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March 5th Gig Log - Studiolive Preview

For those of you that might not know what the StudioLive 24.4.2 is….. you might not want to read this.  Just kidding.  StudioLive is a line of audio mixers from PreSonus.  It comes in either a 16 or 24 channel version; this post is all about the 24.  I went GaGa over the this board when the 16 channel was released a couple of years ago and almost picked one up.  At the time, I wasn’t playing in a band and I had 2 analog boards that were doing job.  I heard early last year that the 24 version was on it’s way and I’m so glad that I waited.  Some of the upgrades from the 16 include 4 more aux’s for a total of 10. 10 to many? take it down to 5 stereo or any configuration in between.  What does this mean in real world applications? full blown stage monitoring from FOH.  Not only are there 8 assignable 31band graphic eq’s, but every output also has a parametric, wonderful for in-ear applications.  Ok so the board has alot of aux’s……but each channel has full dynamic control built right into the board - compression, gating, full (selectable) parametric eqs and 2 built in FX banks.  This replaces thousands of dollars worth of outboard gear and all the time it takes to wire a rack, not to mention the huge mess of cables.  I know I’m not that tall but… if you took everything that was digitally built into this board and translated it to outboard equipment the rack would be as tall as me.  Ok so the board has alot of dynamic control….. but did I mention the XMax preamps?  Oh yeah it has those.  Ok so the board has alot of stuff…. but did I mention that it’s a full blown  firewire recording interface?  It does that too.  So now you know where I’m coming from when I decided to make this purchase.  But how is it?  Awesome.

I took the board out for it’s first field test last Saturday night.  It performed flawlessly.  I was running VSL which is a software version of the control surface of the board as well the Capture software to record parts of the show.  I had the board connected to a Win7 laptop via firewire and had no problems what so ever - I even had someone accidentally unplug FOH.  After rebooting the board, everything came right back to where it was set.  The mix was very clean and I was told that the in-ear mixers were night and day from the A&H that we usually run from.  Clean and tight just like it should be.  I found the faders very responsive and adjustments were a breeze.  EQ adjustments are easiest from VSL but I found myself working straight from the board.  Select the channel, make your change and bam! right back to your faders.  I no longer have to keep a constant eye on the rack and make sure that I’m looking at the right piece of gear.  All in all the board exceeded my expectations.  One of the best parts about the board is that you can save all of your settings - the next time we’re at that bar all I have to do is recall a scene and we’ve got the same great mix as last time.

I did shoot a video version of this Gig Log and will be cutting it up in the next couple of days.  I’ll post on the main page when that’s up and running.

Questions about the StudioLive or how I’m using it?  Just let me know!

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