This year, DiGiCo is marking three major milestones — 40 years as a company, 20 years of digital development and 10 years for the DiGiCo brand. To celebrate — and reward its customers — DiGiCo has announced free upgrades for owners of its SD Series of consoles: the SD8, SD9, SD10 and SD11 models.
John Stadius, DiGiCo technical director, noted that the upgrades unleash “more of the SD’s untapped FPGA potential,” citing “flexibility” and “future proofing” as key advantages when designing with “a single FPGA chip.”
SD9
As an example, by “supercharging” the red-cheeked SD9, users can increase channel processing to 48 Flexi Channels, which can be mono or fully-featured stereo — in DSP terms, that’s equivalent to 96 channels of processing. “Supercharged” SD9s also offer users a 12×8 instead of 8×8 matrix, as well as 8 Dynamic EQs, Multi-band Compressors and FX instead of 4, along with 8 DiGiTuBes and Multi-channel Folding. The SD9 includes 16 Graphic EQs. As before, all inputs are equipped with dual mono inputs for fast “Main” and “Spare” channel switching.
DiGiTuBes emulates the non-linearities of a valve amplifier: almost linear at low levels, while at high levels the valve starts to compress and exhibits “soft clipping,” with a bias control for balancing even and odd harmonic distortion to add warmth to vocals and instruments.
Multi-channel output “Folding” under a single fader means users can configure stereo, LCR, 5.1, or up to 11 mono channels under a single fader strip that can be unfolded for individual control, or neatly folded up for convenience and efficient work surface use.
Other new features across the entire range of SD consoles include an expanded Aux Panel, increased Dynamic functions such as a Duck option and expander for the Gate, a De-esser and two types of Knee for the Compressor. There are also new FX types with multi-tap, ping-pong and stereo delay, with different delay times for left and right.
A “Warmth” button is provided on each channel for analog emulation and two types of EQ have been added as well (Classic and Precision). There are also now Standard template sessions.
Another new feature, “Sets” (previously only available on SD7T), has been enhanced to allow for “Set Spill.” This allows the user to create Sets and, with a simple button press, change the console layout to display members of that Set.
SD8
SD8’s “Overdrive 2” marks its second upgrade. In addition to the current 60 Flexi Channels and 24 mono or stereo Flexi Busses, this latest advancement also adds 10 Dynamic EQs and Multi-band Compressors instead of 8, 12 FX, plus 10 DiGiTuBes and other feature upgrades, including Set Spill, Reorder of Busses and Multi-channel inputs, previously only available on an SD7. The SD8 includes 24 Graphic EQs.
“We’ve always aimed to be ahead of the curve,” says DiGiCo marketing director David Webster. “The implementation of Stealth Digital Processing in our SD Series of consoles has allowed us to develop products that provide more power than others currently on the market, and the FPGA headroom built in at the very start means we’re able to ensure our existing product range still outpaces demand.”
SD10
The SD10 sits between the flagship SD7 and the SD8. It already features powerful processing with 96 input channels — 12 of which are Flexi Channels — and 48 Flexi Busses. Besides increasing from a 16×12 to a 16×16 matrix, its “Nitrous” upgrade provides an increase to 16 Dynamic EQs, Multi-band Compressors and FX instead of 10, plus 16 DiGiTuBes, as well as other feature upgrades, plus 24 control groups up from 12. The SD10 includes 24 Graphic EQs.
SD11
Finally, the “Injection” upgrade to the rack-mountable SD11 promotes all 32 inputs to be Flexi Channels, instead of just 8 — allowing up to 64 inputs — as well as 6 Dynamic EQs, Multi-band Compressors and FX instead of 4, plus other feature upgrades mentioned above, like Set Spill and 6 DiGiTuBes. The SD11 includes 12 Graphic EQs.
All these free SD upgrades are also available to new customers buying SD consoles through the last day of Frankfurt’s ProLight + Sound 2012 (March 24, 2012).
