In the realm of live sound reinforcement, digital mixing consoles have become the industry standard. The Soundcraft Vi1000 carves a niche within this domain, offering a compelling blend of power, space-saving design, and user-friendly features. This overview explores the core functionalities and characteristics that make the Vi1000 a valuable asset for live sound professionals.
Soundcraft Vi – Vi1000 Overview
Packing a Punch in a Compact Footprint:
- Reduced Dimensions: One of the defining features of the Vi1000 is its compact size. Compared to its larger siblings in the Vi Series (Vi2000 and Vi3000), the Vi1000 boasts a significantly smaller footprint, making it ideal for situations where space is a premium. This is particularly beneficial for smaller venues, club gigs, or corporate events where a large-scale console might be impractical.
- Uncompromised Power: Despite its compact size, the Vi1000 doesn’t compromise on processing power. It features the same proven Soundcraft SpiderCore integrated DSP engine found in the larger Vi consoles. This powerful engine delivers pristine audio quality and allows for extensive use of onboard effects, EQ, and dynamics processing without sacrificing performance.
User-Friendly Interface for Seamless Mixing:
- Vistonics II Knobs-on-Glass: The Vi1000 features the acclaimed Vistonics II control surface. This user interface utilizes a combination of physical knobs and buttons placed directly on a touch-sensitive screen. This approach provides a tactile and intuitive way to interact with the console, allowing for quick adjustments and real-time control during a live mix.
- Faderglow Color Coding: Soundcraft’s Faderglow color-coding system illuminates the fader slots according to function. This visual cue helps sound engineers quickly identify channel types (vocals, drums, etc.) and streamline their workflow, especially in fast-paced live environments.
- Assignable Fader Layers: The Vi1000 offers multiple assignable fader layers. This allows sound engineers to customize the console layout to their preference, placing frequently used channels or specific processing parameters on dedicated fader layers for instant access.
Comprehensive Connectivity and Processing Options:
- 96 Input Channels: The Vi1000 provides a generous 96 input channels, catering to a wide range of live sound applications. This allows for mixing complex bands with numerous instruments and microphones, as well as handling in-ear monitor mixes and other audio sources.
- Local I/O and Expansion: The console features 16 local mic/line inputs and 16 line outputs, offering a good foundation for smaller setups. Additionally, two double-slot expansion bays allow for connecting MADI-based stage boxes or other digital I/O options, expanding the system’s capabilities for larger productions.
- Built-in Dante and MADI Interface: The Vi1000 integrates a 64×64 channel Dante/MADI interface. This allows for seamless recording directly to a computer running compatible recording software or integration with other Dante or MADI-equipped devices in a larger audio network.
- LEXICON Effects Processing: World-class onboard Lexicon effects processing adds another layer of sonic polish to your mixes. The Vi1000 features a vast array of reverb, delay, modulation, and other effects that can be applied to individual channels or entire mixes.
Additional Features Enhancing the Live Sound Experience:
- BSS Audio Processing: The Vi1000 incorporates BSS graphic EQs on all output busses, providing precise control over the tonal balance of your mixes.
- vMIX Automatic Microphone Mixing: This feature, particularly valuable in situations like conferences or corporate events, automatically manages microphone levels with minimal background noise, ensuring a clean and focused sound.
- Proven Reliability: Soundcraft is known for its commitment to building robust and reliable audio equipment. The Vi1000 is designed to withstand the rigors of live performance and constant use, ensuring smooth operation night after night.
Conclusion: A Space-Saving Powerhouse for Live Sound Professionals
The Soundcraft Vi1000 offers a compelling solution for live sound engineers seeking a powerful yet compact mixing console. Its user-friendly Vistonics II interface, extensive processing capabilities, and space-saving design make it ideal for smaller venues, club gigs, or corporate events. While not the latest offering from Soundcraft, the Vi1000 remains a capable and reliable option for those who prioritize both performance and a reduced footprint in their live sound setup
Soundcraft Vi – Vi1000 Overview Video
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hi I’m Andy from Soundcraft welcome to another video about the VI series and in this video I’m going to show you some more details about the VI 1000 and specifically how we can get access to large numbers of channels from what is a very small control surface so the vis 1000 surface here has got 16 faders plus the master faders over here so these can be used in different ways how I’ve got it set up right now is where I can operate the layer buttons here and I’m actually getting pages of 16 faders so I can actually access five pages of 16 faders which gives me up to 80 channels of input channels on the surface here just by flipping through my ABCDE pages here now normally this intersection is
0:01:00.5 –>
on other VI consoles is used for this sort of output section or the VCA master control section but in this case because I’m using them for input channels I will be using this section on the Vista neck screen here for my output bus control so up here on the vist onyx screen I’ve got my first 16 auxiliary bus masters I can solo those and I can get access to the parametric EQ the dynamics etc and I’ve got a second page up here where I can get to my second set of busses which is my group busses 17 to 24 in this case as you can see we’ve got 24 buses in total at the moment we’ve got the first 16 set up as auxiliaries these are the meter displays for the outputs and the third bank of 8 17 to 24 is set up at as group buses so it’s still very easy to get to my bus masters even though they’re not down on the faders here if I want to get to my VC a section here I just need to
0:02:00. –>
press the VCA button in my fader page section in the master section and I immediately get my VC a masters here if I want to go back to my input channels then I press my lair button again and I’m back to my layers of 16 so that’s the first thing to say that is that you can actually mix on 16 fader wide pages on this small surface there is another way to work on it which is a more limited way with input channels where I I’m going to load up a different show file now if I load up my default front-of-house show which is called front-of-house I’m not going to save changes there so I’m going to load up my normal show now this gives you more of a conventional VI setup where these 8 faders here are input channels these faders here are the bus masters and the VCAs and I can control those pages on here and my input pages are controlled by the buttons here as usual but in this case
0:03:00.6 –>
I’m using my user layer buttons as additional fader pages so that I can page through again up to 80 channels on this section here so I’ve got 1 to 8 on button a I’ve got 9 to 16 on user 1 on B I’ve got 17 to 24 on user 2 I’ve got 25 to 32 etc all the way down to user 6 which is 73 to 80 so that’s a lot more paging and it’s within that section here but it means I can leave this section as my master faders if I want to a third way of accessing input channels if you don’t want to use the page buttons here is that if I go to my meter screen on the VI as with other ones we can just press the touch screen here and we can select groups of input channels from wherever we touch down onto this Bay so I can keep my output section here or my VCAs and I can use the meter section to grab any channel up to the maximum which
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is actually 96 on this console now I’ll show you a bit more about how you would set up this 16 wide setting because what can happen is it I’ve got a show file from a larger VI I bring it on to this console and I find that I’m working in this mode with the 8 faders by default so there’s a trick to how I can load a show file and get it to work in the 16 fader mode which I’m going to show you in a minute but if you if you’re starting from scratch on this desk writing a show from scratch and you want to work in the 16 fader mode the way to do it is that you’re going to your show file menu and you instead of picking the default show called front-of-house i’m going to pick the one that says front-of-house 16 fader and the same if you were doing a monitor setup you’ve got monitor monitor 24 mono normal which is the 8 faders over here and these are your masters or I’ve got monitor 24 mono 16 fader which is the wider version so let’s choose front-of-house 16 fader and
0:05:02.2 –>
unload that up so this will be my starting point for a large double bang show and I’m just going to page through my layers and show you that yeah I’m getting my 16 fader wide input pages here so one channel one to eight here Channel nine to sixteen here channel 17 to 24 here 25 to 32 here etc and then I can program my show file and I’ll have my pages of 16 okay if I’m going to load a show up from a vi6 that comes in and it hasn’t been programmed in the 16 fader mode then what I’ll if I load that show in using the import function on the show menu then it will come in in the 8th fader mode by default which is not really what we want so what we’re going to do to avoid that is we will use the we will load the front-of-house 16 fader mode to start with and then we’ll go
0:06:01.2 –>
into the user page setup mode here and for the output section as well and we’ll press the isolate button here and we’ll press the isolate button on the input side okay so we’ve now isolated the layer change setup for input and output fader pages using that switch next what I’m going to do is I’m going to go to my snapshot control section and I’m going to press this button called load I so with show which by default is set to yes I’m going to change that to no then I’m going to load my vi6 show or my other larger VI show and I’ll keep the 16 fader default settings on the console so what I’m going to do is load in a show from another VI desk here using the USB stick and then we’ll see if we can load it up on the desk so I’m going to go to my show menu the show that I actually want
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to load is called this one when I import that this was a show that was made on the ice 7000 which normally has 32 input faders so it certainly hasn’t been set up to work in this 16 fader node so take my stick away I’ve imported the show and I’m gonna go down here find that show and there it is there now as I said I’ve isolated the input user fade fader page setup and the output user fader page setup and I’ve gone selected no in Lodi so with show in my snapshot section so then if I go back to my show file and I’m going to load this show it’s going to load in my show and it’s going to keep this setup that I already had on the console so the 16 faders set up so the next thing I have to do one final
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step is I go into my output user fader layers and I have this section here which is unique to the VI 1000 this is the system that enables us to link the input fader buttons to the output folder buttons so that when I press button a here it’s also going to press button a there I have to set that up so what I do is I go on page a input and select page a I go to the page B select page B page C etc so what I’m doing is I’m setting up a linking an automatic linking between these two paid fader page systems so now when I press button B here it’s going to select button B here and that’s the secret to having the 16 fade of white layer so now page a I get my first 16 channels page B I get my second 16 channels and close down those screens so I’ve imported a whole show file from another VI but I’ve forced it to work in a 16
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fader wide page on the console here that’s all I need to show you for now I hope that’s been interesting look out for more videos on the VI series and thanks for watching bye bye
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