Hello
We’ve been using an iLive system at our church for a while now. We’ve been using 7 wireless IEM’s for the band and lead vocalist. It’s worked fairly well, but we are looking at upgrading to system that is a. wired, and b. allows the user to make adjustments. As far as specifics we have a T112 console and the idr48 mixrack with a Dante card in the option slot. We use the Dante card to multi track record. We use around 25 channels for all the instruments and vocalists, but I want to add a few things and room mics. So probably 30-35 channels eventually.
So far I’ve looked at a couple of ways of doing this. One is to get a Behringer X32 rack with a dante card. Pipe the channels into it and use their personal mix boxes for those that want a wired connection. Which is most of the band. And use their app to let the people still on wireless create their own mixes. This is probably the most cost effective solution, and would be quite flexible. We could process the channels separately from the mains.
Then there is AVIOM. I could do a similar set up with their D800 Dante box and their A360 mixers. One of the nice things with their rig is those on wireless could still use the mixers through the mixback function. We get one of their output boxes and hook the IEM’s up to it. As far as I can tell though, this option doesn’t allow any extra processing over what Dante sends out, other than global EQ. Not the end of the world, but maybe I’m wrong? Also it seems as even though you have 64 inputs, you don’t necessarily use them all. Each user selects the 16 they want?
Lastly is A&H’s ME-U system. I really like this from the videos I’ve seen. You get 40 inputs. You can group them as needed. It’s easy to set up groups and still adjust individual channels. As far as I can tell there is still no processing provided per channel. But each mixer also has a mono out that could be useful in several ways. I want to like this option the most, but not sure what the best way to do it since I’m already using port B for a Dante Card. I guess my biggest question is, can I somehow route the network port across the Dante stream so that channel names and such show up. Not that it’s impossible to do it manually, but if I could get that feature it would be helpful.
And is there any other options I’ve overlooked? I’ve also looked at the Klang Fabrik system. It looks really cool. I’ve even played around with putting tracks in their ipad demo app. Really cool, but it might be bit overly complicated for what we’re doing.
Thanks in advance