I think the headphone out on cast is bassicly the same bus.
“C-c-c…Crambooooooone!”
Great piece of classic animation. I can imagine everyone in the studio laughing themselves silly as Shug Fisher belted it out.
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Yeh, i think that if they added another bus or 2 it would be nice, but the cost would jump up a fair wack. BTW, the module direct outs are super useful in lots of ways, for example, using with a patch bay so you can quickly move stuff round, and also signal chaining modules together in series. Yeh, very happy with the sound. Theres some really great DIY modules knocking about that makes things a liitle less harsh on the wallet. Sound Skulptor - Professional audio Kits
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Gets me laughing every time
I ended up going with the Cranborne 500r8. I think the trade offs are worth it for the versatility, and reports of high quality this thing offers. I also bought a few more 500 series modules to build a small, modular type mixer. By making this purchase I’ll be able to move on from my SPL Crimson audio interface and the Radial 6 pack rack I’ve been using. Selling those will somewhat be able to offset the cost and more importantly free up space in my shrinking studio space.
The R8 shows up Wednesday so I’ll report back for anyone else who’s interested.
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Congrats and Please do!
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I would love to see a photo of everything you got in there and hear how you are liking it… I don’t have any inputs or outputs left on my titan, so if I want to get some 500 series I would probably do the R8 over adat so I would love to hear what you think of the converters as well.
Yeah, I will post some stuff in the coming days. I imagine it will be some clerical business in the first few days setting up routing in Reaper and configuring the patch bay but hopefully I’ll have it running by Friday. I’m making a pretty drastic studio adjustment (going from a little space I rented into an even smaller space in my house) so I have to pretty thoughtful about set up.
I do have sort of a confession in that I don’t really know what to listen for in terms of converter quality. There will be an awful lot of new variables (the R8, a Burl pre amp, a Camden pre amp, a new EQ based on the Studer 169 EQ which I’m excited to check out plus I’ll be in a new room) but I’ll use some of my old gear to try and do an apples to apples comparison of the R8 vs. the Crimson.
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Hi Folks,
I had intended to post some initial thoughts on the Cranborne 500R8 but I’ve run into a bit of an issue with it that I’d like your insight on. Every bit of news, reviews, and videos I had checked out (including the manual ON Cranborne’s website mentioned that it was built in the UK. When I was grabbing the serial number from the back of my R8 I noticed it had a ‘Made in China’ sticker on it. I reached out to Cranborne to see what the deal was and they replied that yes, they had moved manufacture to China in late 2020. They thanked me for noticing the oversight about the manual on their site still stating that it was manufactured in the UK to their attention.
So here’s my dilemma: For quality and human rights reasons I try (especially on larger purchases) to only buy equipment that is built in the country where it is designed. This certainly factored into the decision to go with the Cranborne. Additionally, if I look at this from the viewpoint of pure cynicism I might even think that this was intentional where Cranborne would get the good press for being UK made during the initial rush of product reviews/press etc and then quietly switch manufacture to China after the public perception of the product was cemented as a ‘Made in UK’. I don’t like to view things from this viewpoint, but if nothing else, this world has taught me that many times cynicism=realism. So what do you think? Am I making to big a deal of this? The 500R8 was not a complete slam dunk for me in terms of meeting my objectives of streamlining my studio but it was enough (especially with the Made in UK thing) to take a leap on buying it. I am not sure whether I should return it in which case I’d almost certainly take a hefty money hit shipping it back to Sweetwater, but I also feel like I will probably always have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth about this. What would you do in my position? Thanks for listening and sharing any thoughts you may have.
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That is certainly a strange oversight by them if it is an oversight at all. Maybe your point of view is realistic or it’s a matter of manufacturing within UK becoming too expensive because demand was higher than expected for example.
Anyway, i won’t go into the human rights thing because that’s completely understandable and partially I agree with you and partially I do not. Doesn’t matter. But maybe just try to look at it from a functional point of view:
Is this solution going to do what you need? If yes, just keep it. It’s noble to try your best and buy things as much as possible from where they are created but nowadays it’s pretty much impossible. Even if it says made in us there’s a huge chance that at least the PCB designs are all done in chine (like Moog does).
That’s a very good point about ‘made in wherever’ not really being completely true with parts acquired from so many different places. “Assembled” feels slightly more forthright but even than if individual components are assembled elsewhere it rings a little false. I received another follow up from Cranborne that they have corrected the manual issue and mentioned that the Chinese built models are made with the same standards as the UK built models. But than again, what else are they going to say.
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From my experience with Xone, you can be sure that they will do the QC in house. Which basically means they will do QC on a first few test prosucts and once the problems are solved they will do continue randomly checking a unit or a few when a new batch arrives. So in that sense the statement about the quality should be truthful.
I think I’d focus on the quality of your unit and move on with things. Chinese factories can manufacture products to any desired level of quality and price these days. If companies want bargain basement crap products, the factories will oblige. If they want high quality products, likewise. The surface mount components, connectors, solder and metal likely came from China before assembly was shifted entirely, so at what point can you be a purist of some sort?
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I worked in manufacturing for a bit and the factories in china will literally make anything, which is not necessarily a good thing. We heard about one company who wanted the cheapest paint possible put on some kids toys, which was an old lead based paint that had been manufactured like three decades ago that had just been in storage… the manufacturer was happy to oblige, so on it went!
Also wanted to mention that our company had huge issues getting them to manufacture the products to the requested quality standard. It took multiple visits to china, threats of moving to a different manufacturer, $100,000s of our own dollars upgrading their facility, etc. It was not easy and was never perfect even in the end and had to be finished by hand here in the US. The visits were not fun either, seeing the working conditions (a huge room of women making like $2/hr sanding with absolutely no air filtration or ventilation). This was about 10 years ago and I quit soon after. The company has since totally cut ties with china and built their own manufacturing facility in Nashville because it was a such a pain in the butt.
Not at all the experience we had when we had some parts made in Sweden that were absolutely stunning (as were the facilities and working conditions they were made in). So there is for sure a difference.
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what about the Speck Electronics Xtramix 6? I can find little on the way of reviews but seems like it has potential
That’s a beauty, wow. Twice the price of the Big SiX though…
Anything else that’s an alternative to the SSL Big SiX that also isn’t produced in China.
Midas Venice 16 is also available with firewire audiocard. But only 2nd hand on used markets
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Here goes my very own personal take.
All based on my needs, my setup and my experiences. So highly subjective.
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The BigSIX had such a bad rep from the get go that I refrained from buying one. SSL had some issues with the Fusion, the SIX and the BigSix. So much so that even tho I think its concept should be more popular, I couldn’t justify the purchase right now. Their customer support is not great, btw.
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Next, the Cranborne 500r8. Way more expensive when you compare both the 500r8 and the BigSIX. And once you start adding modules in the mix, the 500r8 can easily fetch more than twice the price of the BigSIX. Cranborne moved its manufacturing overseas too, same as SSL. The 500r8 is a pristine piece of gear, its hybrid workflow makes it a breeze to operate. But it is a large piece of kit with a GUI that won’t fit everyone.
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Then, the Tascam Models series. Cheapest of the bunch. Great tools, but more in the PortaStudio territory with weird options and implementations. Not aimed at the pro market by no means.
I still dream of the day where Audient and others will come to the BigSIX market.
At the end of the day, it’s always a great thing to try these machines before buying. They are, after all, mostly aimed at being the center piece of your studio.
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Isn’t the Soundcraft MTK series one of the closest comparisons?
I guess it depends a bit on what your priorities are - for me analogue summing and live mix down passes / dubs / performances was the biggest sell point of the Big Six - in theory a single usb cable for in and out from a DAW or MPC or hopefully at some point of the future Push 3.
This works well enough with my Allen & Heath Xone PX5, but just a bit short on sends and channels. I assume the Xone 96 would be as good or better, but the Soundcraft are a lot cheaper and probably a bit more flexible - it seems like the line is long overdue and update at this stage.
Personally not a priority as I’m finding that working in Push/ITB with a midi controller is covering a lot of what I want here, so definitely happy to wait to see what a next-gen Soundcraft looks like if/when it comes.
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