Mixing Desk or not to Mixing Desk that is the question

[rnstephens]

We are in the process of setting up SCS at our theatre and moving away from the 'old-school' of CDs, tapes and wax cylinders. Part of the old configuration is the traditional mixing desk which feeds into the speaker amps. We have three active stereo speaker channels and separate amps. The sound card we purchased (M-Audio) provides us with enough stereo 'out' to feed directly into the amps and run the show.

My query is this; we do *not* have to run SCS through the mixing desk to make this work, and aside from the (occasional) need for live microphones why would we bother to run SCS through the desk to the amps? Why not run it directly? The essence of this question comes from the SCS help files that says "SCS is designed to be run through a mixing desk". Fair enough, but why?

If we remove the mixing desk we remove some potential issues for us; space in the booth, somebody accidentally changing the level of the channel and we loose the ability to run the separate channels.

Grateful for any and all input.

[jmgordon]

You might find my observations in this topic of interest.
HTH
Malcolm

[derick]

If you have a good external sound card (RME, MOTU,.....) you can use it without a mixer as they have most of the time additional microphone inputs.

You can control them with cheap midi controllers (Behringer 8 channel fader-board) so you have it all in one.

For example, i use a Motu 828 with an aditional Behringer ADA8000, so i have 16 outputs (all balanced) and 8 line + 10 microphone channels connected to a laptop with firewire and a Usb midicontroller, no need for a desk anymore

Btw, i also start the cue's from the midicontroller.

[Eric Snodgrass]

I think a theater always needs some sort of mixing desk. It is useful for the addition of any mics or other playback devices for the odd off-night programming that can occasionally happen at many theaters. Unless your theater is completely unique, most theaters I know (of all sizes) do rentals and have programming (for example - lectures, conferences, readings, etc.) to fill time between shows and keep some cash flowing into the coffers. These events don't always have a house audio person there to run things and the system should be easy enough for someone to turn on and make audio come out of the speakers (but that doesn't speak to the competence of the people attempting to make the audio happen).
SCS doesn't need to run through the board to drive speakers if the sound card has a line-level output capable of driving a strong signal straight into an amp (and that usually precludes most on-board motherboard sound cards). If I am designing with SCS in a theater that has a pair of main speakers tied to a house console then two of my computer outputs will go into the house console and I will tape over both channels entirely that I will be using. I will also tape the main fader into place. That leaves other channels open for other events to access the main speakers. For any other speakers used for my show I will connect my sound card outputs directly into the speakers' amps (or signal processor if one is used). This gives the theater the use of the sound system without effecting my design settings and keeping my playback computer out of their hands.

[djvomght]

Hi folks,

my answer is: Mixing Desk!
Every theatre will use microphones somewhen, so You 'll need it anyway. If You happen to own a modern digital mixer, You can save all routings, EQings, FX... and recall it simply with a single control send cue. You can switch on and off channels via control sends. And finally there is a fader to be closed if something is going wrong with the computer running SCS.

Regards Jörg