Jeff Wexler Posted April 14, 2013 Report Share Posted April 14, 2013 I spent a long time with the Soundcraft people today talking about the viability of this new small footprint digital mixer. I wanted to talk to someone at NAB but the person who knew that product was out sick. So, today I went to Guitar Center in Hollywood where the Soundcraft Touring truck was parked and got the chance to have a hands on demonstration and ask a lot of questions. I think this mixer has a good shot at being an alternative to the Yamaha O1v. It seems to be much more intuitive, easier to use, yet still very powerful and full featured. Mains (AC) power only (which of course I am not a fan) but smaller and lighter than Yamaha, fitting nicely within rack mount width on almost anybody's sound cart. I am going to try and get one to try out and see how it goes. Dante support is in the works but the Dante card is not yet available. Don't let the wild blue color put you off --- looks good in person Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundslikejustin Posted April 14, 2013 Report Share Posted April 14, 2013 The faders that are different colors, is that a design choice or are they customisable? The blue makes it kind of looks like the StudioLive series from Presonus... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Robinson Posted April 14, 2013 Report Share Posted April 14, 2013 I have not seen the product, but I'd bet it is the "FaderGlow" feature. From their website: Soundcraft FaderGlow® – Illuminates the fader slots according to function with clearly defined colours for FX, Stereo, Linked Mono, GEQ, POST Fade Aux, PRE Fade Aux; you'll never be lost again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Visser Posted April 15, 2013 Report Share Posted April 15, 2013 Anything to replace my O1V96i would likely be a step up from a user interface perspective. The new StudioLive 32 channel board will at some point also support Dante. Of course it is way too big, but I would imaging that they would slowly refresh the older lineup to support the new "AI" features too. I think 16 channels is a bit much for me. I'd take as little as 8 and as much as 12 as being the ideal panel size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school Posted April 15, 2013 Report Share Posted April 15, 2013 I actually like the looks of it. Any price on it? CrewC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Wexler Posted April 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2013 The faders that are different colors, is that a design choice or are they customisable? The blue makes it kind of looks like the StudioLive series from Presonus... Nathaniel has got it right --- it's Fader Glow where all the faders change color indicating what is they are doing. In normal mixing mode they are all the same color (yellow, I believe) or they are NO color, I can't remember. The Si - Expression 1 (16 faders, 19" rack width) is $2,499.00 at B&H. That's the only pricing I know of so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shastapete Posted April 15, 2013 Report Share Posted April 15, 2013 Allen & Heath QU-16 also looks pretty good, built in recorded (but no TC) unfortunately it uses a proprietary dSNAKE ethernet protocol over dante Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school Posted April 15, 2013 Report Share Posted April 15, 2013 There are a number of demo videos on youtube. It is of the larger units but the tech is the same. CrewC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Liston Posted April 15, 2013 Report Share Posted April 15, 2013 I've used these soundcraft digital boards quite a bit. Ultimately, I went with the presonus because of its smaller footprint. But the soundcraft is a better sounding board. The soundcraft is also around double the price. Jeff, I thought you were grooving on the new Roland? I was hoping someone was going to take the plunge and try to power that thing 24v. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Wexler Posted April 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2013 I'm looking into the whole crop of small footprint (19" rackmount-style) mixers just coming out. The Soundcraft Si-Compact has been discontinued and replaced by the more powerful Expression and at a lower price. I have looked at the Roland and I'm now tracking down the new Allen & Heath Qu-16 model. I will certainly report back here when and if I find anything really exciting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Liston Posted April 16, 2013 Report Share Posted April 16, 2013 Awesome, thanks. I'm in the same boat and appreciate any other independent research on this. I just messed with the Roland M200i. A bit bigger than what I would like, and feels more like the Edirol line than the Roland line, if you know what I mean (I hate to keep harping on build quality...). I arranged for a few days next month that they will be loaning me one, so I'll report my findings here of course. I'm looking into the whole crop of small footprint (19" rackmount-style) mixers just coming out. The Soundcraft Si-Compact has been discontinued and replaced by the more powerful Expression and at a lower price. I have looked at the Roland and I'm now tracking down the new Allen & Heath Qu-16 model. I will certainly report back here when and if I find anything really exciting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Durfy Posted April 17, 2013 Report Share Posted April 17, 2013 FYI, the Soundcraft SI Expression Dante card won't be out until late summer. Nice mixer, but I wish it had a slate / talkback setup natively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Jabour Posted April 17, 2013 Report Share Posted April 17, 2013 We just bought an Expression 3 here in shop. I've been a big fan of the Si Compact before and am even a bigger one of the Expression. The thing I like about the Expression line over a lot of the others in the price group in the on board I/O. I found a lot of the other digital audio boards in the price area didn't have much for I/O on board, but required a snake head to even partially utilize the boards potential. If anyone in the Boston area wants to come take a look at our board, it's bigger then the Expression 1, but the only difference between the boards really is size and physical fader count. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted April 17, 2013 Report Share Posted April 17, 2013 " wish it had a slate / talkback setup natively. " not typically a priority for the target market Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Lightstone, CAS Posted March 25, 2014 Report Share Posted March 25, 2014 I purchased the Soundcraft Expressions 1 for the aborted project "Midnight Rider". I had plenty of time to check it out and put it through it's paces both in L.A. and during my 3 weeks of prep in Georgia. As a playback console it was everything I wanted. Plenty of inputs for the Pro Tools sessions, live stage microphones, Phonak earwigs and VOG, with room left over for more. The beauty of this console is the 14 Mix outputs - which I was using for monitor sends to the artists or iso feeds to my master recording. Each one of those mixes could be individually adjusted to suit whatever that performer wanted to hear, as well as EQ, reverb and delay if they wanted it. The ability to make changes on the fly is simple and with the aid of the Soundcraft VISI app for iPad, I could tailor the monitor mix with each performer, right there on the stage next to them. My next purchase is the Dante card, so I can grab whatever track I need for my mix. One Cat 6e and I'm in control. VISI App Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prahlad Strickland Posted July 22, 2014 Report Share Posted July 22, 2014 I have an expression 2 that I use for remote directing gigs here in hawaii. I love it, really quick and easy to re assign the submixes from post to pre (yellow glow is pre, green is post) so from a glance when you are in the submix of choice it's really easy to see where things are at. Channel cloning has been an amazing feature. Made it so I could have the talents lav sending different levels to the onset director, the telex comms and camera, without having to switch into any of the submixes. Which of course is easy to do within each submix, but due to the nature of the remote directing, the levels are flying all over the place, would have been a struggle having to go into the different submixes to adjust on the fly. Love it. I wish more consoles had channel cloning. I purchased the recording card, so it dials straight into Nuendo as a soundcard, it records all channels pre eq / pre fader. And all the other great features, compressors on each channel, independent graphic eq on all submixes / main mix, Anyways, with my limited field mixing experience, it's been amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Youngman Posted July 22, 2014 Report Share Posted July 22, 2014 I have used the M-200i Board a lot, while great for mixing live music I would not use it for mixing on set. Too proprietary with accessories and needs the Ipad to much to get into the settings. The expression is a better fit plus even with the 16 fader option you get 66 input channels so with a digital snake from them you get as many inputs as you need. Plus a madi card comes free with the snakes which is great if you use the new SD 970. Seems like it you be a nice combo for a big reality show and you could rent it out for local bands when not using it on set. My little $0.02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Watson Posted July 25, 2014 Report Share Posted July 25, 2014 I purchased the Soundcraft Expressions 1 for the aborted project "Midnight Rider". I had plenty of time to check it out and put it through it's paces both in L.A. and during my 3 weeks of prep in Georgia. Since you have one of these units, I'd like to ask a question if I may. I've crawled all over the Soundcraft website, and several vendors for the Expression 1 as well. I can't see anywhere where anyone talks about what sample rates the Expression line supports. Not even in the Expression User Manual that I downloaded. I did find that the Multi-digital USB card only supports 48kHz, but that could just be word clock, it wasn't sufficiently specific for me to know exactly what the docs mean. Does the Expression series support 44.1 kHz, 88.2, 96, 192, or any of the other "standard" digital audio sample frequencies? I would guess that 48 kHz would be OK for us. But this board is supposed to be aimed mostly at music, and a lot of music gets sampled at 96 kHz and higher, then downsampled at mastering time to 44.1 for CDs, and 48 for video. Another way to ask that question is, what sample rates can I see on files imported in a DAW over the various I/O options, like USB? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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