This new desk is designed for live use on both touring sound systems and in fixed installations and boasts intuitive operation and high input and bus count makes it a perfect choice for House of Worship sound systems. Theatre users will also find the Soundcraft Si3 very applicable in their area.
The Si3 comes in one chassis - console surface, all input and output connections, power supply - so it can literally drop in and replace an existing analogue desk as almost certainly no additional cabling would be required to install it. This compact footprint desk can directly handle 64 mono inputs, 4 stereo inputs and has full connectivity for all 35 output busses (24 Aux/Group, 8 Matrix and Left/Right/Centre mix buses), and also boasts four Lexicon effects processors, 12 VCA groups, 8 Mute groups and bar graph metering for all 35 bus outputs and you begin to see what a package the Si3 is.
The Si3's lack of a large, central screen, "brings hope that cumbersome centralised channel operation is a thing of the past" say Soundcraft. Although the Si3 does have a small central touch screen, it is really there for console management, cue-lists, labelling etc. All the normal day-to-day mixing operations are carried out adjacent to the channel faders continuing Soundcraft's philosophy of 'where you look is where you control'. An amazingly crisp and bright OLED display clearly shows important channel data for every fader on the desk, while in the centre section, OLEDs provide the same for the output faders.
Soundcraft has revisited the control topology employed on the ground-breaking Spirit 328 and 324 digital consoles, and made it even easier. The model is this - above each fader is a rotary encoder, the function of which changes according to the mode selected. This 'bank' of encoders, known as the VCS or Virtual Channel Strip can be set to control every function of a channel (known as Channel mode), so mic gain, EQ, dynamics, auxes, panning are all controlled as if you had a normal analogue channel strip laid sideways in front of you. The VCS also incorporates all the switching you would find on an individual analogue channel strip (48v, Phase Reverse, EQ In etc). Alternatively, in what is called Global mode, each encoder controls the same function for each channel. So, for example, the encoders could control all the mic gains, pans or a chosen Aux bus (very useful for creating monitor mixes).
Like its bigger sisters the Soundcraft Vi4 and Vi6, the Si3 uses the patented Soundcraft FaderGlow system to show what mode your faders are in, whether they are controlling inputs, aux or effects sends, bus outputs etc. For example, when faders are controlling Aux sends, the faders glow yellow, while for VCA's they glow blue. In fact the colour codings closely follow the Soundcraft Vi6 setup, so engineers moving between consoles will be equally at home with both.
Of course, the Si3 has been developed with Harman's HiQnet networked audio system in mind, and connection to the HiQnet network is included.
See Soundcraft at PLASA08 - stand D22.
(Lee Baldock)
