At the recent InfoComm 2015 show in Orlando, Harman‘s Soundcraft showcased t he new Vi5000 and Vi7000 digital consoles, which offer optional 96 kHz processing, upgraded channel counts and more hardware.
The Vi5000 and Vi7000 replace Soundcraft’s Vi4 and Vi6 consoles, delivering technology and feature set improvements while retaining and building on the user interface and sound quality characteristics.
The Vi5000 and Vi7000 provide a choice of compact control surfaces with new local rack and active breakout box hardware, delivering simultaneous mixing of up to 128 inputs and 32 mono/stereo buses with up to 384 inputs and outputs in the I/O system allowing unlimited record feeds from all channels. Sound quality is enhanced with low-noise microphone amplifier designs and enhanced 96 kHz 40-bit floating point digital audio processing, with the digital implementation of the BSS DPR901ii dynamic EQ adding to the channel processing.
Effects contain eight independent Lexicon multi-FX units, and a BSS graphic EQ on every bus output. Both consoles also offer an additional dedicated 64-channel MADI interface for Realtime Rack; a collaboration with Universal Audio that gives users access to UA studio plugins.
Configuration via new encoder assign functions and shortcut keys are joined by a new extension to the Vi’s patent-applied-for VM2 radio microphone status monitoring feature, with Shure ULXD systems now recognized alongside AKG’s DMS800 and WMS4500 systems. The Vi5000 and 7000 consoles have configurable local and Stagebox I/O hardware, with ViSi Connect I/O expansion options available (EtherSound, CobraNet, Dante, MADI, etc.) plus a choice of Cat-5e or optical fiber Stagebox connection to suit budget and cable length. The Vi5000 and Vi7000 also feature the latest 3D Vistonics II and FaderGlow interfaces, plus an improved ViSi Remote iPad control interface completes the package.
“Our Vi4 and 6 consoles have been enormously popular with countless tour sound professionals, as well as theatres, houses of worship, and more,” says Dave McKinney, vice president and general manager, Soundcraft and Studer. “With the introduction of the Vi5000 and Vi7000, we are showing that we’ve listened to our customers and are offering a significant step up with the User Interface features they need and the world-class audio quality and processing tools they expect, so that any engineer can have the very best mixing technology at their fingertips.”
