SSL announced three new products at Musikmesse last week. The biggest of these announcements was the introduction of their first ever live sound console, simply called Live.
The Oxford-based company have brought their 35 years of experience in music, broadcast and post-production studio consoles to their live sound mixer, and they promise to equal the audio performance of their other products. To that end, Live features 16 SuperAnalogue mic preamps (expandable to 32), 24-bit, 96kHz ADA conversion, 64-bit internal processing and 96kHz operation throughout. The system is fully scalable and can accept up to 976 physical inputs, into 192 paths, 144 of which have fully processing.
In terms of I/O, as well as the mic inputs, there are also four AES ins and outs, eight MADI ports (expandable to 12), allowing 64 channels in and out for external routing, to allow recording to a multitrack recorder and the use of external hardware inserts. In addition, a full range of Stagebox I/O connects to the console via MADI with the potential for larger systems to make use of SSL’s own Blacklight technology that carries up to 256 channels of bi-directional audio and control via a single fibre connection.
On top of this, the new console has a 19-inch tablet-like multi-touch display, a separate system monitor display, and 30 new audio effects and analysis tools. Among these tools are standards such as gate, compressor, filter, 4-band parametric EQ, delay and SSL favourites such as the stereo bus compressor and Listen Mic Compressor. The signal routing can be changed with drag and drop simplicity on a per-channel basis, so the order of processors can be changed depending individual requirements.
SSL Live, which has been in development for the last couple of years, utilises a new console platform known as Tempest, which has been specifically designed to meet the demands of live audio production.
The SSL Live console is due to ship in September and is suitable for a wide range of applications including touring, installation, FOH, monitors, arenas, houses of worship and concert halls. Depending on configuration, it will be available for between £48000/$84000 and £75000/$130,000.
Also announced by SSL at Musikmesse were a stereo bus compressor for 500-series racks and a digitally controlled and fully automated rackmountable summing mixer called Sigma.
