Ssl big 6 new console leak

Yep (AFAIK), I'm thinking about using the G-comp into a decent mastering EQ + Bettermaker mastering limiter and keeping this thing mostly OTB..

I had a Teletronix 2A and a UREI 1176, it was very much glorious.. The Stam and 6176 is pretty much as good though, earned quite a few $$$'s selling the vintage pieces if nothing else. Oddly enough I've never come across a Pultec besides plugins, all the rented studio's I worked from were mainly console based hence I'd just use the EQ on the board.

Welcome back, ericn!

I agree but even if they decided to make this affordable as possible the price would increase dramatically.. Let's go through it hypothetically for a moment, a single SSL 4 band costs 650 euro's / stereo 1K? So let's say they make this into a proper 16 channel with a couple of aux's that's a guestimated 1K extra, then we add 8 channels of mono SSL 4 band with 4 stereo channels.. That's an additional 9.2K and from that alone the board would cost about 15K euro's or about $17K.. Then they've priced out their intended market and there's quite a bit more competition in that range (Trident 78 etc.)..

I mean it might not cost that much because A&H created the GSR-24 (24 channel mixer / inserts / FW audio interface / DAW controller with bus comp) and in theory at least it was perfect. I believe it cost about 6K Euro's or around $6.8K? Unfortunately A&H stopped making them and there were a lot of technical issues with that board, ever since nobody has tried to re-create that sort of thing at that budget.. Shame really because the GS-R24 was exactly what I was after, a bit OTT for my needs (didn't need 24 pre's) but yeah..

I had the A&H Zed-R16 and whilst it wasn't an interesting board sonically it was clear enough, the pre's were usable and the EQ was fine. I think the Big Six is more aimed towards being a dedicated routing matrix for both ITB / OTB with a few handy bits as opposed to being an LFAC lite.

Well I bought the X Desk partly for the sound. In my case with 40+ channels of outboard and another dozen or so outboard preamps? To use the parlance of our times... the X Desk is the rug that ties the room together. 

Best thing about it is that it kinda doesn't have much of a sound. Its just a clean, super high headroom platform for summing & routing. All the parts of a big desk I needed without the stuff I don't. 

It was sort of a consolation prize... coming off the 2019 AES show & looking at bookings through summer of 2020? I was looking hard at the XL desk but given world events? By the time I outfitted that & retrofitted all new bays & cabling? Not the time to drop $45k for a loaded patched console. 

Over here it basically took the place of a 32 channel Soundcraft (still for sale BTW!)... where, there's nothing wrong with that console. And I actually kinda liked the sound... but I never tracked anything through it. Never used the preamps and almost never used the EQ. 

For mix work I'd use ITB EQ for recall purposes with outboard scatted on money channels... I'd use the desk EQ for minor stuff like FX returns, reverbs & whatnot and maybe, if on recall notes someone said they loved the sound but needed more/less low end on the kick or something? I'd give it a push there. 

Big part of reasoning the switch was that, as a for hire mix dude... I've gotten some feedback based on perception, which seems a little funny to me given that so many people mix ITB these days but I totally get it... and I'm pretty sure I've lost gigs over this... 

Taking the position as a serious analog guy sometimes it'd be like Oh, its a Soundcraft... along the lines of hey where's your Distressors? 

As a freelancer I've spent plenty of time with summing mixers like the Dangerous & Neve 8816... and they sound fine but to move off the soundcraft I needed something with gain staging & routing. Summing box alone wasn't quite enough. The X Desk hit all the right balances.

I can see the X-desk J the feature set makes sense if you don’t need a ton of inputs, even looked at one and an Xpanda. Coming from the Ghost it was probably a great move.
The X- desk= we took away what you have outboard for anyway and met the price point
Big 6 = we built a board to win the feature list wars.
Did I mention I hate products built to win the feature list wars😜

Thanks for all that info Shadow, it's really appreciated. I haven't ever mixed down hybrid. I've only tracked with outboard compressors and eq's, but haven't used hardware like reverbs and bus compression in my home setup yet.

It doesn't make sense not to design for chaining two or three together. The very first thing I thought of when the announcement was made was can i put two together later on.

I've finally ratified the design 100% and everything has been ordered, when leaning mainly OTB there are a few limitations you have to be aware of and it can get a bit complicated. Hopefully this will be some use to you (sorry this will be a lot of info).

So, channel 1 has a Shelford + 2A and channel 2 has a 6176 on it. Reason being these this will be my main tracking HW but I want to re-purpose them for the channel inserts, fortunately they both have a split or line function so I can press a button to turn them from XLR to line or comp only. Unfortunately the 6176 doesn't have a wet / dry function but that's not an issue (as described later). (1 - 2 mix function Lead Vox / Snare)..

Channel 3 / 4 will use the inbuilt "super analogue" pre's to record synth's but there will be a Lindell 77x-500 (1176 dual) channel insert for the kick / bass return (plus I'll use it as a tracking limiter).  

Channel 5 / 6 is the guitar bus return, they will be parallel compressed via a Tubecore 500 stereo pair via the cue / EXT (aux) return serving as a wet / dry function). It's VERY important to note there's only two FX returns and no stereo channel inserts so pick your HW carefully, the other FX channel is reserved for a Lexicon PCM-92.

Channels 7 - 12 are the vox, synth and drum bus. The latter was the hardest issue to get around, on a 24 channel board I'd separate all the drum components out and EQ individual channels then smash them with some 1176's on an aux.. Can't do that in this setup, however cymbals can get a bit "peaky" with 1176's so I'm hoping to smash the snare and go a bit heavier on the bass / kick then parallel comp the drum + bass bus to the Tubecore's. If that doesn't work I'll just setup everything ITB..

Not usually the way you'd do things but I must admit I'm sorta intrigued.

More bits:

There's an SSL Ultra Violet EQ which will be used in line to deal with the reverb send, the post fader master bus will have a channel insert for an API 5500 EQ and Bettermaker mastering limiter. The Bettermaker is an analogue summing path, brick wall, saturator / colour box, soft clipper, basic M/S editor and metering box. Fingers crossed this all works as intended..

Even more stuff to note:

Due to the channel count you may end up stemming, in this scenario an external EQ in the loop wouldn't be all that useful. If you can't separate everything out I'd avoid it..

What about monitoring reference tracks etc.? Think about it, you'd have to pull all the channel inserts etc. out because the main bus is post everything nearly. Well I think I've found out what bus B is for, technically speaking you can send it to any channel, flip to B and set the monitoring source. Then it will bypass everything.. Cool!

Delivery date is early Feb, I'll update once I've tested all of this out.

Yeah, I can tell .. "BiG SiX is the ultimate tool for artists and musicians working in a hybrid recording and mixing environment."

www.solidstatelogic.com/media/solid-state-logic-launches-next-step-in-hybrid-production-tools-big-six-superanalogue™-mixer-with-usb-interface

The Six is more of a pod casting mini-board, this is an audio stem mixer that allows you to integrate some HW. They've done a good job making it flexible enough as an OTB routing matrix but ultimately it is and always will be a hybrid solution. That suits people like me perfectly, the serious home recorder (or musician / producer) who doesn't want nor need the complexity, maintenance or initial cost of a fully OTB solution.

Just to note there's even diagrams for hooking up your mastering chains, effects, 500 racks etc. in the manual. 

I mean I'm not necessarily arguing here because ultimately I'm the one who has to live with it and it has no bearing on what someone else does. However you're not going to get flying faders at this price, even the Trident 68 / API the box and other stems mixers don't have it. The Mackie 1640i / Zed R-16 and the rest of these lower budget project studio boards didn't have recall either, the only one I know of under $20K was the GS-R24.

The SSL bus comp is just to add a bit of analogue main bus flavour after ITB, nothing to stop you adding your own bus compressors either. As for the pre's what's to stop you adding your own? The SSL pre's are if nothing else a good stop gap. 

For a beginner it's an ITB expansion with analogue summing / broad stroke EQ, some "interface" pre's and some rudimentary outboard compressors. For a mid level project studio it's an easy to use routing matrix for HW with a few handy functions.. It's limited in many ways for sure but I've yet to find a better solution under $10K. Don't get me wrong the A&H GS-R24 was a better board (functionally at least), but you can't buy them anymore and they cost about 3X as much as the SSL when new.. Still, I wouldn't have minded one.

Yeah sorry, there's a hidden agenda for my response. Sorta wondering if there's a sneaky other solution I've missed and my logic is failing me somewhere. I won't get it until Feb so if I can find something better I'll be all over it.. Seriously, like in a heartbeat.

Although their marketing is posed towards hybrid mixers, project studio's and producers. I spent the last two weeks devising solutions to get around its limitations and when used to its full potential as a routing hub / mixer it's not cheap anymore. We're talking LFAC money but you'd still have to buy the HW / converters additionally.

Maybe you're right and my use of it is rather niche, still it seems the most viable option before you just throw caution to the wind and get a big desk with many racks of OTB (which is super OTT for someone who records track at a time (or stereo)). I did consider a Trident board but I was able to make this "work".. (in a roundabout way). I've always been on the fence on this one so I'm quietly pondering whilst debating points and re-evaluating my options. So keep it coming please ..

I think this thing is a bargain for all you get.

If I were starting a one man small project studio from nothing, this would be something I would take a hard look at.
Being a fully integrated solution, No need to buy converters, a talkback solution, extra HP amp.
You can do zero latency monitoring during tracking while giving the talent a personalized mix.
You can do fader rides while tracking. Insert points to do real A/Bing
If you get one really good preamp like most project studios you get 4 extra utility preamps if you want to record a minimal drum kit.
You can parallel compress or distort signals during the tracking stage. Lots of possibilities.
If you're just recording one or 2 people at a time, this is a wonderful centerpiece.

I mean compared to what I started recording with in my first project studio which was a 002 ( which was similarly priced ) this is a million times better.

I've bought / sold / tested a lot of equipment over the last 25 years and its cost me a fortune. I can't get along with direct to interface / plugs as I was never happy with the results. My most recent setup was Shelford's / 6176's into an Apollo X w/ UA-2 plugs and it did sound good but I found it so much easier with my old SSL 4K + outboard setup (which would now be overkill to the nth degree).

Over the last 5 years I've been testing and buying equipment that will last me forever (monitors, mic's, HW, even houses). So far I have around 20 pieces of high end HW but they're just sat collecting dust. I need something to route all of this HW together and the SSL seems to be the easiest way to do it without en mass looms, massive (and sometimes consistent) repair costs and sacrificing too much workflow (as the board is quite simple). I have no issues with surgical EQ and automation ITB but once it's in the analogue domain I want it to stay there until mix down..

Ideally I'd have 16 channels (with inserts), a proper EQ section on each, at least 2 FX returns AND aux busses. Although at a certain point you can end up with 30+ options on every channel that leads to recall nightmare, so I'm sorta torn about the limitations of the SSL.. I love its simplicity but I also dislike it for the exact same reasons. Anyway, I've figured out how to make a full rock band mix work on this desk and keep it OTB.. Took a while though. In terms of tracking I'll never need more than 8 inputs, I'm a home recorder nowadays so it's one instrument at a time..