Feedback on Soundcraft Si Expression 1
 

Hi. Our old Yamaha O2R has just about given up the ghost, time for a new digital console (20 years of service though!).

I'm looking at the Soundcraft Si Expression 1. Has anyone used it in a studio and if so what do you think? We record and mix lots of advertising, VO, animation, ADR, etc.

I plan to install the SiO-AES8 expansion card for 8 channels of AES to and from our legacy Avid HD 192 IO. Soundcraft support says that should work but have not tested it, does anyone have any feedback on that plan?

Thanks,
Chris

Re: Feedback on Soundcraft Si Expression 1
 

See if you can do a demo at the least play around with it in a store with a multitrack hooked up to it before you commit to spending money on it.

I haven't used this one but I used the Si Compact extensively in live sound environments (I know you're asking about studio not live). Being used to more expensive Yamaha consoles like PM5D's, M7CL's, and LS9's (as well as 01v's and 02r's), I didn't like it. After spending some time behind it, it was pretty obvious where they were cutting corners to hit the price point, when other companies weren't (at the time I worked as an audio supervisor for a cruise line and got to play around with a lot of different digital consoles as we were replacing our analog consoles in our secondary venues with various digital consoles)

Only 2 bands of fully parametric EQ on a digital console? Seriously? It looks like the console you're looking at still only has 2 bands of fully parametric EQ.

The iPad app to control it was clunky and limiting, which doesn't effect you unless you want to let a client use it to control a headphone mix, if you do plan on that I'd suggest downloading it and playing around with it in demo mode to see if it's flexible enough for you.

When you demo see if you can change the solo modes. Soloing a single channel was PFL, soloing more than one channel at a time was AFL, with no way to change that behavior. I even asked a rep at AES to show me if it was possible to change that behavior and he couldn't, he looked rather embarrassed and told me that he'd let his engineers know so they may have fixed that.

I forget where else they cut corners. This was back in 2010-2013, so they may have improved things since then.

Then the X32 came out followed by the M32. We got a couple of the first X32s that shipped, almost as a joke. After we put it through it's paces we were shocked at how we couldn't say anything bad about the X32, especially for the price, at that price point I never looked at anything else seriously.

YMMV, but I've avoided that line of consoles ever since.

Goodluck

-Jeff