Real World: Defining Factors Of Consoles
A “heretic” talks about the process of selection and why some are hot while others are not
By
Chris Kathman
Some of us may not like to admit it, but if we are truthful, we know
that how we perceive a given console is a mixture, only part of which
is an objective assessment. This is always blended with our instinctive
reaction to the desk and unavoidably colored by our personal prejudices
from past experiences with a given manufacturer’s products.
What makes a mixing board attractive to us when we first walk up on it?
Looks are part of the whole thing. We want comfortable ergonomics, not
a giant plateau that seems designed for an operator as tall as a pro basketball
player. Maybe we take one look at the knobs and wonder if the guy who
designed it was color-blind, or whether, just once in his whole life,
he had ever really mixed a show in a dark hall with just a few Littlites
to help see which aux is which.
Another painful truth is that if a console really sounds good, we can
forgive some stupid features. Not to name any names, but everyone probably
has their own personal shortlist of them, right? And what about love
the irrational human impulse that can even operate in the realm of gear
made of metal and plastic and electrons.
I remember the sentimental attachment I had to an old Soundcraft 500B
that I mixed many shows on in San Francisco. It may have been an old warhorse,
but I felt like it was my old warhorse. Karrie Keyes, to the best of my
knowledge, still carries around two Ramsa modules in a flight case that
looks like it’s made for pool cues or fishing poles, because that’s the
tone that Eddie Vedder likes. His vocal and spare are run through that
before it hits whatever other monitor board Karrie is using.
Brand loyalty who feels any these days? Is everyone ready to jump ship
if a new “mousetrap” suddenly comes on the market? We have seen companies
wobble on the cusp of ruin but somehow dig in their heels and fight their
way back. There have been designs that the community greeted with a crushing
lack of response, resulting in designers wondering why we didn’t take
to their brainchild. The other side of the coin is the designs that brought
superior fidelity for a price that did not break the bank, and suddenly
you saw them everywhere you went.
I am a heretic. Sometimes I’ll be driving in my car, messing with the
bass and treble adjustments on the stereo, and I’ll think to myself
you know, if someone really applied themselves and made these so that
they warped stuff just right, I could probably solve most of my EQ problems
at a show with just two knobs like this. If somebody would make me a console
that had them oh, and include a high-pass filter!
Four bands of parametric EQ is a wonderful thing to have, but when you
glance at someone’s channel strip and every band is radically hacked,
something is wrong with the picture as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes
people need to look past the console, no matter how nice it is, and check
out how the system is tuned or maybe think about switching out a microphone.
I believe and sorry if this sounds insulting
I could stand behind a mix position that had pipe and drape around it
so that people walking into the room would not be able to see the console,
and cheerfully mix a demonstration event that the attendees were told
featured the latest super-duper whiz-bang possibly-digital definitely-big-bucks
desk. And I think 80 to 90 percent of the people would nod knowingly,
and ask questions and never guess that I was really using a much lower
priced, clean, reasonably modern console that bore no relation to what
they thought they were hearing.
I would be scared of guys like Don Pearson, or Dave Lawler. But, my honest
opinion is that the great majority of working audio folk and I include
myself in this group would never in a million years want to risk a serious
wager on the nature of what was truly behind that curtain.
The phrase “rider-friendly” when was that coined, exactly? I loved the
old Clair clamshell console when I mixed on it. Before that thing was
invented, what else existed? What did the riders of that time say
“No Bogen?”
In the last 10 years, I think there is only one time that I have run into
a sound company whose owners actually stepped out on a limb and put their
money where their ears were, and did not take the far easier “rider-friendly”
road. All the rest either buy what they know is going to be rent-able,
or and this is far more often the case what they can afford.
May 2003 Live Sound International