# New member, mixer recommendation



## rschultz (Dec 8, 2008)

Hi,

My church is moving to a new location For various reasons, we want to buy a new mixer. Our Mackie 1604 is not sufficient anymore. 24 channels will be more than sufficient for a long time... but more is always better.

Been debating between 3:
A&H GL2400-24 - $2000
A&H ZED 428 - $1700 or $2000 for ZED 436
Yamaha MG32/14fx - $1100

They all have similar channel counts and 6 sends. Both A&H boards have 4 band eq' with 2 sweepable mids compared to a 3 band eq and 1 sweepable mid on the Yamaha. ZED has USB and software, Yamaha has FX. 2400 has 7x4 matrix, ZED has 7x2, Yamaha has none.

I like the ZED because of the USB, but the cables go in the top instead of the back... not sure if I like that. Yamaha has effects, not sure how useful these would be. 

Any thoughts or suggestions on this.

Thanks.
Ryan


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## hsaunier (Dec 8, 2008)

Welcome Ryan.

I'll tell you that we will need a slight bit more info. What type of mixing are you going to be doing? Is your church traditional or contemporary? 

Is mixing in a fixed location?

How much processing do you have now? (Eq's,EFX,DSP,ect...)

How many outputs do you need? Distributed (Halls, restrooms)? Do you need to record services? Supply audio to video recording?

So tell us more about yourself and your situation.


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## soundlight (Dec 8, 2008)

Welcome aboard. Having mixed on the current Allen & Heath GL series (a GL2400-24 as well as a GL2800-40) myself, I highly recommend these boards. Great for the price. Definitely go GL if you can.


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## rschultz (Dec 8, 2008)

Hi,

Have been a port-a-church, now moving to a new permanent location.
Generally we have 5-6 mics, 2 guitars, bass, piano, synth. Most channels we have ever used is 13-14. Might build a cage and start micing drums. Don't anticipate a need for more than 24 channels in the near future.
Currently don't use aux, but that will change. We have monitor wedges and amps.
We do mainly contemporary, but also some traditional songs.
Current board/rack will remain intact for other uses, youth, etc. Was considering a DBX driverack 260 for speaker management (Yorkville U15P's and subs), this would take care of EQ, compression, feedback suppression, delay, auto-gain, etc. May also want a FX processor.
We do have a DOD 512 effects processor in the rack that could be removed and used, as well as an Ashley Comp/Limiter and an EQ. I don't know much about these. The DBX 260 would do all this except the FX.
The only thing we really record is the pastors message, don't really record much music, although we might from time to time if we could easily.
Due to the new building acoustics, we may want rear speakers with a different mix... matrix would handle this nicely. Also send feed to nursery. 3-4 monitors on stage... possibly IEM's in the future.
Does this help?

Thanks.
Ryan


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## hsaunier (Dec 8, 2008)

Ryan,

Sounds like you may want to consider 32 ch of input. You still have not mentioned playback from CD, DVD/video, MP3, computer audio to name a few, all of which grab 2 ch if you don't have stereo returns and in light of the fact that you are contemplating micing a kit.


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## avkid (Dec 8, 2008)

hsaunier said:


> Sounds like you may want to consider 32 ch of input. You still have not mentioned playback from CD, DVD/video, MP3, computer audio to name a few, all of which grab 2 ch if you don't have stereo returns


The 1604 would make a nice playback sub mixer.

If you can afford the GL go for it.


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