I am in a 7 person celtic/punk band in the Santa Cruz, Ca area who sometimes ventures to San Jose and Carmel/Monterrey. About half of the places we play have some form of a PA, but usually lousy monitors. Currently we have a small 8-channel Yamaha amp/mixer, passable mains, and 3 self powered monitors. We use this gear in our practice space and when we play venues without a PA, such as weddings etc. Our channel needs are as follows: 3-4 Vocal Mics, 1 Acoustic guitar (has DI box), 1 Mandolin (no DI box), 1 Violin (no DI box), 1 Accordion mic, 1 Banjo/Mandolin (has DI splitter), and our Bass, Electric Guitar and Drums are stage volume.
Recently a friend of mine mentioned that his band picked up a QSC Touchmix-16 and they loved using it at one of the venues that we hate playing because of the horrible house PA. They used their monitors and just ran the L/R out into channels 1 and 2 on the venue PA and ran sound from the stage. This sparked me looking at the TM16 and the Behringer XR18. I love the idea of using having multiple monitor mixes that people can control from their smart phones as we;; as well as the ability to mix from the stage or anywhere in the room. The ability to record our practices/gigs to a external HD (TM16) or a DAW (XR18) is also intriguing to me, since it would allow us to actually work on new material and to evaluate live gigs. These mixers would also allow for adding Bass, Electric Guitar and 3-4 mics on the drums for recording or larger venues. Finally, the ability to load the settings from a room we've played before looks like it would take a good chunk out of our sound check, and the presets on the TM16 look like they would make it easy for our other members to learn how to do sound.
Here are the things that have me worried about the idea of a new mixer:
Recently a friend of mine mentioned that his band picked up a QSC Touchmix-16 and they loved using it at one of the venues that we hate playing because of the horrible house PA. They used their monitors and just ran the L/R out into channels 1 and 2 on the venue PA and ran sound from the stage. This sparked me looking at the TM16 and the Behringer XR18. I love the idea of using having multiple monitor mixes that people can control from their smart phones as we;; as well as the ability to mix from the stage or anywhere in the room. The ability to record our practices/gigs to a external HD (TM16) or a DAW (XR18) is also intriguing to me, since it would allow us to actually work on new material and to evaluate live gigs. These mixers would also allow for adding Bass, Electric Guitar and 3-4 mics on the drums for recording or larger venues. Finally, the ability to load the settings from a room we've played before looks like it would take a good chunk out of our sound check, and the presets on the TM16 look like they would make it easy for our other members to learn how to do sound.
Here are the things that have me worried about the idea of a new mixer:
- While we have powered monitors, we do not have powered mains and our only amplifier is the Yamaha mixer. This means that we either have to sell stuff off to buy powered mains or buy an amp. (we could MacGyver the Yamaha to work, but lugging two mixers to a gig is self defeating)
- I am the person in the band who will be doing most of the mixing but I do not own an iPad, Android tablet, or laptop. This means that if I purchase the XR18, I will also need to pick up a tablet. (added price of $200+)
- Currently our recording options are either buy a new external HD (TM16) or record in Garageband and export to Reaper/ProTools (XR18). I hate that both mixers cannot do both things (record to HD or record to DAW)!
- In several local spots that we play multiple times a year we would be attempting to run the L/R to the venue's PA through their snake and control the mix from the stage, is this even viable? (we hate lugging extra gear to gigs if we can avoid it)
- The feedback that I have read about the TM16's gain structure (although I like they way the mixer displays clipping) and the XR18 being made by Behringer just plain scare me.
- TM16's wifi dongle being somewhat unreliable, but connecting up to 10 devices vs. XR18's wifi only handling 4 devices and probably being just as wonkey.
- That I might go overboard with trying to assign effects to our Vocals, Violins, and acoustic instruments.
