Your post was very helpful. Will look into those comparisons. Regardless of those, useful to know about your experieces. Cheers!

Still, pity there’s no direct computer interface.

I think we went thru this in the early pages. It would "date" this mixer as better conversion became available. This being a pure all analog signal path will retain it's value much better.

I mean I think it's great for what it is. Monitor control, basic summing, direct outs, routing, basic channel strips, dual pre/line/di, basic bus comp + portability. U won't get this much at this level of quality for $1500 anywhere else ...

Having issues for last two weeks with super analogue channel two cutting out when running a mix into one and two. If I switch mixer off and on from the back all would be fine for ten minutes.
I also found I could also get two to work again by tweaking the pre amp gain. I made a little vid of the problem for Thomann returns, but strangely it has stopped cutting out last two days.

Anyone else had this problem? Any ideas as to what the problem was/is?

PM [email protected]

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/members/23717-jim-ssl/

Hi guys, life was normal and loving my SSL much until today I commited a almost fatal mistake
while moving around my studio to a new apartment and reconnecting stuff I mistakenly connected a wrong power supply to the SSL Six which was left with the power switch turned on from a previous use.

Inmediately the SSL expired a weird sound and turned off and a only 1 blinking green led stayed until I disconected it as quickly as possible and realized what I have done. Then I proceeded to put the right power supply. To my surprise the SSL now turned on without even pressing the button and it won't power off (stays turned on like the power button stopped working or was bypassed. Also I noticed that while originally the SSL when powered on kinda triggered all the led meters light all the way thru the top red now it only does that to half of the led strip.

Finally i proceed to check all the functionality on the board and in terms of sounds it seems that its working OK, all channel work, nothing out of the normal. But!!! now the LED meters are acting funky!! :( they start blinking and fading as I raise the volume on the tracks to the point that if I work with a really loud monitor volume the master bus fader led light dissapears. the same for the led lights on the channel.

Wow I really don't know what to do
please help

Hello all-

I moved from mixing on a beloved Midas Venice 240 (which is still pretty awesome) to trying out the SSL SiX (which is even more awesome- as far as headroom and punch).

I picked up a used Sigma and after some painful network setup (thanks to Tim from SSL!) I got it up and running. It's pretty amazing. I am still comparing and seeing if it fits my workflow for mix as well as if it's worth keeping over the Six. My initial gut feeling is....it's worth keeping.

So I did a VERY UNSCIENTIFIC shootout between the Six and the Sigma. The mix is a live recording that I initially mixed on the Six and then sent through the Sigma and tried to match settings as quickly as I could. I DID NOT use the built in G Comp on the SiX. I DID use my Audioscape G Comp on both versions as an insert. FWIW the little G comp on the Six is fantastic. I did not push the mix bus on the Sigma too hard. I know that's what makes it awesome but I wanted to start as clean as possible.

Chain is Antelope Orion Studio 2017 >SSL mixer > Insert of Audioscape Comp > Tascam DA-3000 for DSD recording > Quick master down to 48K PCM WAV.

I suspect building a mix from scratch on the Sigma would be a game-changer. I will work that next.

You should call the store you bought it from or SSL direct.

Thank you for posting these, awesome!
I could swear the Sigma has more weight and dimension... until I did an ABX test. Actually I did three
First one on headphones: 9/16.
"No, there's clearly a difference", powering on monitors... 3/10 (16 is really a lot )
"THAT CAN'T BE!"... 6/10. In my defense, my girlfriend started to vacuum half way in.

Still I could swear that I hear a difference and I admittedly rushed somewhat through the tests, but I am always amazed by how not-so-obvious-anymore things get when the labels are gone.

You think you could maybe add one more pass summed ITB going through your comp? That would be very interesting and insanely frightening! Since the DSM beat the crap out of my SiX GBus Comp and my Successor, I don't know what's real anymore.

Edit: Venice desks rock! We had Allen&Heath and DDA, but would sometimes get a Venice for some shows. Nice punchy low end. A Venice along with Martin Audio Wavefront subs felt like actual bricks hitting your body

SSL SiX update: Still issue-free and sounding great after months of use in the studio and live use. I'm currently using it to mix for live looping and send 6 sources (Vox, Guitar, Bass, SPD1 Kick, SPD1 Electro, and JdXi) into a Ditto X4 which feeds into a stereo line in on my QU-16 which is doing the A/D-D/A. I'm running the first XLR channel with a 416 through which also routs to FB1L for voice over projects. My guitar rig feeds FB1R. I'm finding the ability to pan the first two inputs only on the FB outputs very useful. I can quickly access either my loop mix or just VOX and Guitar with this method.

Ultimately, I'd like to get a Silver Bullet/FMR RNC combo for my home studio so I can mix in Neve and API flavors accordingly. This pairing works great for vocals when you just want to shave off a few transparent DBs to get a great signal without clipping. I used this combo at the VO studio in my advertising agency's building before the Corona Lockdown.

We used the SiX and Silver Bullet to master a podcast I recorded using a relatively cheap zoom field recorder. I'm a freak about clipping so I record at lower levels and we end up doctoring the signal with Ozone RX to remove the line noise since someone always ends up laughing loudly right into the mic. The ability to have warmth and punch on tap with the Silver Bullet is incredible not to mention the EQ and metering.

I would guess the Qu-16 AD/DA is probably the weakest link in my chain but other than jumping up to Crane Song or something, I doubt I'd be able to hear much improvement. I have a focusrite interface and I think the Allen&Heath is much more transparent. I have heard mixed reviews of the UA Apollo stuff and if I shifted to something like Apogee Symphony or LYNX I'd lose all of the flexibility that the QU-16 provides.

Here I am getting way off track. The SSL SiX is awesome and I still love it.

prism AD is the best hi end conversion for money. A used Orpheus might be a consideration. If new is important the audient ad880 and 800 might be a good choice to match up with the ssl. Audient is a sweet sound might work well with the analog mixer. I would tend to think though if using analog summing the bright clear open prism is going to yield best results when tracking and summing. You want your playback track to have all the details retreived because the analog mixer will ultimately round some them off and if your interface is already doing that your out if the box mixes will have no air.

Lynx aurora n is good but to me is not sweet sounding as prism AD.that is a preference not a fact.

Prism would also give you other pre amp options tracking directly to DAW for very clean signal. Especially if you are planning to sum analog you really might want less color going in.

The ssl sound is a very tight sound with the top end sucked out if it. tracks going into the mixer are going to disappoint if they are dull and flat because of your ADDA.

So yeah a weak link of a converter is a waste. Might as well sum ITB.

If you do music where a low mid bump is welcome. The ssl alpha link mx racks are cheap with a madi extreme card . Could get a 4-16 , 4 in 16 out with the card for around $800.

Good luck with converter search , I found it an exhaustive process and ended up with prism. Not a huge fan of the DAC as it is very clinical and makes lower bit depth recordings sound terrible. I think I prefer other DACs but the AD won me over.

SSL XLogic has an open clear sound, there's no top end sucked out of it, lol.

While Prism converters are very open clean and hifi I would suggest the Burl converters to team with a Six for a better overall tonal balance.

Great glad I could make you laugh!



I had a six for a month and it wast happy with the sound. I have worked on 4K and a 9k and have had a xrack gbus for 6 years. There is top end loss Or reduction when using an ssl comp. Perhaps you can’t hear it or have never examined the top end sheen. Like a Dolby noise reduction type of thing going on especially in the buss comp. It makes the sound sweet and Is part of the glue. There is def a loss of upper top end and It’s not a bad thing. That is where that top end sheen or gloss and glue you hear on top is coming from. Transients are rounded off and smoothed and the space between transients on top become silent. Most vca comps do this. That silent space on top where there once was loose brightness is what I mean when I say it sucks the air out. It’s not just the low end and kick that comes together but the top end is controlled and clamped down on. I sometimes just run things though the comp just for that Dolby top end thing it does. You don’t want to use a dull DA to feed an ssl.

Never heard burl in person but 8 channels of I/o is like $7k vs a $1500 Orpheus with thunderbolt adapter.

Any SSL2+ owners here?

It's hard to tell whether you were or weren't happy with the sound, and whether it does or doesn't compare favorably with the other SSL hardware you mentioned in subsequent statements. Can you clarify?

I’m still diggin my dual stereo faders and AUX (ST1 ST2) and Bus B to headphone amp or stereo A/D.

I’ve used, not owned a lot of analog mixers and some digital mixers, then subsequently removed those mixers to replace with new mixers from same brands. Alesis, Bherry, A&H, Yamaha, Tascam, Mackie.
This is recollections from 2007-2015 when I was in the permanent install AVL biz as an installer.

Taken alone, and ignoring the bus comp, the 2 stereo channels and the various busses is really pretty special in the segment, IMO. I still think they should have nutted the pots!

The bus compressor in the six should not be called the “gbus” compressor. It’s a VCA comp but does not sound like a gbus at all. All the things that make a gbus special are just not there. The mixer overall has less clarity then the professional lines but that might just work out for some tracks. If I was shooting for a a mix like passion pit “take a walk” you could get color like and get things crunchy really easy with it. But if clean and pristine is important this isn’t the board . The headphone amp and monitoring was not great at all.

I found it useful for tracking bass and drums and thought it had a cool low mid bump that added some good woof but it just wasn’t clean enough for me. Very dark sounding in my opinion and not in the same league as alpha channel and the VHD xrack line. Certainly no SSL 9k Channel strips and that is really the issue I have with the marketing.

It was very low noise but lacked detail. You can do very SSL type summing and it has a “sound” that would work well on many types of music. Just not what I am working on or my focus which is tracking. I thought the pre amps and compressor for $1200 I got mine for would be a deal. But they just didn’t work for me.

If I were doing indie rock or something gritty I found the harmonics in the low end of the board difficult to emulate ITB but then again the sound of mixer could not compete with the clarity of the ITB and direct to converter tracks. Overall clarity was more important to me for my tracking purposes it was just to dark.

I am not doing my mixing anymore so I had no desire to use it as a summing mixer. But like I said on the test tracks I did they just ended up too dark. I had low expectations at this price point considering my Xrack bus comp cost twice what this goes for, but it was worth trying out. Ultimately you are going to get what you pay for and nothing more. I was not finding it a useful addition to my setup so I returned it.

I got my hands on the Six today. I think it's a very good little mixer, with lots of flexibility and good sound.
The mic preamps are ok and the whole channel can be very good with some EQ and Comp added. I particularly like the high band on the EQ.
I ran a mix through it only as a stereo sum and also in 3 stereo stems (6 channels) using the buss compressor. The bus comp is very good and does sound a lot like the Waves SSL comp (I haven't tried the hardware unit). It pulls the mix together by solidifying the low end and focusing the center of the mix better.
The build of it seems sturdy enough for the price, but I find the exposed connector panel on top annoying. I must say I have different lengths of cables plugged in, which are hanging around the unit, but hopefully with a db25 to TRS snake, things will look a bit better.
I did find that the EXT input level pots are not at unity in the centre as SSL suggest. They're at about 10 o'clock, which is a fair way out of whack.
All in all, I'm satisfied with the unit and it suits what I'm doing in terms of features and flexibility. In terms of channel count - you can't get more than this for the money, but I think a "Twelve" version, with 4 mic pre channels and 4 stereo channels would be a hit.
Hope this helps someone who's considering this mixer.
Cheers

Yes, I aligned mine with a test tone. EXT inputs' unity is at about 10 o'clock, which is a bit of a shame, considering you'd want the easy adjustment in the center indentation, for summing purposes.
Also, do you know where the line input trim pot on ch 1 and 2 is supposed to be, with faders at 0, to get to unity gain?
As far as stereo channels go on my unit, there is no discrepancy in levels there.

I'm waiting for FedEx to deliver mine. I plan on using it as a drum bus mixer feeding into my API Box.
I have a db25 snake coming with my Six so I should be all set. I have thousands of SSL hours logged on 4000's, 9000's, AWS's and Duality's..... so I plan on seeing what the Six can really do.

I've "upgraded" my SiX to the SSL Sigma & SSL FXG384 compressor. I'm almost sure that I want to sell it, but Will just reminded me that I can slap a couple DB25 cables in there and utilize the SiX for Drum Bus processing. Still, I'm unsure. I will try, before I sell.

For anyone interested in reading my opinion on which is the "better" of the two, don't be discouraged when I say this: The 19" rack SSL Bus compressor is significantly more open, 3D, relaxed, but has a better transient response, with more or less compression. It sounds less choked and like there's less compression, to my ears. It's just much more true to the source.

Comparing old mixes to the latter makes the SiX sound like a plugin. This is subjective opinion, btw. On the flip side, the SiX makes plugins sound like...plugins. LOL

I've used it for almost a year and I've had fun, did some great tests and mixes. It experienced my converter upgrade, which also made it sound better. I couldn't complain and won't, for how well it treated me. I can see myself using this little mixer to process my drum bus, before it gets to the Sigma. Maybe, in the near future. I guess, we'll see.

P.S.,

The monitoring quality of the SiX isn't far off from that of my Imperium. The bang for buck is out of this planet!

That FXG384 is from the 4000 design and a different SSL era, from the 9000 forward the bus comp is based around the XLogic tech, so they are different beasts IMHO. If I could find a FXG384 for a good price I would snatch it up fast, until then I'm piecing together my dream mix setup and I'm excited to see what the Six brings drum wise to my current setup.

I'll be all ears, Will. Keeping mine, so I can run some tests, as well. You can't be far off from your dream mix setup! LOL You've got great gear, my friend!

Yeah I'm close.... recently picked up a pair of Heritage 73EQ Jr's for snare work..... and just slowly doing pairs of 500 colour modules and EQ's for channels. Lots of trials to find the best of both ITB and hardware tools. I'm hoping the Six nails my drum bus need as I'm copying my ITB workflow in hardware.

Keep us posted how your tests go too.

Will do! Speaking of Heritage, I recently purchased a HA-609 and it sounds great! Just came across Snake Oil guy on YouTube and he gave a great comparison and review. Happy with that purchase, as well. Happy mixing, Peace!

Good info, I've got that HA-609 on my list to test at some point, thanks for the feedback. Heritage seem to make nice gear, IMHO if they get their QC together they could be a real contender in the Neve clone market as they just sound right.

On a side note, that Snake Oil guy reminds me of so many of the many narcissistic guys that used to come into my sessions talking non stop when he should have been listening, lol. Real recognizes real as they say and I recognize exactly who he is, lol.

Few remarks:

I barely never use the chanels comps, don't like one knob comps so i would don't mind if they were removed for lowered the price.

I would love to have more chanels like two more stereo chanels and two more mono but of course it will increase the ins and outs and i'll have to buy a new interface, new patch bay new cables new comps and eq so it will cost a lot more, so in the end i like the six to be six.

Most important, i realy realy like the buss comp but i'm frustrated to not be able to switch it before the insert point... Of course i could put a comp at the out of the console but in this case i wont be able to monitor the mix from the console...

So if i retain one thing i would change is a push button to switch the comp or the insert before or after and have more flexibilty to use the buss comp.

My 2 cents.

I'm really liking the flexibility of this little console. I also think I can easily get decent sounds for tracking some vox from the 2 input channels, without plugging my external preamps in.
I've done a quick little comparison between ITB and Six summed mix.
DAW --> Rosetta 800 --> SSL Six (Ch 1-2 Solo Gtr, rhythm gtr; Ch 3-4 Bass, Sax, Sax room; Ch 5-6 Drums)

See what you think, which one is which.

MIX A
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qlC...ew?usp=sharing


MIX B
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jx5...ew?usp=sharing

Even better tbh would be to have another insert point after compressor, as I would want to have my saturation before comp.
And you want to get main out back into your interface anyway, and monitor the feed back.
Main out is already there on the DSub and there is even free space for another return on the return DSub. Could it possibly be hacked in, I'm not sure, but why not to have it there in the first place??

You can return the signal back to ext but then you have to do more ugly routing and lose bus b or cue 1 or whatever.

Yes, actually that would be even better than a switch for the comp to be before or after, that would be awesome!

EXs, Buss B and CUEs are already busy . BTW i would also like a Buss B switch on the two alt chanels (maybe in replacement of the channel's comp to keep price in place).