Shortlink
Sound Desks
We currently own 5 sound desks! The SQ5, DM12, E12, Si Expression 3, and the O1V96. This page also talks about WAC's S12, and the Guilded Baloons LS9.
Allen&Heath SQ5
This is the fanciest sound desk that Tech Crew own! It's a digital mixing desk that can handle 48 channels, 16 preamps and 12 line outputs. The tech crew iPad can be used to mix this desk remotely while walking around the venue. The desk has dedicated knobs for all processing which makes it quick to navigate and use during live mixing. This is the desk we use for MTW improv and all substantial sound activities outside of WAC!
Our SQ5 does not yet have a dante expansion card! So you'll need to stick to USB input for playback, or use the WAC's S21 instead.
DiGiCo S21
This is the desk found all over WAC. 48 channels, 16 onboard preamps, 12 outputs. It has maximal touchscreen minimal physical buttons/knobs. You can request one with a Dante card. See its datasheet! Note that this desk gets a bit laggy if you cram too many scenes into it (you know who you are). Would recommend looking into TheatreMix if you want to mix on DCA's during a show! It is suspected WAC and FAB own about 12 of these sound desks, alongside an S31 (which has slightly more channels).
The area of campus encompassing WAC and the FAB has has 378 DigiCo S21s per square km.
Midas DM12
One of the two analogue sound desks we own!
8 Mono XLR inputs, 2 Stereo jack inputs, 2 Auxes and a Main LR out. This is a lovely little desk, its super lightweight
and portable with a minimal layout. This desk has two insert slots which can supposedly be used for an outboard FX rack,
however you need some special jack-jack splitter for the input and output that I couldn't work out. The approach that
worked for me was sending channels to the outboard FX using one of the auxes, then taking the FX return back into the
desk through one of the stereo input channels (green fader). Sadly the channel 6 fader cap has despawned :( It has respawned albeit looking slightly different!
Soundcraft Spirit E12
Our second analogue desk, with four extra inputs, and the capability for any channel to be either stereo or mono! The main LR on this desk has a scale from 0 to -infinity, this doesn't affect anything in a meaningful way.. but I guess that's something about this desk.
Soundcraft Si Expression 3
This desk has the most onboard preamps (32!) out of all the desks we own. It also has super cool RGB backlit faders. However, the flightcase is pretty massive and its heavy, please don't try unpack this desk on your own! Its also the only desk we own that still has its dust cover lol.
This desk is called Sibyl! We are trying to sell Sibyl. They take up too much space in the cupboard! and are not very practical to use :(
Yamaha O1V96
This desk has a little LCD digital display. This desk is in the middleground between our more powerful digital SQ5, and our simpler analogue desks. We keep this desk around for training as it is similar to the LS9.
Yamaha LS9
This is the sound desk installed in the Gilded Balloon's Big Yin, the MTW Improv Musical's fringe venue for the last few years (as of 24/25). We dont own one of these, so we use our O1V96 to practice for fringe mixing, given its similarity (same manufacturer) to the LS9. See how the tape colours correspond to the performers teeshirt colour!
Glossary
Channels
The number of channels in a sound desk represents the number of simultaneous inputs that the desk can process at a time. For example a 48 channel desk could handle 12 cast radiomics + 8 drum mics + 14 orchestra mics + 2 offstage mics + 4 boundary mics + 5 FX groups + 2 playback channels + 1 god mic, channels get used up fast!
Preamps
The number of preamps on a desk/stagebox is the number of weak, unamplified, "mic-level" signals (such as the signal from a normal microphone) that the desk/stagebox can lift up to a "line-level" signal suitable to be processed by a desk.
The number of preamps on a digital desk is normally much lower than the total number of channels a desk can handle! For example, once you've used up the 16 SQ5 onboard preamps, you'll have to find other ways (stagebox's preamp, soundcard, etc) to provide line level signal to the remaining 32 channels.
The signal from a microphone is produced by movement in a tiny diaphram that vibrates due to the sound pressure waves from the source. This signal is weak and contains background noise, it isn't able to unable to undergo processing (fx, compression etc) from a sound desk unless it is first brought up to a higher amplitude by a preamp.