The topic of today’s discussion is the InnovaSON SY48. I’m going to preface this review with a blanket statement — this console is so deep that it will be impossible for me to write everything down without being too long-winded. With that said, let us dive in.
The Gear
The console that InnovaSON provided was set up with 48 inputs, 24 outputs and one 8-channel FX card, which I promptly used all of. As I opened the lid to the console case, I was met with an interesting looking specimen. The SY48 has 48 faders on the surface with nothing more than a select and mute button that correspond to them. It also has an area that contains gain, EQ and dynamic control based on the channel you have selected. And let us not forget to mention the cool screen that actually flips over and conceals itself into the confines of the console when not in use.
Next, I went to the doghouse and there I found the Ethersound card for the snake system. That is also where I found the FX card. There are a total of eight card slots in the console itself, which makes the console — in essence — the local rack. You can load the console up with I/O cards and it becomes a self-contained 32 x 16 without having to use the stage rack. Nice touch. But our needs were for more ins and outs than that, so it was on to the stage rack. I unbagged the stage rack and found where the Cat5 cable from the console plugged in. Nothing particularly special about the stage rack — it was pretty much like every other one I’ve ever seen.
At this point, I feel like a little boy at Christmas having just opened my new present, and I could not wait to turn it on and play with it. So, that’s exactly what I did, and turning it on is exactly how far I made it on my own.
Remember the console has faders on it numbered 1-48. No dedicated left or right and the 1-48 doesn’t necessarily mean channels 1-48. There’s a starting template configuration, but you have to go in and literally build your console and place all of your things where you may want them to go. I farted around in a bunch of different screens for about a half an hour and just scratched my head. I was thinking to myself. how on earth do you fit 48 inputs, 24 outputs and a dozen other things into 48 faders. For that matter, how do you make them all work with each other?
It was at this point that I called InnovaSON and said HEELLLPPPPPPP!!!!!!!! I talked with Kevin Madden and Ken Parks, who are both super-cool dudes. At one point when I was talking to Ken, he was actually at home making dinner for his kids while he was trying to help me use his console. How’s that for service? After several minutes of conversation, Ken comes up with a bright idea to help me. He says, “e-mail me your input and output requirements and I’ll build you a show file.” I do exactly that, still fretting of course, because I have a conference fast approaching, a console that I’ve never used, and it’s un-programmed to boot. Silly me. I get a call from Ken about 10 minutes later telling me that he has a show file built that he just e-mailed to me. I open the e-mail and put the attachment on a USB drive and load her in. My tutorial begins. Over the course of the next two days, I was on the phone with Ken for about 10 hours or so. Not because I was having problems, but because Ken went over the console with me step by step to give a really thorough understanding of how their rig works. And let me tell you, it’s pretty cool.
OK, back to my wondering how we’re going to mash all this stuff into 48 faders. After the fact, I almost wanted to punch myself for worrying. After Ken sent me the file back he (I would say “we,” but that would be wrong) was able to fit all 48 of my inputs into 16 faders. I ain’t lying — 16 faders. You ask me how is this possible? Well, InnovaSON has a rad feature that lets you program a group of input faders into what they call a smart fader deployment zone. Basically, this means that these faders will convert into many different inputs depending on what you have selected.
For example: We had faders 1-5 designated as smart faders, and this is where it gets real cool. Fader 6 started the input list with my two kick drum mics. When you hit the select button on the Kick channel it will deploy both kick channels to the smart faders, so you can have control of them separately or as a pair under fader 6, which is a “smart” VCA. Once you get them dialed in and are happy, you can simply drive the Kick via the single fader. Viola, two channels in one!
Pretty awesome, right? It got even better when I was deploying five choir mics to the smart faders — five into one. You get the picture. That is how we were able to fit so many channels into so little space. In the end, you end up using the single faders as though they were a bunch of VCAs. Now to the output side. I use 11 sets of personal monitors — some are stereo and some are not. But we were also able to use smart faders on the output side by using one fader as a stereo master and having it deploy to two smart faders to control the individual output levels of left and right. Way cool!
The Gigs
As I have mentioned in the past, I mix for a church with a 3,000-seat sanctuary. So, needless to say our audio department (That’s code for ME) is very busy on a Sunday morning. I used the console for a three-day conference at the church that had all the aspects of live music as well as spoken word. So, I was able to use the console for a variety of things.
The console was very easy to navigate once it was programmed; however, the the programming was the only thing that zapped my brain at first. After some time on the phone with Ken to get an idea of how this bad boy works I was off to the races. I’m sure that more time with the console and a few more phone calls would yield even more coolness. After all the time I spent Ken said I had explored about 30% of the console’s processing power. My head was spinning at 30%, I might have a Chernobyl experience if I knew everything it did.
To try to not leave anything out for you guys, the FX sounded really nice, especially the one called Just Verb. The FX card is eight channels, which can either be eight mono or four stereo. It was also easy to patch once you get the vibe. You can also patch it as an insert point and use any effect that way. One effect that was available was a 31-band EQ, so I used that on my pastor’s headset mic. On that note, each output has an 8-band parametric as well as a 31-band graphic and signal processing.
That processing is actually programmed directly into the output card so to use those doesn’t take any processing power away from the console. I was not a huge fan of the way the EQ section sounded on the input or the output side, but it was acceptable. The insertable graphic from the FX card was much better. Each input has an onboard comp and gate as well as insertable ones from the FX card. Again, the onboard dynamics were pale compared to the insertable ones. Onboard I found both the comps and gates to be overly aggressive and, at times, hard to mange. The inputs also have a 4-band EQ with a high pass that goes up to 570 as well as the usual phantom, phase and so on. It will also hook up to a 64Trk ADK Live Tracker recording PC via a Cat5 cable. Not bad, huh?
Here is one of my favs about the desk. The console has several additional channel resources available in the software that do not have to correspond to a channel on the control surface. I have several matrix outputs to places around the church that are set and forget. I was able to assign channels as matrices and control them all via the mouse and keyboard to make the settings and then store them in the software. Totally off the control surface — not in my way or taking up precious faders. That is not just cool or even way cool, this gets a way, way cool! I know this sounds very intricate in the soft patch, but after about 20 minutes or so on the phone, I had the idea and I was off to the races.
As far as controlling things that are being aux fed, it’s real simple. You just hit the select button of the aux master that is desired and then the fader of the input turns into the send level of the selected aux. Just like fader flip on a Yamaha. I ran 20 mixes fold-back with this console and had no problems whatsoever
All in all, I was very impressed with the console. It is user-friendly and does a ton of stuff for the price tag. I will also say that the SY48 seems to have fixed the problems that plagued its predecessors. I used it for about 15 hours a day for a week and it performed without flaws.
InnovaSON Sy48
What It Is: Digital console with integrated recording capability.
Who It’s For: Churches, theatres, touring situations where the same team is running it all the time.
Pros: Priced right, easy to mix on once programmed, great FX plugins, infinitely adaptable to your situation.
Cons: Onboard dynamics are harsh, very involved to program, onboard trackball mouse is difficult to use.
How Much: $79,990.
Web site: www.innovason.com
