#bluewatermelon

So we have had Cadac’s new CDC Six Console in house for the last few weeks.  We did five demos with various sizes and shapes of churches and here is what we found.

Pros:

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This thing sounds amazing!  Seriously, AMAZING....We plugged it into multiple systems and speakers and what you put in, is what came out.  The pre-amps and A/D - D/A converters are second to none and it is obvious the minute you fire up the desk.  Sound quality wise we would have no hesitation putting this desk up against any of the big boy names in the industry!

The interface is super intuitive, for both the old school analog guy and the new school computer junkie, the learning curve is hours not days.  As would be expected with any modern touch screen operated system, swipes and multi-touch gestures control this surface quite efficiently, but keeping in true Cadac form, it also has knobs, buttons and a simple layout that will make the oldest of the old-school engineers feel right at home.  

Along with the quality of the A/D - D/A conversion and preamps, Cadac has paid special attention to latency and phase alignment in this console.  One of the biggest complaints we have about modern digital consoles is the crazy digital tones that pop up and the dramatic phase changes that occur when you engage effects and EQs.  The CDC Six has an almost analog behavior in this aspect and we were truly impressed.  The latency of the desk when using the Cadac digital snake is only .4ms.  No other digital console (that we are aware of) has a latency this low, (Allen & heath comes in second with the new D-Live at .56ms). Ultra low latency has resulted in absolutely minimal unpredictable phase shifts and digital noise issues when engaging effects.

As you would expect with any console in this price range, it is fully redundant power supply capable and built like a tank.  In terms of effects, Cadac has chosen a minimalist with a partner approach.  Instead of loading the console down with a bunch of their own effects, Cadac has chosen to include only simple items such as reverb, delay, and compressors in the desk itself.  Don’t get us wrong the effects and channel strips in the console sound fantastic, but for the new generation that loves processing, the onboard systems won’t get you very far.....But wait....There’s more, Waves sound grid connectivity is built into the desk!  All of the waves plugins are loaded and multi-rack runs right on the surface.  Just plug your waves license in and you have access to 64 bi-directional digital audio paths that can be used for recording or virtual sound check via Waves Tracks.  Don’t want to use it to record (or only want to use a few channels to record), just connect a soundgrid server and your waves license and you access to up to 64 effects racks with 8 plugins per rack.

Oh yeah, 23″ Touch screen!  Enough said on that one I think!

Cons:

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Now with the good, you always have the bad, so lets be honest...

This is an amazing desk, but it isn’t perfect. 

To start with, we would prefer the snake be based on a TCPIP based protocol so we can use it with a standard network switch and easily convert it to and from fiber.

The right side of the console only has 4 faders, many younger mixers are use to having multiple console sections that can be user assigned in layers and only having one set of 16 and one set of 4 faders may be a deal breaker for those who are used to banks of 8 or 12.  

The minimal amount of effects in the desk means that you almost have to have a waves license to do any processing intensive advanced mixing.  While this is a cool feature, it is also an added cost.

With a console at this price point we would generally expect to have a 96 x 64 active channel count capability.  Currently the CDC Six is limited to 64 x 48 active channels.

Now we come to the software interface, we have been told that several of our issues such as lack of fade times for scenes, Windows popup menus coming up when not wanted, and no assignability for the right fader bank will be addressed in soon to be released revisions, we do have a few additional frustrations with the interface.  First and foremost, the touch sensitivity is not always as responsive as we would like.  Sometimes we had to touch things two or three times to get it to respond.  When you drag the channels one way or the other, they jump in groups and we would prefer this to be a more smooth and fluid transition.  Along with that, when you engage the waves plugins, you almost have to have a mouse plugged in to the desk because the buttons are too small for touch interface and the knobs don’t assign to functions.  This makes operating the plugins very frustrating without a mouse.  On the positive side, these are all things that can likely be fixed with software revisions in the future.

Finally we have to mention the price.  This desk is amazing, it sounds great, and a year ago, nobody could have touched it.  Recent releases in competing lines however, have changed the game.  As a result, we do feel that without some channel count expandability and additional onboard effects (such as dynamic EQ and multi-band Compression on each channel), it is about 5%-10% above where we would like to see it land for competitive purposes in the current market.  

Sometimes we run across a product that just really isn’t getting the credit it deserves.

The Roland VC-1-DL is exactly one of those products.  

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