as possible before committing to amplifying a bunch of high frequency noise floors. This goes as well on the low end as well, as cymbal mics do not need an 80 Hz low end bandwidth. Choose your battles and fight them at sound check before the show. Unfortunately digital consoles give you everything and you can get in trouble, like a big brain and small stomach at a buffet. Start small or big, but always test both strategies before committing to one solution.
Check you bandwidths, and select the correct bandwidth for the application. Everything is on the table, and leaving some things on the other side of the filter is not a bad choice.
