Yep, and that’s cool, but there’s so much going on in the Live which I wouldn’t be needing. The synths, the effects, all that stuff. And that’d be distracting, even if I wouldn’t use it.
Just the sampler, with the sequencer and all that goes with it, preferably dry rather than the AIR fx. That’s another thing that keeps me attached to the Blackbox. It’s just so damn focused.
You’re not missing your analog heat then ? The six covering its bases nicely ?
Love your music btw!
Thank you 
no, not missing the Heat at all. They’re different, but in the end, I reached mostly for the Heat’s mixing features and stopped using most of its fx-oriented stuff. So I tried to bend it into something it wasn’t primarily designed to do. I needed mixing and trimming more than I needed fx. Since I have nothing at all in that area, the SiX brings a lot of it to the table. EQ, comp, multiple in, bus compressor, flexible monitoring.
edit: Gonna save everyone from the long post this previously was, where I convinced myself into buying the SSL Six, and instead will be posting some thoughts here after it arrives later this week 
Very exciting @LaughingAnimal hope it does it for you… But whilst we wait, what’s your plan for it?
Sam
Thank you, I hope so too! I’m very excited to have a small piece of studio-grade gear in my setup.
I’ll be using the Six for monitoring, for one. I have a Babyface Pro and look forward to more flexibility with its I/O since I will no longer have to run my monitors and headphones from it.
Four channels from my interface isn’t going to let me take full advantage of the Six’s summing features, but I should be able to do some fun processing. I’ll likely mix groups of tracks ITB to be sent through the bus compressor, and will use Ableton’s Glue compressor as a placeholder until doing so. I’m looking forward to doing some parallel processing too, and plan on using the mono channels’ EQs for some light treatment as well.
I record vocals and guitars in addition to synths and samplers, so I’m looking forward to having some nice preamps for that. I have a pretty nice condenser mic I use for vocals but the Babyface Pro gets a little harsh by the time it has enough gain to drive it. I’m hoping the headroom of the SSL pres allows for a smoother result. The mono channel compressors should be useful for tracking as well, though it’s cool to know I could also route a dry take to my interface and send it back through the mixer if I want to be less committed to a sound.
I also look forward to using it for some hardware only jams. My recent acquisition of a Digitone has got me using that with my Digitakt. It sounds okay running the DT through the DN inputs, but I look forward to having them in separate channels on a mixer, especially with the bus compressor. I can run audio from the DN straight to my monitors, or plug my headphones into it, but I usually run it through my interface to add the Glue compressor on the mix, and to help prevent me from blowing out my headphones when I forget they’re connected and turn up the volume to run through my speakers. Now I’ll be able to use the mixer as my main audio hub and get everything sounding nice without the need for plugins or additional gear.
The more I looked into the Six the more value I saw it bringing to my setup. I think it will bring some nice workflow enhancements, allow for some fun experimentation with its flexible routing, and will hopefully be something I’m happy to use for many years to come.
The true test will come when I finish a mix with it. I’ll probably spend a part of the weekend running groups through it and doing some light summing to compare with my ITB results. From the examples I’ve heard on this forum and elsewhere I think I’ll be impressed, but I’m pretty happy with Ableton’s Glue compressor, so we’ll see.
Oh man, you’re in for it. You’re gonna love the SiX.
Yeah @LaughingAnimal that sounds like perfection for you. I’m more singer-songwriter type with late stage elektronikism. I have said to a few other fellow players that the six is the acoustic singers secret weapon!
Vox and acoustics sound better than any other preamp setup I’ve used (not that I did anything Super high end in the past). The channel compressors make an incredible difference to my ear.
I route my daw back into six so I can process it thru the bus compressor but have not been unlazy enough to send it thru channel 1/2 compressors.
What I love with this setup more than anything is that I can turn on the six and my hardware synths/mics etc and just play all those instruments without booting up the daw. I don’t know why opening the daw feels like such a laborious step to create, but it does for me. And just as important is that if I do want to use the daw I don’t have to connect/disconnect anything. Perfect!
I’m glad you seem to still be enjoying yours!
That is just what I want to hear regarding the preamps 
I also haven’t used anything high end in the past and suspect I will be plenty pleased with the SSL’s pres.
I totally get what you’re saying about being able to play with some instruments without booting up the daw, but also wanting to be able to quickly setup the daw for recording as well. The Six seems to facilitate that very well. I have a couple lower quality mixers I’ll use for live sets or jams away from the studio, but I’ve never felt good about running stuff through them while recording. The Six should make life a lot easier and more enjoyable 
Very appealing package! Sweet.
Only had a few hours with the Six last night, but so far I am liking it a lot.
I spent a good amount of time comparing the bus compressor with similar settings on Ableton’s glue compressor and the SSL sounds smoother and more coherent, as far as bringing everything together in the mix (I was mostly just running full unmastered tracks through the comps).
The one-knob channel compressor sounds awesome with my electric guitar. Really looking forward to using it on vocals. I only used the preamp on my guitar while bypassing my pedalboard, but the gain it provides, combined with the compressor, gave me a very nice dry/direct sound which will be a nice alternative clean tone to use on occasion (I realize this part is likely not too relevant to most people here).
I can already see myself wanting an outboard EQ and saturation unit to take advantage of the inserts, but I think I’ll stick to software until that stuff is more affordable to me. This weekend I plan on running a mix through the bus compressor, recorded back into the DAW, then out again into channels 1 & 2 so I can see if the 2-band EQ can provide some sweetening similar to the Analog Heat’s EQ (I usually add a little low end and a little more top end with AH’s EQ and love what it does).
I’m getting everything I wanted from monitoring, so that has been great. The routing makes it easy to utilize my audio interface in different ways. It’s a fantastic central hub to my small setup.
Hopefully I’ll have some stuff ready to share soon! Really regret not taking today off from work…
Anyone here running both a SiX and a Fusion? Would that be overkill, or does the Fusion add plenty enough on its own?
@circuitghost Sssss, you’re going there, aren’t you! (joking, of course). Isn’t this setup actually in the manual for the SiX? They show the Fusion on the mix / main inserts. The Fusion is their warmer/sweetener/dare-I-say Heat? device. Granted, it costs about as much as 3.25 Heats. Perhaps you should also compare / contrast with the Louder Than Liftoff Silver Bullet? Also, if I go down my own rabbit hole and get the SiX, I’ll let you know how it is with Heat on the main insert 
Yeah 
tho after some demos, I don’t know. It adds something, but not something I need right now (and certainly can’t afford it
Totally relevant. Going guitar and bass direct was the first thing that made me go WHAAAAT THEEE FFFFFFF and is really a testament to how sonically amazing the Six is compared to most other desk top mixers. You can’t bullshit with a guitar like you can with synths, with guitar it’s black and white, sounds good or completely shit. I’ll only use a DI box now if I’m doing parallel compression (RNDI) or need to flip phase (JDI). Pushing the Six’s gain to tickling 24dB is just perfect.
I have a question about how you’re routing signals to/from the SiX.
Oh crap, that’s a lot more than one question. I hope you don’t mind me asking. If I get a SiX, I’m thinking about going the extra mile and either getting a patchbay or building one that at least breaks the db25 connectors out to some of the signals that I’d like to use (i.e. main insert send/return, alt inputs and other inserts). The hope would be to keep the cabling somewhat tidy.
No worries. Here goes:
*** Are your monitors connected to the “main mon” outputs (assuming you have monitors)**
Yep. I got the first pair connected to send mono to an Avantone Mixcube, for mono monitoring. I intend to use the second pair for a set of Genelec 8010A. Not there yet, but that’s the plan.
*** Main Bus outputs to interface / sound card?**
Yep. That one goes into my Zoom H1N, where I record the stereo signal. Essentially, that’s my master.
*** As I recall, you’re using all the outputs of the blackbox – are they going into channels 1-6 of the mixer, or do you use the external inputs for some of it?**
I don’t use the external inputs, but only the 1-6. I use 1 and 2 for drums and bass, to makew the most of the EQ and compressors, and 3-6 for leads, pads, atmospherics and ambience. All from the Blackbox. I route 1 and 2 a bit differently depending on the track, sometimes all drums in mono on ch1 and bass on ch2, sometimes I spread out the drums on ch1 and 2, with the kick and its like on ch1 and the bass on ch2. All six channels go through the bus compressor and then I record from there.
*** Do you have DB25 breakouts or snakes to utilize any of the connections there?**
I looked into it, but only have two external fx - the Chase Bliss Mood and the Polymoon Meris. Didn’t feel they warranted the extra cable hassle, so I’m not using it now and don’t intend to. There are ways around it if you want to use only on fx, in my case the Polymoon and don’t want to go all DB25, and I’m considering it. I think the space of the SiX could really add something to the Polymoon. But for now, I’m not patching in anything external.
First, thanks a ton for your response – that helps quite a bit, actually. If you’re not using a ton of fx, are they baked into the loops and samples on the blackbox, or does the blackbox have fx onboard? Or, do you just not use a ton of fx in your music, in general? One other question for now – how are you liking the SiX from a workflow perspective? I know mixers are mixers, but is it intuitive to make your edits? For example: “hmm, this needs more X, turn knob X. take the level down on this channel, yeah, that’s better.” I also have a pretty simple setup (OT, DN, M:C , plus some other oddities), and what I don’t want is to end up in the world of endless tweaking to dial things in. Anyway, thanks again for helping me out.
Oh, I might have to start asking you about this little guy. The YouTube algorithm stuck a video about it in my feed a month or so ago and it seems like an interesting box for comparing one’s mix.
Ha - this just dawned on me. SSL SiX going into the humble H1N! It’s a simple device, but it does its job well.