The Demise Of Live Sound (Digital Live Systems)

[mrfeedback]

After a very long hiatus, I have gotten back into live performance production work part time.
In the past week I have worked two major events, and the tasks assigned to me have allowed me to roam at will during 'show time' and take a close listen to multiple performers and multiple live audio systems.
Within the limitations/nature of the performances, I found that the all analogue mixer/outboard systems had rather better fidelity than the all digital systems.
The analogue systems comprised mostly Midas consoles and various speaker types, and the digital systems were all Digidesign consoles driving Meyer line arrays.
Two major acts using digital were Michael Buble and Iron Maiden, and with both these shows I found vocals and highs to be lacking in fidelity, and boring sound wise.
The analogue systems to my ear had more extended highs and sounded more 'real', while the all digital systems did not have that 'sparkle' that conveys feeling and emotion.
I understand the worth of digital being able to recall presets and cues, however I am not sure that digital live sound is a sonic advance.
Anybody have similar experience or views.

Eric.

[Enzo]

This is apples and oranges. We cannot determine why the sound was different without direct comparisons. If you want to compare the Midas and Digidesign consoles, then run them through the same speaker arrays and same amp and processing gear. Not only that, unless the same set of ears did the mixing, that is a major factor as well. I have mixed live sound professionally, and so has my business partner. We don;t agree on what a mix ought to sound like (GASP!) Some guys are more into piercing brightness and others like a smoother more mellow sound. WHich of course from the others ears is more like clear and defined instead of dull. One man's shrill is another man's sparkle.

[redfred]

A few years back I started using a software program and PC and running through direct into power amps. The program Sawstudio. It is a daw recording program. The GUI and outputs is identical to a 72 channel mixer with EQ compression gate 6 sends built in...sawstudio.com...and its plugins built by the designer Bob Lentini. Bob designed the first system, upon my inquiry, and I built the first computer....p4 3.2 ghz 1 gig ram sata hd...rme hdsp9652 card and a couple of behringer ada8000 converters direct into amps to speakers. I ran 16 tracks of sound on the first gig with 4 monitor sends and recorded at the same time without a glitch or a hitch....now it is beginning to flower.

Mr. Lentini has developed a system called SAC which is exclusively a dedicated software for mixing only...of course it can be coupled with sawstudio and recorded at the same time.....i cannot recall but i believe it has 24 monitor mixes also and most sound men use the same configuration with rme and behringer and several use wireless modems and control the FOH by laptop it is a real nice clean unit and amazing in sound quality. Everything can be saved at the push of a button Save etc. Pretty Easy to use and looks good and gives the common man a chance to have a top notch system without laying out thousands of bucks. When compared to analog, the sound quality is hardly distinquishable...sounds warm. check it out....Welcome to RML Labs - The Makers of SAWStudio and that will lead you to sac too. Sawstudio is 4.5mb. Now think about that and then check out what this monster does.