PT Rig and Analog / Digital Boards for Monitoring

[AVGuru1]

Greetings all!

Building another smaller PT rig, and I am running out of a 96 I/O. I am planning on running to a board, and then out to the mains, but I'm concerned about the gain structure. I have an old board that in order for PT to work with, the gain has to be turned down all the way or the volume blows the room away. (Main outs to 2 powered speakers) I was going to go with a Mackie 1402 VLZ, because I can understand it can handle +4 and still have some play. However, a friend is recommending the newer Mackie Onyx boards.

Thoughts?

[hoodbro1]

AVGuru1 ,
Couldn't you calibrate the nominal operating level of you 96 IO ? As I recall the 192 has two sets of IO levels on trimpots, as well as +4/-10 in the PT setup dialogue ?
That would be cheaper and quicker then installing a new board.
If you'd call a Mackie that ...

rezpekt,

[Third Eye Studios]

Wow, that was a little out of character.

[AVGuru1]

Well, the board has seen better days, and has sub-par mic pre's, along with a bunch of other issues I'd rather not deal with.

I believe the 96 can switch between -10 and +4, I'll ahve to check that out next time I'm in front of it.

Thanks for the input!

[jeffwuollet]

What kind of board is it?

If it's a studio console, doesn't it have Subgroup returns and a monitor section? You can put the Stereo or bus outs from the 96 into the SG returns and use it as your house and headphone monitor section.

[AVGuru1]

Its definielty not a studio console, it's an older PA board...an ancient Peavey RQ 3019 (I believe) that I absolutely loathe, hence looking for a new one. I'm thinking the 1402 will be sufficient, as I only need 3 mixes (control room for all, one for the talent, and one for the remote room).

[jeffwuollet]

Sounds good. If you get a chance, check out the onyx boards. I don't really like to plug mackie stuff, but it's worth looking at. I honestly would NOT use any channel section for monitoring.

What you need are two headphone amps(Or at least one with Direct ins) and just run the mains into 96 #1/2o directly(unless you want to spend a dime or two on a passive summing amp) and just mix the monitor mixes in PT and save them as templates for later sessions(That's what I do on location).

So:

96out 1/2--------Main Monitors
96 out 3/4---------Headphone amp 1
96 out 5/6-------------Headphone amp2

As far as Pre's go, if you're on a budget, check out Behringer's 8 channel preamps. I hate Behringer, but if I were on a budget and ABSOLUTELY needed preamps, I wouldn't have another choice.

If you buss your inputs, you'll need a mixer, but there aren't any cheap 16, 24, 32, 40 buss consoles available anymore(Now it's just Mackie and SoundCRAPT), but if you just need direct ins to your interface, a rackmount preamp is your best bet.

[hoodbro1]

Wow, that was a little out of character.

haha..what was that suppose to mean ?