Lsst week, I had the unique privilege of spending the day with Fernando Guzman, Solid State Logic product specialist and point man for the Live console project here in the USA. Jay Easley, SSL’s new vice president of live consoles in the Americas, joined us in our listening tests. The SSL Live (solidstatelogic.com/live) is still in its Beta version, and a few hardware and software functions are still “under construction.” However, the desk has evolved enough from its Alpha stage to allow for an honest listening test.
In the May 2013 issue of FRONT of HOUSE (“Tech Preview,” page 44), George Petersen created a comprehensive description of the various functions, audio specs and operational parameters of the Live console. Instead of recapitulating previously published technical data, it is my intention to offer a different perspective. As an end user, the ergonomics of the control surface, the accessibility of the software and the audio results from the signal processing are of primary importance to me. These subjective aspects are not covered on the specifications page of the product brochure.
A few days before my appointment, I provided Fernando with a hard drive containing a live multi-track recording of very familiar material. Fernando had up-converted the 48K session to the 96K SSL Live-Recorder format and placed a preliminary input layout on the console. Everything was ready to go when I walked in door of the Los Angeles office. The staff gave me an enthusiastic greeting, and we walked down the hallway to the waiting SSL Live.
First Impressions
First impressions are extremely important when one encounters an unfamiliar console. The striking SSL Live desk certainly creates a positive one. The layout is visually inviting and manually intelligent, with all control surface functions easily located and logically distinguishable. Faders, pushbuttons and rotary controls are large, brightly lit and clearly labeled. There are 14-segment level meters plus two separate 5-segment compressor and gate meters alongside each of the 100mm motorized faders. All colors displayed on the surface are both bright and attractive. All of the physical controls are spaced far enough apart to make identification and operation as facile as possible, yet the SSL Live control surface is compact enough to fit in most FOH and stage monitor mixing locations.
One’s attention is automatically drawn to the huge 19-inch LED touch screen centered in the upper tier of the desk. Big, bright and tilted upward toward the operator, the touch screen is just a short reach away and dominates the visual field of the surface. Additionally, this screen is a fully functional tablet-style display with maximum resolution and sensitivity. It supports all the familiar iPad style finger gestures to which we have all become accustomed. One can select, hold and drag, pinch, expand and swipe. The sheer size of the screen makes these operations precise, simple and natural.
The graphical interface presented to the user is easily readable and the various screens are extremely well organized, with a consistent layout design. Both monitor brightness and control surface lighting have been maximized for daylight operation. The operator is given individual brightness control over the illumination of the touch screen, control surface and lamp strip.
Hands-On Assessment
As attractive as the console appeared, I was eager get down to mixing. I asked Fernando to take me through the input assignment process he had performed before I arrived. We looked at an individual input on the Input/Routing screen where Fernando demonstrated channel strip assignment, naming and adding both a color designation and an instrument-specific icon. I initially thought that both the color and icon options were a bit extraneous, but as the day progressed, I found both graphic functions greatly enhanced instantaneous recognition vvof individual inputs and instrument groups.
We then looked at assigning a range of inputs to channels. The flexibility and agility of the control surface layout enables the user to assign stage inputs to console channels “one for one.” No scrambling of the input list is necessary, because any input can be rapidly assigned to any of the faders on any blocks of 12 faders that SSL refers to as “tiles.” Each of the three tiles is capable of recalling any of five user-defined layers — i.e., inputs, VCAs, auxes, effects returns, matrixes, etc. Each of the five layers contains five vertical banks that are also user-definable. For example, the input layer may contain separate banks of drums, percussion, guitars, keyboards and vocals.
Creating layers and assigning inputs to individual banks within those layers is easily accomplished via dedicated touch screen operations. Ordering or re-ordering of inputs within the banks is performed by holding a finger on the touch screen and dragging a stage input to any of the 12 fader positions on a selected tile. As each tile contains 25 possible screen layouts, it quickly became apparent that creative color-coding is critical to the process of organization and recognition. I also found employing the extensive library of assignable instrument icons to be very helpful in recognizing which bank of inputs was occupying the top level of each tile. Re-ordering the inputs in the banks and tiles to suit my needs was swiftly accomplished by simple select-and-drag operations.
Rather than getting a whirlwind tour and experiencing only a brief peek at each of the routing and processing functions of the SSL Live, I wanted to get my hands on the console. Working up a mix would allow me to experience the feel and responsiveness of the more vital elements of the mixer. The audio source material from the pre-recorded tracks I had provided was played back through the SSL Live-Recorder unit. This single rackspace hardware unit is capable of recording and playing back 64 tracks of pristine 96K Hz digital audio. Each input channel has three routing points. A/B are designed to be used for an alternative stage box or backup/spare inputs. The third, a record input on every input channel, can be used with a Live Recorder (or other playback device) and will allow switching of the console as a whole between “live” inputs and recorded tracks for a virtual sound check.
As I auditioned the first kick drum input, Fernando quickly familiarized me with the touch screen operation that took me to an individual input screen. This is the functional heart of the console. From this point I had single-click access to mute group and VCA assignments, the 48V power switch, the polarity switch, the equalization section, the dynamics section, panning and channel delay. There is also access to master output bus assignment, aux bus assignment and level setting, and stem assignment and level setting. One screen provides access to all the destinations required for initial setup — I loved the simplicity and the elegance of this software feature.
More to Come
As visionary and groundbreaking as this compelling new technology may already be, the feature that excites me most about the SSL Live console environment was unavailable for testing on this day. I am immensely eager to experience the audio that comes through the SSL Super-Analogue mic preamps and A to D converters, but the stage input boxes were not available on the office-
based demo rig I tested. I could have plugged a vocal mic into the rear panel XLR inputs, but I decided to postpone the test until the entire stage input package is on hand.
Mixing Bette Midler’s show on the SSL console that Celine Dion’s engineer, Denis Savage, had installed at the Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas left a lasting impression of audio excellence. The mic preamps were fat on the bottom and silky on the high end with extended frequency response that vastly outperformed any live console I have ever used —Midas, Gamble, Clair, Yamaha, etc. More recently, I have heard the audio produced through current generations of SSL’s digital studio consoles, and I was equally impressed by the pristine quality.
For this session, the prerecorded inputs to which I would be listening were originating from the digital world. Because my goal was to learn everything I could about the console format, having the facility to loop a song and take my time while critically listening was exactly the format that was needed. In my next column, I will focus more closely on the control surface, navigation software and signal processing software. There is good reason to be energized about this SSL Live project. I can’t think of a more eagerly anticipated product debut in recent times than this studio legend’s entry into the live audio world.
Safe travels
