trying to decide if I should what for Marc's new mod out or trade my friend for his console. he's been bugging me now for awhile to do it because he is wanting another d8b to go in his studio B. Is this Crest v12 any good for recording?
I've tracked through a Crest Century for live recording before and it sounded great(mix down on my d8b). As far as mix down it should do fine but never used one for that. Crest made great consoles for live sound but I don't think they were ever meant for studio use.
All analog, no recall, no automation. Got Eq's but no compression or gating. Is it impressive? Yes. Will it make your clients think your a big shot? Maybe. But that will soon fade when it takes twice as long to bring up another mix in the middle of a session and they're paying by the hour.
Here's a link to what was tracked through a Crest mixed on a d8b. This was a two day session, recorded 14 songs and did a five camera shoot of the session. This was all that came of it.
All those mechanical switches, pots, electrolytics... I don't know, but - even though no doubt a far higher quality than some parts of the d8b - from a maintenance perspective it could be a liability. It sure does look impressive, though!
(1) The cost of wiring this thing up properly will be nothing short of astronomical.
(2) Power consumption. I hope you have a big bank account to cover the cost of the amount of power this thing is going to eat....which brings me to #3........
(3) Air Conditioning. Whatever you think you presently have as an air conditioner in the room you are going to stick it in will not be enough. Do you have any idea the amount of heat an analog console of that size throws off? Let me give you an idea. If you had your air conditioning turned off, that console would raise the temperature of the room well over 100F inside of 15 minutes.
That and the fact that there is no convenient/easy way of monitoring individual multitrack tape or DAW returns while tracking.
Thanks FrankH, I did not take the air conditioning in to count when thinking about the switch. also for I/O from protools 9 I will be using 2 MOTU 24 i/o's to have 48in and out
This desk is a FOH monitor/foldback desk and I would think not realy suitable at all for recording.
Also, being a monitor/foldback desk, it has quite possibly been moved quite a bit, so if you do consider taking it, I would be giving it a FULL test before doing the swap.
I would personally stay with your d8B and get your friend to get another desk from e-bay or similar.
Yeah, thats an awesome analog FOH Live Mixer, but not so awesome for studio recording. The heat will be significant as well on a board that size I would think. Stick with your D8B if you already have the MOTU's for your I/O
You are not quite correct --- "an awesome analog FOH Live Mixer" --- it is not really a FOH desk, but rather ONLY an on stage monitor/foldback desk and as such would not have many of the requirements for it to be used as a recording (or even FOH) desk.
Tyler,
If you do get this desk (and I would not), you will also need to buy (if you do not already have them) a pile of good outboard gear as the board has none of these.
Again I suggest you hang on to your d8B, or wait until early next year ????????
