SSL Debuts First-Ever Live Sound Console – ‘Live’ with Tempest Processing Platform

It was bound to happen.

SSL has arrived on the live sound scene with it’s first-ever console purpose-built for the live market. The classic SSL sound in a live board is a tantalizing enough proposition, but one look at “Live” reveals a highly inspired control surface to match.

“Live” from SSL provides extreme flexibility.

Packed with processing power courtesy of its new Tempest platform, the ergonomics of “Live” are equally next-level, combining multiple tablet style multi-gesture touch screens with “elegant” operation and extreme visual feedback. Touring, installations, FOH, monitors, venues, arenas, houses of worship, concert halls and more are all intended applications for “Live”, as it gets set to compete in a highly competitive digital live sound console sector.

“Live” will arrive in September 2013, and this new system won’t be entry-level. The price will range between $84,000 and $130,000, depending on the configuration. The SSL “Live” console is now officially available. The first three SSL Live consoles have all shipped to U.K.-based global tour production company Britannia Row for use on Peter Gabriel’s forthcoming European “Back to Front” tour, and another two shipped to SGroup in France for the upcoming Amel Bent tour. According to SSL, Console manufacturing production for 2013 has been sold out since July. Certified training courses on the board have also begun, with a focus on Commercial Partners and initial purchasers. A training program for the wider operator community is scheduled to commence from January 2014.

The SSL Live will be exhibited at next month’s 135th International AES Convention in New York.

[Editor’s update, posted September 29, 2013: The SSL “Live” console is now officially available. The first three SSL Live consoles have all shipped to U.K.-based global tour production company Britannia Row for use on Peter Gabriel’s forthcoming European “Back to Front” tour, and another two shipped to SGroup in France for the upcoming Amel Bent tour. According to SSL, Console manufacturing production for 2013 has been sold out since July. Certified training courses on the board have also begun, with a focus on Commercial Partners and initial purchasers. A training program for the wider operator community is scheduled to commence from January 2014.

The SSL Live will be exhibited at next month’s 135th International AES Convention in New York.]

Here are the full details on “Live”, as provided by SSL:

“Live”, the first SSL console for live sound production brings SSL’s unique approach to audio quality and console ergonomics to sound for the stage. SSL has been at the leading edge of analogue and digital audio console innovation for over 35 years. Like so many multi award winning, ground breaking and much loved consoles for Music, Broadcast and Post production SSL has created through the decades, Live promises to bring something very special to the party.

“So many people have been asking us to make a console for live for so long and the time has come,” states Antony David, Managing Director at SSL. “It has been a couple of years in the making because we like to get things right at SSL and we are very confident that we have created a console engineers will fall in love with. It is very exciting to be entering a completely new area of the industry, with a new technology platform and a fresh approach to how a live console should sound and how to give engineers a control surface that helps them deliver exceptional performances. We are really looking forward to how the professional live sound community reacts.”

Live is a flexible and extremely powerful digital audio console designed specifically to meet the demands of all aspects of live sound production. It is perfectly suited to touring or installation, FOH or monitors, to venues and arenas, houses of worship and concert halls, to anywhere where audio quality is important and engineers require power, complete flexibility and a user interface that puts them in control.

Live is all about power and control. Based on SSL’s new Tempest processing platform, Live has plenty of power and it is deployed in a uniquely versatile way. The headline numbers are impressive at the price with 976 inputs & outputs and 192 full processing audio ‘paths’ at 96kHz. How those ‘paths’ are configured is extremely flexible with power allocated to Channels, Auxes, Stem Groups and Masters configured to suit the needs of each show.  All processing is built into the console surface and it has a collection of I/O connectivity built into the frame. A full range of Stagebox I/O connects to the console via MADI with the potential for larger systems to make use of SSL’s own Blacklight technology that carries up to 256 channels of bi-directional audio and control via a single fibre connection.

Power really is nothing if it can’t be controlled and Live offers a truly excellent control surface. It combines multiple tablet style multi-gesture touch screens with elegant hardware ergonomics, excellent visual feedback and a collection of innovative new features. It enables engineers to work exactly how they work today, whether they prefer new touch screen or classic hardware technology, or to combine them both, and offers new and better ways of doing things that will make life less stressful and more creative.

Being an SSL, Live has legendary audio performance as standard. Impeccable audio quality is a primary design feature right the way through from studio grade SuperAnalogue™ mic preamps, 24bit/96kHz A/D D/A conversion, to 64bit internal processing and 96khz operation throughout. An obsession with quality also shines through an array of channel processing tools that bear the classic SSL tone, but bring a completely new level of precision, flexibility and usability. Live features an impressive collection of 30 new Effects and audio analysis tools, which take SSL’s acclaimed studio grade processing and re-craft it for live and they have their own dedicated processing power.

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