Solid State Logic .. SSL Big SiX

So cool!
Perfect home studio mixer!
Killer live luxury mixer!
Need 1! : )

The only thing - wondering can SSL preamps smash my 909 kick into hardkore like old Mackie did? : )

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I’d be very tempted by the one if I did not found a small Studer console earleir this year, it does tick a lot of boxes for a nice high end home studio mixer.

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Also wondering how you send signals to bus comp?

This thing looks amazing. Pretty much everything the Mackie 1202 can do, plus USB, plus all the SSL magic.

The manual is also available to download.

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Conversion quality and interface latency + stability will be interesting to find out

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Press the IN button. It’s global, like the sslsix.

So it’s always on master? Or you can choose which channels to process?

Should be good, however it’s interesting if they see it as „additional“ option to record gigs, or as no compromise hi q recording Tool

Thomann has it listed as well in Europe.

https://www.thomann.de/de/ssl_big_six.htm

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It is on the master bus, so anything going through the master bus can go through the master bus compressor. The master bus is at the end of chain that the channels of a mixer are summed through. You can turn it off if you don’t want it to be active. You can also remove channels from the master bus by sending them out through Bus B instead.

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yesterday I was skeptical of the price. today it’s confirmed. great value here if the interface is decent. even if they’d just left this in the analog domain, $3k would be a solid price. the purely analog portion of this is more than double what the SiX gives you (primarily because of the EQ’s on the stereo channels), at less than double the cost. then they throw a 16x16 interface in.

gonna be hard to resist getting this one.

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Great overview from Mitch @ Sweetwater:

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full SOS review:

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ssl-big-six?fbclid=IwAR1j60KpHYG7Ol_EncHDUY8Md_BpFiMsHnooqltQ83IocLYax23-FXReMAw

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I agree. The upgrade to the 3 band EQ’s, and now having EQ’s on the stereo channels as well are big. And finally enough channels to record a live jam in one go. I was sifting through the manual and it looks like they gave the channel comps a little softer knee, so it can work on more sources. On the Six, it was a harder knee, and was not good for bass sounds, so more versatility on this one. Having a lot more ins and outs on the back without a need for the DB25 connector is a good upgrade as well.

My concern is also with the built-in interface. I just wish I didn’t have to pay for it, but at this price it seems like a freebie. And hey, if it sounds good, then I can flip one of my other interfaces. It looks like it is class-compliant USB 2.0 using Core Audio on Mac, and an SSL ASIO. driver for windows. This is bad because without custom drivers, at least on Mac, it will probably have some latency, but we will see. I guess it is good because, class compliance is pretty universal, you don’t need to wait on a fix if their drivers stop working or something.

The one thing they nailed was the insert points of the interface. It looks like usb input is taken either pre or post fader (switchable), so it goes through eq, channel compressor, etc. on the way in. This is how it should be, and some many other mixers with built in interfaces get it wrong because they usually put the usb in right after the initial gain stage. The reason I want an analog mixer is to run tracks or instruments through the analogue stuff on the way to recording it. The return from the DAW looks like it comes in at the top of the channel, so, for summing, or just channel processing, you can run it through the whole channel again. So this is the part of the interface I think they nailed.

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thanks for little explanation…

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Thanks, I made a small edit. I had said:

It is on the master bus, so anything going through the master bus can go through the master bus compressor.

But what I meant to say was

It is on the master bus, so anything going through the master bus will go through the master bus compressor…as long as the bus compressor is turned on.

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I checked the manual, it’s an amazing tool for small electronic studios, and routings with bus B can be complex enough for all basic needs. For example if I want bus comp to be only on “drums” - send everything else to bus B and monitor thru the computer.

They say AD/DA converters are same as in their big live consoles, so probably it will be quite good.

Now interested what’s the latency… and if it will be possible to use it together with RME interface. Shame there’s no digi I/O, but on mac with aggregate audio I believe it wouldn’t be impossible to use them together.

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Really love the concept of leaving hardware all plugged in for tracking into the DAW and then switching the USB button for sending it all back in for mixing without unplugging anything.

Would love to see some videos showing use with a DAW - don’t think the ones so far show much

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This thing looks almost like an instant buy. Even the separate input and output for the inserts is great, no more having to solder up special cables lol! Curious about the interface latency on a mac but that is about all.

But I was wondering how you all would handle routing mono sends to effects with it, I have quite a bit of mono hardware. Would you just use one of the stereo cue sends and hard pan some stuff left and other stuff right and get two mono sends that way?

I know the Six had a lot of routing tricks up its sleeve and I imagine this does as well.

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it’s a bit long winded and they throw in like $10k more worth of gear to do it, but Vintage King has an example of recording as well as mixing from the DAW.

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