Looking for a personal use review of the DL-32R in a house of worship setting.

[brianb6603]

I am looking for a House of worship who is using the Mackie DL-32R mixer in there normal Sunday service operations. The sound team (myself+1) has proposed the DL-32R but our local sound equipment suppliers love the A&H Qu-16 (plus a digital snake) and its have almost convinced the pastor and board to spend more for less (in my opinion).

We are a small "set-up" church that meets in a school gym. We are currently running a Yamaha 01v96 with an expansion unit (giving us a total of 24 channels) with a 150' 24/8 snake and lots of parts. We have been running this basic setup for 10 years.

Our primary focus is reducing the setup complexity and time required (currently a hour and a half is needed). This is why I have gravitated to the DL-32R, setup one box plus speakers and you are ready to go. It is clear from reviews that the A&H Qu-16 system is some great equipment but I was hoping to eliminate the board entirely and just sit in the service with an iPad.

My request is to have someone who is willing to discuss (via email or phone) actual usage in a worship setting (maybe also a "set-up" setting) with myself and the pastor. I do not expect that this conversation would be long but he wants personal conformation that the Mackie will work as advertised before they sign off on my recommendation.

We are located in Eugene Oregon so if you are close we also might like to do a "field trip" to look at your setup.

I can be contacted by PM if you want to keep personal info off the forum (always a good idea).

Thanks,
Brian

[Weogo]

Hi Brian,

I have helped with a couple church installs but don't do church sound.

Much of the audio I do is for Contra dancing, with a caller that has to be clearly intelligible over music.
When I started mixing 25 years ago some of the most useful advice I got was from folks doing church sound.

More than ten years ago I bought an 01V96, and also installed them in two local venues.
Am very familiar with the 01V96, LS9 plusses and minuses.
Temporarily you might want to try leaving the 01V96 at stage, connecting a laptop for Studio Manager, 01V96 Editor, and a VNC server program, and
a router and tablet running a VNC Client program to mix on the tablet out in the hall.
I did this for a couple years.  Kinda clunky, but it works.  And no 150' snake to set/strike!

I bought a DL1608 a couple years ago and a DL32R this spring.
The 01V96s now see very little use.
In addition to regular dances, the DL32R did my big summer concert series, with
short sets and fast change-overs, in a soft-seat theater.
Two weeks ago I did a weekend dance festival with the DL32R.

A local college where I do quite a bit of work just installed a QU16, with
an eight-in, four-out interface at the stage in a recital hall.
Nice mixer.

For me, when mixing on a tablet, the app plays a huge part in how usable the mixer is.
I prefer the Mackie app to the Yamaha, A&H, Behringer, QSC and Presonus apps.   
I'm faster on the Mackie.

At dances, having physical faders at the side or back of a hall pales in comparison to being able to walk out on a dance floor with a tablet.

The only mixer location in the theater noted above is an alcove with horrible acoustics. 
Being able to sit out in the audience allowed me to do a better mix, faster.
(I had the DL32R backstage, with a router out front.)

With ANY critical tablet mixing setup, get a good router.

A consideration that doesn't get much discussion is physical, motorized faders.
Even good faders jam up with dust, start jittering, or just fail.
In the past 11 years I have replaced a total of 14 faders on two different 01V96s.
Even though the early Presonus digital boards kinda sucked(and so did the app), I liked their concept of non-motorized faders  -  one less thing to fail.
(Except Presonus put the cheapest, crappiest faders in those early boards and they simply broke.)
Not having physical faders can actually be a plus.

Another consideration:
I like to double assigned channels  -  input-1 to channels 1&17, input-2 to 2&18, etc.
Except for shared gains, this essentially gives you a house mixer and a separate monitor mixer,
allowing for different EQ on house and monitor channels, and compression only in the house.
On analog boards and the DL1608 I do this with XLR-Y cables.
On the DL32R this is a simple software assignment.
If you do this with the DL1608 and QU16 your channel count is very limited.
With the DL32R having 32 channels and 4 returns, I can double-assign 18 channels.
For me, if I was going to get the A&H, it would be the QU32.
 
For some situations, physical faders are absolutely better than mixing on a tablet.
So I suggest you think about how you and the other audio folks mix.
With the Mackies I think more about where I patch channels, what I have showing in different view-groups; even on fairly fast-paced shows I keep up.
But with really big channel counts I would want a physical surface.
It sounds like you would be comfortable with no physical faders, but for some folks this can be a deal breaker, or a learning opportunity.

You might want to rent in some different mixers and see how they actually work for you.
With any of them there is a learning curve, but this way you could get a way better idea of what these things actually do, compared to reading about them.

Thanks and good health,  Weogo

LiveEdge.net

[brianb6603]

Weogo,

Thanks for the extensive reply... The core reason I want to get away from a board with faders is setup. I am willing to live on the "edge" (no physical faders)  to get a easier/quicker setup.

Our setup generally is simple using 8 - 10 channels but I hate the idea of coming up short when we have a Choir or a lot of musicians at the same time. 32 channels will give us lot of room to grow.

The counter proposal is to get a Qu-16 or the Qu-PAC. I think that the Qu-24 is actually the minimum as we have often used more than 16 channels. 

Your point about the iPad software appears to be the common opinion. I have the Mackie, A&H and the Beheranger apps and the Mackie appears to be the cleanist.

Thanks again for you comments,

Brian

[dpdan]

Weogo is spot on with his advice and info.
I have a DL32R and love it, I also use an Allen & Heath Qu24 with an AR2412 stage box and love that system too.
I much prefer real faders to an iPad for a concert BUT...... I know what a portable church is,, I did that for a while and I can really appreciate your desire for a DL32R.
What I would have given for a DL32R ten years ago. WOW!

The DL32R is so wonderful, easy to use and the setup and teardown is two lids for the case.
No snake, no racks of gear, well,.... you already know all those benefits
Dan   
 

[Michael Welter]

I love my DL32R, and have had excellent sound from it since I bought it last December. However, my church currently uses a Mackie TT24, with an 8 channel expander. We rarely go over 24 channels, but it's nice when we do. I've been trying to talk our A/V Ministry head into the DL32R, but he is reluctant, and for one good reason. We have 6 services, with many different techs working each one. He is worried that the iPad would disappear. And given our history of things "accidentally" going home with people, I can certainly understand that. But, if you are the only tech for your church, I would not hesitate to get the DL32R. The software is very intuitive, so it's easy for anyone to start using it quickly.

[Wynnd]

Disappearing IPADs?  Easiest answer for that would be for each engineer to bring their own IPAD to control the DL32R.  That way they also would have their own settings with them.  The mixer won't care. You could always have an IPAD 2, slow and tired to use when they forget their own. 

[Topsøe]

And a shared dropbox for storing shows 



Q

Disappearing IPADs?  Easiest answer for that would be for each engineer to bring their own IPAD to control the DL32R.  That way they also would have their own settings with them.  The mixer won't care. You could always have an IPAD 2, slow and tired to use when they forget their own.

[Michael Welter]

Disappearing IPADs?  Easiest answer for that would be for each engineer to bring their own IPAD to control the DL32R.  That way they also would have their own settings with them.  The mixer won't care. You could always have an IPAD 2, slow and tired to use when they forget their own.

That would work great for the ones who have iPads, but most of them don't.

[Wynnd]

Makes the DL1608 the better mixer for shared installations.  If someone would make a locking rack mount for just the ipad with power cable, the problem could be gone.  I still watch my ipads like a hawk, but they're getting kind of common and should be less of a theft target.