Digico SD8 Users

[Bart]

Hi everybody,

 

We received our SD8 about a week ago. We first put it up in our workspace to get to know our way around the table. We were pleased by the ease of use, the intuitive lay-out of the contrl surface. It's our first Digico, where as before we worked with Yamaha (o2r, and for the bigger productions PM1D).

During our test week, we had one failure, a floating point error whilst 'swapping' banks. Reason enough for the table to have to be rebooted. That's all for the failures in prep-week.

Yesterday we had our first show on it, and it went in a little bit of sweat! During soundcheck, we had to deal with a massive digital feedback, that came unwarned, and we couldn't get rid of, even with all inputs and outputs being muted. To be honoust, a human error might have been the cause for that one, though I'm not really sure. Is one ever sure nowadays in the digital era?? Anyway, the 'tone' was set! Minutes after we stopped this horendous feedback, floating point error reoccured, in what must probably be the worst timing ever. But no panic, small reboot did the trick and brought us back on track. Soundcheck went on without any further difficulties. Everybody happy, cause the desk sounds great! Lots of headroom, lots of punch and a sparkly transparant sound. Show started, everything going great, until the desk out of the blue and for no clear reason, decided to do a little reboot on it's own!! Audio still passed, fortunately, but the heart missed a beat or two! At digico, they say that this reboot issue was a problem in the previous software version, but they just released an update, that I will install with a big smile on my face!

To conclude, the sound of the desk is great! Ease of use is excellent, with great hands on control, fast access to critical controls. We had the idea though that the table produces a lot of noise, but that was possibly caused by the passive monitor split who fed our inputs. Next monday I'm gonna connect the SD8 alone to our FOH-system, and plug in some mic's to see about the output noise level. Anyone of you also have this noise problem? Personally, I tend to think it had to do with the monitor split, but we'll test this next week.

If any of you have any comments, or expierences with the sd 8, I'll be very happy to hear them! I will keep you posted with our expierences...

Still confident that we have made a good choice with this desk, and I'm hope- and faithfull that Digico will get these bugs out before too long!

 

Greetings from Belgium,

 

Bart

[Mark Payne]

I had an A&H ML5000 crash once.

 

It was in the back of a 7.5 tonner where the driver hit the barrier where the A34 meets the M4. He rolled the truck and we had to unload it on its side. Some of the kit was unloaded out of the roof.

 

Worst console crash I ever saw ;-)

 

I often look at the slightly new piece of barrier just before the rounderbout going north and I think...... we did that!

 

So yep.. analogue consoles crash also. Even cheap ones.

 

M

[RustyBrooks]

Bart,

 

That is the downside of Digital, and something that can catch you out on the sd8, if you patch a digital feedback loop in, then no amount of muting will help you, and the desk will fall over in the digital sound desk equivalent of AAARRRRRHHHHGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!.

 

Normally very reliable, but the odd bit of finger trouble can cause all sorts of grief to the newcomer to a desk.

 

With regards your noise, have found the digicos to be amongst the quietest desks I have come across, so would put money on your noise being either your splits, or somthing that would need a whole heap of extra information to find out what it is

[Bart]

Bart,

 

That is the downside of Digital, and something that can catch you out on the sd8, if you patch a digital feedback loop in, then no amount of muting will help you, and the desk will fall over in the digital sound desk equivalent of AAARRRRRHHHHGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!.

 

Normally very reliable, but the odd bit of finger trouble can cause all sorts of grief to the newcomer to a desk.

 

With regards your noise, have found the digicos to be amongst the quietest desks I have come across, so would put money on your noise being either your splits, or somthing that would need a whole heap of extra information to find out what it is

 

Re-thinking the feedback-incident, I was programming and routing the table (didn't have to mix the show because the band had their own foh engineer), but their guy was navigating the table as I was programming it. In fact, I just programmed the internal FX returns to their return channels, and I think their guy just at that moment sended the FX return towards the FX again. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty convinced that that's the case! Moral of the story for me? When I'm programming, I want all hands cleared of the desk!

The noise thing isn't solved yet, as I'm unable to set the desk up the next few days, but I'll have it set up again before the end of the week. As for the noise, my guess would be it was the split as well. But I'll know more by the end of the week! And let you know as well.

 

Greetings from Belgium

[en76]

Hi All I was lucky enough to have an SD8 on demo for a weak. I used it several times on FOH and on Monitors. What version software are you using because mine had the most recent pre release available at 20th Nov, which had a number of issues including crashes. but they promised to sort before release. Brendon

 

Where you firing snapshots? I recall a Rep saying that a client had crash a D1 while on a live show which has to do with how he program his snapshots. He had a feature turn on which keep sending message to his hardware that did not exist and eventually crashes.

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

Am a newbie and very much looking forward to learn from all you pros out there. in a month, will have a chance to work on a SD8. With a few hrs of demo on a D1, am confident and ready to transition from old school analog to new school analog/digital world.

Am very happy to find this forum and hopefully in a year or so can give a though or two on a SD8. aloha!

[brendon]

Hello

and welcome to the forum.

 

Yes it was related to snapshots, and vareous outher things.

 

I beleave it is all sorted now. the interesting thing is that although it through a load of errors on the screen, it continued to pass audio and respond to controll. it never completely failed. I was able to only reboot the the surface at a conveniant time, again withought effecting the audio.

 

I am looking at getting one soon, and would be interested if anyone has any up to date first hand experiance.

 

Brendon

 

www.stageleftproductions.co.uk

[MarkBarl]

No first hand experience, but a friend of mine recently did a European tour with one for a metal band, he loved it and said it made it into his top 10 for desks. I'll point him at this thread and see if he can add some first hand knowledge.

[en76]

Hello

and welcome to the forum.

 

Yes it was related to snapshots, and vareous outher things.

 

I beleave it is all sorted now. the interesting thing is that although it through a load of errors on the screen, it continued to pass audio and respond to controll. it never completely failed. I was able to only reboot the the surface at a conveniant time, again withought effecting the audio.

 

I am looking at getting one soon, and would be interested if anyone has any up to date first hand experiance.

 

Brendon

 

www.stageleftproductions.co.uk

Thanks! That's one thing I love about Digico, I can strike the board and yet still have audio going. I do not have to turn off the amps first .