We had a chance to get our hands on the brand new Avid VENUE | S6L live console in Frankfurt and the first impressions were enthusiastically positive. Most of the modules are already familiar from our S6 studio console so everything felt like “at home” from the start.
Practically every knob is fully customizable but already the default function layout was incredibly intuitive and fast to work with. The super seamless combination of touchscreen, tactile knobs and buttons as well as software plug-ins makes you forget the technology and concentrate to the mixing. Basically nothing is more that two clicks away so it’s easy to keep your thoughts in music and not be distracted by the technicalities. Immense power (up to 4 HDX cards), full power redundancy (3 cross-compatible, hot-swappable PSUs in controller and Engine Rack), broad connectivity (copper and fibre Ethernet AVB, Dante, MADI, AES/EBU, Thunderbolt, USB, GPIO, MIDI), tight Pro Tools integration with Virtual Soundcheck, 96kHz processing, hundreds of audio channels, standard AAX plug-ins and familiar Venue Software make S6L a winner.
Furthermore, VENUE | S6L is a networked system and can be completely customized for essentially any professional production. FOH engineer, monitor engineer, and remote broadcast mixer can all use the same set of stage inputs – without splitting signals – while True Gain technology automatically manages gain compensation to ensure the proper signal levels in each engineer’s mix. This saves thousands per system by reducing I/O and cable requirements, set-up time, and transportation costs.
The VENUE | S6L control surface is available in three configurations:
– S6L-32D: 32 plus 2 faders, 96 assignable knobs, one integrated Master Touchscreen and three integrated Channel Touch Modules
– S6L-24D: 24 plus 2 faders, 64 assignable knobs, one integrated Master Touchscreen and two integrated Channel Touch Modules
– S6L-24: 24 plus 2 faders, 64 assignable knobs and one integrated Master Touchscreen.
The VENUE | E6L engine is available in two configurations:
– E6L-192: 192 processing channels, 96 mix buses plus L/C/R
– E6L-144: 144 processing channels, 64 mix buses plus L/C/R
You can use multiple Stage 64 and Stage 16 racks (familiar from S3L-X) with VENUE | S6L with a choice of analog, digital, and networking options. VENUE | S6L can be ordered now, shipping in Q3 2015.
Short video overview of S6L with Avid’s Chris Lambrechts (you can actually hear us talking in the background with Massive Attack’s FOH guy Robb Allan on the other S6L demo station ;))
More thorough S6L video with Avid’s Robert Scovill
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