I’m really torn about this. I use the SSL Native plugins, and having a dedicated controller for frequently used channel strip duties is very tempting, but $850 seems pretty steep.
I use a user layer on a Tascam DM4800 as a DAW controller, and a Push 2 to control plugins, but muscle memory of a dedicated controller is appealing. Though I’m not sure I want to stick to SSL for all projects. I often use the Lindel 50 and 80 series, and various UAD dynamic plugins depending on what I want to achieve.
If the price point was $500, I’d have probably said fuck it, and ordered already…I get the SSL build quality, and quality customer service, but $850 plus tax for a dedicated plugin controller of two plugins just feels a bit much. The price difference between the UK/EU and the US is also curious.
Yeah this product seems to fall between two stools. Serious studios wouldn’t touch this because they’d get a real console that processes things in the analog domain and it’s massively overpriced for bedroom studios. This will get discontinued pretty quickly, I feel.
Not in the least. This is a dumb branding job. You can get a real SSL mixer with a channel strip, summing mixer and compressor for double the cost of this midi controller.
This is the SSL answer to SoftTube’s Console1, along with their UF8. Comes with a pile of relatively expensive plugins, and if they got the integration right, I can totally see folks buying it. It’s a fair sight cheaper than the Avid S1 plus Dock, and not everyone is on Pro Tools anyway. For folks who work in the box, having nice-feeling, reliable hardware controls is totally worth this kind of money.
Not for me, but if I was in the box, I’d be seriously thinking about it if it reviews well.
Serious studios were starting to get rid of their analog consoles already fifteen years ago, and almost everyone is ITB on Pro Tools now. Sure, some of them may have kept one in Studio A to show off, but it’s rarely getting more than a few channels used for real, and their smaller rooms will all be digital.
A lot of the folks buying analog consoles these days are frankly hobbyist musicians not making their money from it rather than professional audio engineers — hence why we’re seeing stuff like API’s The Box, the Aurora Sidecar, RND 5060, and, frankly, the SSL Six. They’re beautiful hardware (I’d love to get an Interphase Ark 8 myself some day), but they’re nice-to-haves in a pro context, not the core of the studio any more. Folks might do a final mixdown through an analog summer, sure, but that’s after they’ve tracked and mixed in the box.
Editing to note that when I say hobbyist above, I absolutely don’t mean it in a demeaning way, or even to say that those folks are less-skilled. Rather, I mean that they aren’t doing it (primarily) for the money, so they can buy hardware that will never pay for itself or build workflows that are more designed for enjoyment than throughput, or keep working the way they grew up learning, or all the other reasons folks still love big analog consoles.
Yes 900US is so close to the price of the ultraviolet EQ module 1299US. I could buy the module and track with it and get the modern 9000k sound.
I already modded my Console 1 with SSL knobs and that holds me over well.
I think the six goes on sale for 1249US at times and you can literally track with that into your DAW and pass your master track again for the 4:1 compression.
If SSL is successful charging that much to studios for a controller, all power to them.
That Ark 8 is interesting. What’s the difference bt a broadcasting mixer and studio mixer? I’ve seen some big names using old broadcast mixers in lieu of brands you would first think for mixing consoles.
It depends on the mixer, really, but analog broadcast and studio decks are a often a lot more similar than live decks, and a lot of really top end analog decks got pulled from radio and TV stations in great condition as the industry went digital (see for instance ADT’s absolutely nuts Magnum v3). The biggest architectural difference is likely going to be inline vs. split — the Ark (and the Magnum) are both inline consoles, where the DAW or tape return for a channel runs through a secondary monitor path on the same channel strip. The alt inputs on the SSL Six are a tiny simplified version of this. There are some oddities you see on radio-oriented consoles, often around phone lines (including hardware mix minus for avoiding echos), plus a lot of very specific modulation equipment, but I think the stuff that got adopted on the music side was generally more generic.
Oh, and re: price, that’s literally nothing. Here’s a full-spec Avid S6 that a major studio might drop in — and remember, this is the same deal, controls only, entirely in the box, doesn’t pass audio at all. $137k.
Basically, spending that money on hardware translates to workflow speed, which translates to money in the bank. If the internal cost for a studio+engineer day is $3k and and you can charge $10k to mix an album, and this means you can do it to the same quality in three days instead of two, it pays for itself in a year.
I have no need for a small mixer, I just moved away from a 64 channel mixer to in the box with a few UA Apollos (X16 and 8). I like the product, for what I want to do - control channel strip and bus dynamic plugins - it’s perfect, my contention is the price.
Oooookkkkk. I don’t get it but it ain’t my scene so not going to worry myself about it.