Ask questions about the Vi6 at the end of this article!
This is the first time for FOH (and, indeed, for any audio magazine that I can think of) to do an actual in-the-field Road Test on a piece of gear with a $90K price tag. Because we have worked at making and maintaining good relations with regional sound companies, we were able to hook up with a company that was demo-ing the eagerly awaited Vi6 digital console from Soundcraft. This is not something we could have pulled off on our own so we need to start off by thanking the crew at H.A.S. Productions in Las Vegas for making it possible. It took some doing and some coordination — including an overnight trip to the bustling metropolis of Parker, Ariz. — but it was worthwhile. (BTW, to you other manufacturers reading this, we are open to other Road Tests following this method. You have my number, give me a call.)
The Gear
OK, next disclaimer. There is no way in hell that we can possibly include everything about this console in a magazine review. We have added some new things that we have never done before on our Web site, including video of the console on the gig, and are setting up a way for FOHOnline users to ask questions directly of the folks who have used the console in the field.
The Vi6 is a co-developed project between Soundcraft and Studer — both Harman companies, but one known for live consoles and the other big in the broadcast/studio world. Like most digital mixing systems, the console is the equivalent of a big computer mouse with lots of buttons and faders on it. It is, in other words, a control surface that does not actually pass audio. Digital/analog conversion, processing and mixing actually happens in a separate box that holds the guts of the system. Also like many other systems, the Vi6 has a stage box that houses inputs and mic pre’s which can connect to the local rack via a single Ethernet connection (although there are some limits, which we will get into later).
At the risk of sounding like a kid with stars in his eyes, the first thing you will notice about the Vi6 is that it looks extremely cool. No other way to put it. It just screams coolness. It is much more shallow than a typical board (in other words, all of the controls are easy to reach) and most functions are accessed from touch screens where the meter bridge is found on an analog board. Touch a channel on the screen to activate it. Touch the EQ section and the entire screen becomes EQ for that channel. Touch the dynamics section and you get the same thing. I never took a class or had more than a perfunctory tour, and I was confident enough to take over for a time while the FOH engineer on one date (who was doubling as system tech) ran up front to check a problem with one of the cabinets in the line array.
The Vi6 currently supports 64 input and does God-only-knows how many output mixes (35 to be precise — three dedicated to left, right and center, and 32 configurable that can be either groups, auxes or matrices) and you get 16 VCAs. One very nice touch is that when you go into certain functions, such as the VCA and mute groups, some condensed instructions appear on the touchscreens in case you are having trouble remembering how to do something.
This is a Harman product and so — as expected — it is very Harman-centric. In other words, the comps are based on existing Studer algorithms. The 30-band graphic EQs available on all 35 outputs are BSS-designed and the eight effects processors are models of Lexicon units. In an audio world increasingly defined by third-party plugins, this may seem limiting to some, but you can insert anything you like into the signal chain. The advantage of the onboard stuff is that it is directly controlled via the touchscreen interface and, let’s face it, Lexicon, Studer and BSS don’t exactly suck. Speaking of control, the Vi6 already interfaces with Harman’s HiQnet, and future software upgrades are planned to extend that control. What exactly that means is being left for all of us to imagine . . .
We’re leaving out a lot, but it is time to move to the gigs.
The Gigs
The Vi6 went out twice for this Road Test — once to a little corner of Hades known as Parker, Ariz., and again to a gig in Las Vegas. Each gig had a different FOH mixer, so we were able to get responses on the Vi6 from two mixers with very different takes on things
As the board went on the truck the one thing we were all worried about was heat. Parker is even hotter and drier than Las Vegas, and every digital board that has gone out there has shut down at some point during the day due to excessive heat. The other less-than-ideal situation was the split between FOH and monitor world. As mentioned earlier, the Vi6 is designed to have the input box on the stage and what look like Ethernet (actually MADI over Cat5) outputs from the stage box feed the local racks at both FOH and MON. This works as long as you are running two Vi6s, which we were not doing. This meant a traditional split though, if we had had the proper cable on hand, we could have left the stage box on stage and run the single MADI connection back to front of house and sent the split outputs to the M7CL at Monitor World. But, lacking that cable, we had a big copper snake running to the stage box which was actually residing at FOH next to the local rack. We used the two boxes as stands for the console.
We can’t beat up on Soundcraft about this split problem, as it is common throughout the industry. That does not make it any less annoying, but it would be unfair to single anyone out.
Before we leave the communications between consoles and boxes subject, there is one thing to clear up that may be confusing. On most digital desks at this level, if you lose your primary Ethernet connection — anything up to and including the severing of that cable — the system will automatically switch to the redundant backup cable so quickly that no one will ever hear it. This is true of the Vi6 as well but may not be immediately obvious. There are two MADI ports and one is labeled as “Aux.” that aux cable can be a redundant backup or you can give up the redundancy and use it as a split to a second Vi6. It would be nice to have both options available at the same time.
Mixer #1 at Parker was instantly comfortable and happy with it. Mixer #2 who had the console in Vegas had some adjusting to do simply because he uses other brands of desks most often. The taper on the channel gain and EQ controls was not as linear as on his Midas or Yamaha digital desks that he works on most often. But even given those differences, both mixers agreed that this was the best-sounding digital console they have used. Mixer #2 prefers Yamaha effects to Lexicon so would have been happier with a choice, while mixer #1 likes a lot of different stuff but is perfectly happy with Lexicon and had no issues. Oh, and despite triple digit temps, heat was not an issue.
A couple of operational issues (that can and should be addressed in firmware updates) to address before we close out. First, channel pairing for stereo sources. The good news is that it is easy and flexible. You can pair any channel to the one on either side of it or the one directly “under” it in the second layer. So you could have a stereo keyboard on channels 12 and 42 and control it all from the top layer without giving up a second fader. The problem is that when you pair a channel you really pair them. Most digital consoles pair everything except the panning, allowing you to match gain and EQ and aux sends but pan the sources left and right. The Vi6 pairs everything including the pan. What is not obvious is that when the channels are paired the pan control becomes a balance control and we, like others who have used the board did not realize that the nature of the control had changed. We assumed that the pan had been fixed to center on both channels. [According to Soundcraft, substantial improvement on stereo channel linking and control is being worked on —ed.]
Another firmware addressable issue is the lack of input pads at the local rack. This means that something that runs hot inserted locally (like the CD player we used for walk-in, walk out music) can easily overload it. Sure you can, and we did, insert a line pad between the CD player and the local rack, but on a console this advanced and capable, it is not something you should have to think about. [Soundcraft replies: We’ve noticed the same thing. Inputs can be padded using internal jumpers on the cards, but we are looking at changing the default settings of these jumpers as shipped from the factory.]
But in the grand scheme of things everything we noted as something we would like to see addressed is pretty minor. It sounds great, looks awesome and is easy to use. (Did we mention that the LEDs under the faders change colors depending on what mode you are in? Wicked cool.) With a way to turn off those neon blue LED Soundcraft logos on each side of the board we would really have something.
Check out the FOH-TV coverage of the Vi6:
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They ARE busy touring, so please, give them a few days to answer!
