Home-studio owners who’ve fantasized about owning an SSL analog console can stop dreaming. Thanks to Solid State Logic’s BiG SiX, you can get your hands on a full-featured SSL console that’s tailor-made for mid-tier project studios and home-recording musicians. BiG SiX is the real deal, complete with long-throw faders, classic SSL channel processing, pro-level routing and monitoring, a robust monitoring section, and 18 channels of SSL-flavored analog summing. To top it off, BiG SiX also pulls double duty as a 16-in/16-out USB-C audio interface. While BiG SiX shares much in common with Solid State Logic’s 6-channel SiX desktop mixer, the larger BiG SiX puts — for the first time — major-league SSL sound, workflow, and features within the reach of small-studio owners.
Give Your Studio a World-class Analog Front End
BiG SiX will make your recordings sound like they were recorded on a real, big SSL console — because they will be recorded on a real SSL. You get four mono channels with amazing-sounding SuperAnalogue mic preamps with +72dB of gain, phantom power, a 75Hz highpass filter, a separate line-level/instrument input, and an insert point for your outboard signal processors. Each of these four channels also includes an SSL compressor with a program-dependent attack time, a fixed ratio and release time, and automatic makeup gain. In addition to these four mono channels, you also get four stereo line-in channels. All eight channels include a 100mm long-throw fader and a 3-channel EQ derived from SSL’s classic E Series console.
This Console Has “the Glue” That Your Mixes Are Lacking
The SSL G Series master bus compressor is a studio standard. It’s the most frequently used tool that professionals reach for to glue their mixes together. BiG SiX includes this classic circuit along with a streamlined layout with fixed ratio, attack, and release controls. Make no mistake though, running your mix — or anything — through BiG SiX’s bus compressor will infuse it with that coveted SSL punch and character.
Full-featured Monitoring Section and Analog Summing
BiG SiX includes a bevy of big-console features, including a robust monitoring section. Benefit from main and alternate monitor outputs; a proper monitor source matrix; mono check, dim, and cut functions; and a whole lot more. You also get a built-in talkback mic plus a talkback input with phantom power and SSL’s famous Listen Mic Compressor (LMC). What’s more, you can deploy the LMC as an effect for authentic ’80s drum sounds. On top of that, BiG SiX offers 18 channels of analog summing, enabling you to inject your mixes with the ear-grabbing nonlinearities you can only get from a real analog desk. If you want your mixes to have that unmistakable big-studio, mixed-on-a-console sound, then BiG SiX delivers the goods.
Large-console Routing and Built-in USB-C Audio Interface
BiG SiX includes four mono channels, four stereo channels, and two stereo external inputs that can be routed to its stereo mix bus. You also get two headphone outputs and two cue buses for artist mixes. Beyond that, BiG SiX also includes a class-compliant, 16-in/16-out USB-C audio interface with top-quality, 24-bit/96kHz AD/DA converters, which are routed through the console’s SuperAnalogue signal chain, enabling you to route stems, as well as your full mix, out of and back into your DAW.
An SSL for the Rest of Us
As much as we’d all like to own a Solid State Logic Origin, Matrix, AWS, or XL-Desk console, it’s hard for a humble home recordist to justify the size and expense of such a purchase, even though they deliver the sound we’ve been struggling to attain since we hit the “record” button the first time. BiG SiX is the perfect way to satisfy your SSL craving. It’s the ideal (desktop) size and includes the right features, and its price tag is guaranteed to make any project-studio owner smile.
