My tour with S3L

[jacko]

Tomorrow I start my first tour with Avid S3L. I got a demo from local distributor for 5 shows. I'm very excited. It's a shame Avid didn't upgrade the demo yet to 4.5, but I am grateful regardless. I hope this will be a good opportunity to borrow a demo again in future when 4.5 version is finally available. I will report how I am getting along with the desk in the next days. Stay tuned!

[jacko]

First two shows went smoothly. Even with 4.1 software it is an amazingly comfortable desk to work with. It's still the same Venue software we know but it actually feels as if the software was tailored specifically for this little desk. I recorded the shows to my Macbook Air. Yesterday I fine tuned my song-by-song snapshots using virtual soundcheck.

[Davoetta]

Great to hear that u are enjoying the work with the S3L!
Hope to read more (positive) notes from you!
Maybe a couple of pictures also?!

[Kristo Kotkas]

You should def get it to 4.5, user layer - that's where it is!

[jacko]

Here is some more:

I went on a short tour with S3L 4.1. The band I tour with, Acid Drinkers, is one of the most recognised heavy metal bands in Poland. The autumn-winter shows are in rather smaller venus ranging from 150 to 2000 people capacity. In smaller places where there is no room for a monitoring desk on stage, I do monitor mixes from the FOH console. Being familiar with other Venue mixers I immediately knew the basics and the first show went as smooth as I’d do it on a D-Show. After reading the manual I expected to be fairly quick but in reality it was even better than I thought. Its small form factor makes me faster than I’d be on a larger console. Top right hand side row of 8 encoders can operate VCAs, Matrixes, Groups and most importantly - Inserts. To my surprise I got used to it during the first show very quickly. I arranged my first layer of 16 faders to have the most important things that I need during the show, specifically guitars, vocals and FX returns. That allowed me to adjust all the levels and effects parameters as quickly as possible, without actually touching the trackball or even looking at the screen. I also stored some plugin settings in song-by-song snapshots, but that’s we all know and love about Venue software, so nothing unique to S3L here. The quality of buttons, knobs and faders is very good. AVB and Venue Link are fantastic. I used it with “unsupported” Macbook Air 11" 2GHz i7 2012. I recorded all shows, soundchecks, rehearsals and I used them to fine tune my mixes before shows. I’m hoping to try 4.5 soon, but that’s up to Avid - they have to upgrade the demo unit I tested.

[Kristo Kotkas]

Originally Posted by milaszewski

... I’m hoping to try 4.5 soon, but that’s up to Avid - they have to upgrade the demo unit I tested.

Actually it's up to local dealer who owns the demo units to update them, not Avid

[jacko]

Originally Posted by Kristo Kotkas

Actually it's up to local dealer who owns the demo units to update them, not Avid

They've waited for an updated E3 engine for some time now. Still, even with 4.1 I enjoyed it a lot.

[Kristo Kotkas]

Originally Posted by milaszewski

They've waited for an updated E3 engine for some time now. Still, even with 4.1 I enjoyed it a lot.

Cool that you did! As we speak I'm looking at the Tarja band's setup (Ex Nightwish), they tour with S3L-X at both, FOH and Monitors, sharing stage boxes... We start to see these little devils popping up everywhere!

Btw about the update, they should only get one memory module + software update, not completely updated engine.

[Mike496]

I've been on tour with mine for about a month. There have been a few issues but Avid has really helped me get through them. I really like this system! It's getting a lot of looks and love from the house guys too.

[jacko]

Originally Posted by Kristo Kotkas

Btw about the update, they should only get one memory module + software update, not completely updated engine.

Apparently there is an early revision of E3 which cannot be user upgraded. Avid replaces E3 free of charge in those cases.