The Digico SD11 is a small digital console thought (mainly) for live applications (there's also a version, which is simply a software "upgrade", for the broadcast world).
Let me first start with saying that in the last 10 years I was touring Europe with several bands and I encountered tons of analog and digital boards on my road.. (as I guess many of you doing this job).
Also let me state that I'm an analogue guy, I like how analogue mixers blends, and I love the functionality of an analogue board.. fast and easy.. especially in some genres (reggae), analogue is great for fx's and other special stuff.. that said the nice analogue boards are quite heavy to carry around, big and rather expensive (soundcraft 8000 or Midas XL series), for touring live with "small" budgets, digital offers some great features nowadays.
The version I had the pleasure to test was already fitted with the "i" version software, so it was an SD11i, which offers some more features like that all the 32 channels could be either stereo (flexi channels), more channels with the dynamic eq's, and more multiband compressors channels, it also has 6 channels of tubes emulation (that you could turn on or off, that you could change the bias and decide how hard to drive it).
I was using a Digico D-Rack with the SD11i, so I had 32 inputs and 16 outputs (since the D-rack was fitted with another 8 channel optional output module) which made the installing a breeze.. 1 CAT5 cable connected the D-Rack with the console.. and that's it.. literally 5 minutes and all the inputs and outputs were connected.. I think that with the recallability this is one of the biggest features of digital desks in the live world (no more heavy 48 channels multicores to lug around).
I had a gig with a reggae band that I'm touring with (ZonaSun Official Web Site) and that was the perfect occasion to put the sd11i through its paces.
THE SOUND:
Digico is very well regarded in the industry for a good reason.. this console (as the other ones in their SD series) sounded fantastic indeed.. I won't bore you with the specs that you could find on Digico's website.. The preamps sounded pretty good.. you plug in the mic..1, 2, check and the sound is already good.. heh
The thing that caught my attention is how great is the 4 band eq.. no matter how much you have to carve out from the signal, it always sounded good, it always has a sort of body/liveness to it.. it's hard to describe.. I was very impressed with the eq and the hpf and lpf on every channel with dedicated knobs is a godsend heh
The dynamic eq is another very cool tool that helps in some situations, to control some nasty gtr freq's or some peaky vocals better than a regular compressor. The compressors were nice and easy to dial in, rather clean unless you really crushed them. (I used them on on a few sources).
The digitubes are another added bonus, I didn't use them on vocals.. I liked the "clean" preamps better, but on the clavia keys (organ, rhodes etc..) they might help to "warm" them up a bit. You could tweak them as you like with bias and drive, they might be useful to dig a specific "dirt/distorted" sound too on vocals or other instruments but this wasn't my case.
The FX were also pretty good.. this is also where other desks usually fall short.. I hoestly didn't have too much time to "play" with them..so I didn't try them all, I used a plate, a hall and a delay with a tap (assigned to one of the 8 macros button).
The 15" touch screen is fantastic.. everything is layout in a very intuitive way, it's like an analog channelstrip.. and the touch'n'turn knob is fantastic, very fast and easy to dial in.
Overall this desk is a little gem, the feeling and the sound are first class as the other Digico consoles, it sports the the same sound as the biggest brothers at a very reasonable price and fantastic portability.
I was a little bit worried about the number of the faders:12 ..but with some smart grouping and the fact that you could layout the desk the way you want this was not a problem at all.. I founded quite weird the master level on the knob (but it's also always in the master bank).. but at the end of the day I really loved it.. I don't usually touch the master (unless for some small changes at the very beginning of the show).
This desk made my job easier with a band that is very tight and that I know quite well.. I couldn't be happier.. :)
OTHER BONUSES:
The power supply is hot swappable, that means that if your power supply goes bad, you could simply take it out and put in a new one, it's also very small, so could be shipped easily. Very clever design. I think it's the same power supply for all the SD series (they also have an optional external power supply that could be used in redundancy).
Speaking of power supplies the D-Rack has 2 inbuilt power supplies, so if one goes bad, you still have the other one.. heh
Digico also does the UB MADI which offers to record all your tracks (I think 'til 56 channels) through the MADI connector on the SD11 (it could also work with the other SD consoles line up) to any USB pc/mac.. Usb powered, fantastic and very well done piece that adds a lot of functionality to your SD11 or SD console range without lugging around tons of cards/pc/cables,racks,etc..
THE COMPETITION:
This is one of the best digital desks I've used, there are other digital desks that are also quite good, but none of them could fit a 19" rack.
There are few digital desks that are somewhat at this level: Soundcraft Vi series is pretty good sounding too, very clean preamps and nice fx's, but the workflow is mind boggling to me (nothing that you could not learn, but not so intuitive IMO) and it comes at an higher price range, and it's not so small. The other one is the Midas PRO series, which has a nice feel, but again it's not 19" rackmountable and has no touch screen (even if they intended it that way), the different types of compressors are pretty cool though.
Not much competition at that price/quality level. (studer and stagetec hit at a completely different price market).
I think that at this price range (with or without D-rack) there's nothing that comes close to the features and sound that this board offers.
IMPROVEMENTS:
I think that there are a couple of small details that could be addressed.. the fan for exemple.. I'd say that for any pop/soul or rock act is not an issue at all.. you could hear it only in VERY quiet small rooms, so if you do some acoustic or jazzy stuff in small places, the fan might be annoying, but I was reassured from Digico that the fan could be changed for a silent one.. So again there's no reason to worry.
The FX while being nice could be another place where improvements could be done.. some special verbs and delays could be added in the future via software upgrades, as well as some special comps maybe?.. But in all honesty nothing is missing or misplaced.. you know what I mean..
For sure there's space for some small improvements, but Digico has done a tremendous job with the SD11. kfhkh Digico! heh
I'd like to thank Digger at Digico and Gilberto Giacon at MGM audio (Swiss distributor for Digico) for giving me the chance of testing out the SD11i.
howdy
Cheu
disclaimer: I don't work for DiGiCo (I wish.. heh ) nor MGM audio, this is just my experience with the Sd11i.
here are some pics:
Attachment 326353
Attachment 326354
Attachment 326355
Let me first start with saying that in the last 10 years I was touring Europe with several bands and I encountered tons of analog and digital boards on my road.. (as I guess many of you doing this job).
Also let me state that I'm an analogue guy, I like how analogue mixers blends, and I love the functionality of an analogue board.. fast and easy.. especially in some genres (reggae), analogue is great for fx's and other special stuff.. that said the nice analogue boards are quite heavy to carry around, big and rather expensive (soundcraft 8000 or Midas XL series), for touring live with "small" budgets, digital offers some great features nowadays.
The version I had the pleasure to test was already fitted with the "i" version software, so it was an SD11i, which offers some more features like that all the 32 channels could be either stereo (flexi channels), more channels with the dynamic eq's, and more multiband compressors channels, it also has 6 channels of tubes emulation (that you could turn on or off, that you could change the bias and decide how hard to drive it).
I was using a Digico D-Rack with the SD11i, so I had 32 inputs and 16 outputs (since the D-rack was fitted with another 8 channel optional output module) which made the installing a breeze.. 1 CAT5 cable connected the D-Rack with the console.. and that's it.. literally 5 minutes and all the inputs and outputs were connected.. I think that with the recallability this is one of the biggest features of digital desks in the live world (no more heavy 48 channels multicores to lug around).
I had a gig with a reggae band that I'm touring with (ZonaSun Official Web Site) and that was the perfect occasion to put the sd11i through its paces.
THE SOUND:
Digico is very well regarded in the industry for a good reason.. this console (as the other ones in their SD series) sounded fantastic indeed.. I won't bore you with the specs that you could find on Digico's website.. The preamps sounded pretty good.. you plug in the mic..1, 2, check and the sound is already good.. heh
The thing that caught my attention is how great is the 4 band eq.. no matter how much you have to carve out from the signal, it always sounded good, it always has a sort of body/liveness to it.. it's hard to describe.. I was very impressed with the eq and the hpf and lpf on every channel with dedicated knobs is a godsend heh
The dynamic eq is another very cool tool that helps in some situations, to control some nasty gtr freq's or some peaky vocals better than a regular compressor. The compressors were nice and easy to dial in, rather clean unless you really crushed them. (I used them on on a few sources).
The digitubes are another added bonus, I didn't use them on vocals.. I liked the "clean" preamps better, but on the clavia keys (organ, rhodes etc..) they might help to "warm" them up a bit. You could tweak them as you like with bias and drive, they might be useful to dig a specific "dirt/distorted" sound too on vocals or other instruments but this wasn't my case.
The FX were also pretty good.. this is also where other desks usually fall short.. I hoestly didn't have too much time to "play" with them..so I didn't try them all, I used a plate, a hall and a delay with a tap (assigned to one of the 8 macros button).
The 15" touch screen is fantastic.. everything is layout in a very intuitive way, it's like an analog channelstrip.. and the touch'n'turn knob is fantastic, very fast and easy to dial in.
Overall this desk is a little gem, the feeling and the sound are first class as the other Digico consoles, it sports the the same sound as the biggest brothers at a very reasonable price and fantastic portability.
I was a little bit worried about the number of the faders:12 ..but with some smart grouping and the fact that you could layout the desk the way you want this was not a problem at all.. I founded quite weird the master level on the knob (but it's also always in the master bank).. but at the end of the day I really loved it.. I don't usually touch the master (unless for some small changes at the very beginning of the show).
This desk made my job easier with a band that is very tight and that I know quite well.. I couldn't be happier.. :)
OTHER BONUSES:
The power supply is hot swappable, that means that if your power supply goes bad, you could simply take it out and put in a new one, it's also very small, so could be shipped easily. Very clever design. I think it's the same power supply for all the SD series (they also have an optional external power supply that could be used in redundancy).
Speaking of power supplies the D-Rack has 2 inbuilt power supplies, so if one goes bad, you still have the other one.. heh
Digico also does the UB MADI which offers to record all your tracks (I think 'til 56 channels) through the MADI connector on the SD11 (it could also work with the other SD consoles line up) to any USB pc/mac.. Usb powered, fantastic and very well done piece that adds a lot of functionality to your SD11 or SD console range without lugging around tons of cards/pc/cables,racks,etc..
THE COMPETITION:
This is one of the best digital desks I've used, there are other digital desks that are also quite good, but none of them could fit a 19" rack.
There are few digital desks that are somewhat at this level: Soundcraft Vi series is pretty good sounding too, very clean preamps and nice fx's, but the workflow is mind boggling to me (nothing that you could not learn, but not so intuitive IMO) and it comes at an higher price range, and it's not so small. The other one is the Midas PRO series, which has a nice feel, but again it's not 19" rackmountable and has no touch screen (even if they intended it that way), the different types of compressors are pretty cool though.
Not much competition at that price/quality level. (studer and stagetec hit at a completely different price market).
I think that at this price range (with or without D-rack) there's nothing that comes close to the features and sound that this board offers.
IMPROVEMENTS:
I think that there are a couple of small details that could be addressed.. the fan for exemple.. I'd say that for any pop/soul or rock act is not an issue at all.. you could hear it only in VERY quiet small rooms, so if you do some acoustic or jazzy stuff in small places, the fan might be annoying, but I was reassured from Digico that the fan could be changed for a silent one.. So again there's no reason to worry.
The FX while being nice could be another place where improvements could be done.. some special verbs and delays could be added in the future via software upgrades, as well as some special comps maybe?.. But in all honesty nothing is missing or misplaced.. you know what I mean..
For sure there's space for some small improvements, but Digico has done a tremendous job with the SD11. kfhkh Digico! heh
I'd like to thank Digger at Digico and Gilberto Giacon at MGM audio (Swiss distributor for Digico) for giving me the chance of testing out the SD11i.
howdy
Cheu
disclaimer: I don't work for DiGiCo (I wish.. heh ) nor MGM audio, this is just my experience with the Sd11i.
here are some pics:
Attachment 326353
Attachment 326354
Attachment 326355