Soundcraft SI Impact Issues & Challenges

Robert Jeffares

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Jun 15, 2018
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New Zealand
I am doing sound for a Theatre Group who have purchased this "new" desk which no one knows how to operate.

This desk was 'brought in' for a house of worship who appear to have rejected it, and was re-sold at a 'bargain' price to the theatre group.

I suspect it has issues and may need a software upgrade or replacement RAM and/or the on board SSD type memory.


I have been using other [brand] digital desks for some years and expected that with a manual I could load the 70 odd snapshots [ I call them cues ] which this music production needs.
I have 16 wireless mics and 1 audio input from a PC which has backing tracks and SFX.

Fortunately I have had some time to spend on this project.

It's a musical comedy. Around the World in 80 Days. Great music. Funny book. Cast are strong on the songs and light on the dialogue. It is small town amateur theatre and not unexpected. If you're looking for a great Amateur Show this is a good one.

My first and most important challenge is to get a mono feed of the main mix to a powered speaker in a remote part of the venue where the 'corporate guests' will be seated.
There is no mono out XLR. I figured I could patch MONO to MIX 14 and it would work. But it seems this has to be patched and saved for each of the 70 snapshots, and you can't just make this patch as a GLOBAL item.
I just don't believe the programming could be this inadequate. Can't find much on MONO out in the manual.
There must be someone who can point me in the right direction.


I also expected [silly me] that with a LOT of keying to label each Snapshot [Cue] I could plug in a USB keyboard rather then use the touch screen which is at the top of the console and a stand and stretch to access. Is there a way to attach a keyboard to the console, or a laptop, or an i-Pad? Manual is devoid of such information as far as I can tell.

I also find that information like channel labels does not copy from snapshot to snapshot; but some do; sometimes.

Snapshots can contain random information on C & D which again is 70 operations to zero and save.

Is there a way to zero a fader in all snapshots and save?

I figured out that the stereo line in on 25 and 26 could be re patched to 23 & 24 so I have all audio on one layer "A". I needed to be able to control Foldback Levels [there are 4 foldback mixes ] so I paralelled the patch onto 21& 22 and set each of the 4 foldback feeds as appropriate for each snapshot with 21 & 22 as the foldback master WHICH I CAN'T ISOLATE FROM THE MAIN MIX so I have some snapshots with one or other of these paired channels set for best result.

Is there a better way to do this? I suspect I could isolate foldback masters as VCA channels and mix them into 1 VCA I can control from the A layer.
Again information on how to achieve this is not in the manual and the on line videos are helpful but limited to

The cast need to have foldback at such a level as to fill the room which is not a regular theatre. It's an 1880 vintage pump house which is corrugated iron over a wooden frame 100m x 200m with a 40m high roof. No need to add reverb.

Temperature during the day is around 10C and at night is 3-4C so level and eq shift as the temperature drops. Fortunately I have experienced temperature variation in a large room between sound check and performance before.

The foldback has to be muted during dialouge and the level for solos is way lower then the level requested for the ensemble. FOH is easy to manage in this venue but the Foldback destroys the FOH mix.

I have been using a Mackie for another show for 3 or 4 years now and it lets me do all the things I want for this show just as I expect. One of my colleagues has a Beringer which is similarly easy to program and control.

The Soundcraft has a nice big easy to see control surface, and the preamps, gates compressors and eq are all easy to use and deliver what you might expect. There is some phase distortion in the eq cascade in the crossover points. I would have thought the code could have summed the curves and made one overall adjustment. Most in the audience who are tuned to mp3 quality won't notice.

I cannot believe that programming snapshots can be so tedious. There is copy and paste which does not appear to function correctly, and while you can replicate a snapshot [reasonably accurately] it's vital you check everything for unexpected klingons.

I have saved the show to USB and I wonder if it is worth risking nuking the desk and reloading the show?

Any help, comments, appreciated.

regards
Robert Jeffares
 
Any help, comments, appreciated.

Hey Robert,

I don't have the Theatrical chops to field many of your questions but, as an Si Impact owner, would offer the following:

Don't even struggle with this console until you know it's running the latest firmware (2.0 at the time of this writing). That can be found here:

https://www.soundcraft.com/en-US/softwares/si-impact-2-0-firmware

Next suggestion is to download the Visi Remote app for iOS:

https://www.soundcraft.com/en-US/softwares/visi-remote-ios-v3-4-3-mac-os-x

Setting up names will be much easier on an iPad than through the on-board menu.

As to the MONO output, are you assigning that through the ROUTING Menu? AFAIK, that should be a Global setting...?

Hope this helps (a little),
Dave
 
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But it seems this has to be patched and saved for each of the 70 snapshots, and you can't just make this patch as a GLOBAL item.

Also....I assume you've reviewed the attached excerpt from the Soundcraft Si Impact manual?

As you noted, there is no dedicated MONO XLR output. It is assignable to Outputs 1-14, which may be a feature or a bug, depending on your perspective.

By any chance, did you start saving Cues/Snapshots before the MONO output was assigned? Since the Snapshots (part of the Cues)
include that information when Stored, that might explain your issue.

Dave

Cue-Snapshot_Si-Impact_800px.jpg
 
Not sure if I need to start a new thread on this one. I saw the thread titled for Soundcraft SI Impact. We are a conference center that hosts multiple groups in this particular conference room/stage with the Soundcraft. We do not staff the audio/visual booth for every conference. We usually set it up and show the guest group how to do basics for sound control.

Occasionally a group that wants to do a lot more in the way of sound and lights will use a good bit more of the Soundcraft's features, but we always had a show saved that we could reset basic controls after they left.

We think we had a recent guest group that really did a number on the settings. And for some reason there is a lock feature that keeps happening on any of the available shows. It seems that if the sound board is turned off or if a show has been inactive for a good period of time (say overnight), you come back and it is locked and requires a password. We have not been able to find a solution to remove the lock settings. Do you have any ideas?

Thanks!