The Future of Ui Series Mixers - What lies on the horizon?
flemingmras
Posts: 8
Hi.
As I understand it, Danny Olesh and the entire design team for the Ui mixers resigned in early 2019. As it appears, many Soundcraft dealers are out of stock on Ui mixers.
Is this the end for the Ui series? Has a new development team been brought on board to maintain the product? Anymore software updates on the horizon?
Many have complained of "bugs" that exist in the latest release. To name a few -
Matrix solo is broken.
Importing cue in show is broken.
"Master MTX Send Point" setting is inoperative. When "MASTER MTX SEND POINT" is set to "POST", all it appears to control is the meter indication on the subgroup's matrix send fader meter. But the matrix output signal is still tracked only by the subgroup's matrix send level fader and not the main subgroup level fader.
Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. I've found these to be a wonderful product in the realm of surfaceless mixers and would really hate to see them go by the wayside.
Comments
However, I strongly request soundcraft to fix those bugs and solve some inconvenience issues.
Channel safe can’t safe the gain of the channel.
There is a AutoGain button at the player channel but it doesn’t have any function. They should erase this button from GUI.
When I hit SOLOs in the AUX master bus, I can only hear the sound before the GEQ, COMP, Gate of that AUX.
I can’t hear my Comp setting.
I guess this is bug too.
As a global standard issue, the most standard use of SOLO settings for a typical live console is to use PFL for SOLO on the INPUT channel and AFL for SOLO on the OUTPUT bus.
However, ui24r can’t do it. There is only a switch of pfl and afl for both of in and out. That’s very inconvenient and I think it is out of standard. I hope them to fix this too.
I guess that these are not so difficult if they have the source codes.
I hope this console would be a normal mixing console forever.
You and I had a discussion about this. This IS NOT a bug. The gain, phantom power, and Hi-Z functions belong to the physical input hardware. NOT THE CHANNELS!!! This is why "Channel Safe" does not preserve these settings.
While this may not be YOUR idea of how it "should" operate, this DOES NOT make this a "bug".
The gain, phantom power, and Hi-Z settings are specific to the input's externally connected source (you set the gain to match the level of the connected source to the rest of the sources). As the inputs can be routed to any channel without re-routing the connected source to a different physical input, this is why you would want the gain, phantom power, and Hi-Z settings to stay with the input and NOT the channel.
All they need to do is make an "Input Safe" section in the Isolate menu that will preserve the "per input" gain, phantom power, and Hi-Z settings. This could be done through a simple feature request.
Not everything needs to follow a "global standard", nor does any such "standard" exist. Otherwise everyone would be basically making the same product.
Where is this "Auto Gain" button that you speak of? If you're referring to the "Manual" and "Auto" buttons on the player, these are "play mode" buttons. Selecting "Manual" will stop playing at the end of each song, requiring you to manually play the next song. "Auto" means the player will automatically start playing the next song in the file list. This is clearly explained in section 9.0 on page 98 of the Ui24R manual. Again...NOT a "bug".
I cannot confirm this at this time. However, what happens if you set the solo mode to AFL (since, as you say, outputs should be solo'ed AFL, and not PFL)?
Again not everything has to follow some set "global standard". AFAIK, there aren't even "global standards" published anywhere. This sounds more to me like "TAICHEE'S Idea Of How It Should Be" just because every other mixer you've worked with works some set way. Or perhaps you're trying to avoid a learning curve.
If they made their mixer like everyone else's, then why would we buy this mixer specifically?
And I wrote that as an inconvenient issue here, right?
That’s why I understood from the discussion with you although I didn’t know you were you.
However I am sure that it’s the bug of the programmer’s brain. :)
It’s really terrible.
This is soundcraft mixer.
I mean that it’s professional guys made.
Not the mess Behringer.
Not the amateur mind’s mackie.
I really trusted soundcraft, though.
I don’t know who is Danny.
I got it because soundcraft.
I didn’t know that was outsourcing.
They offed ?
I didn’t know that.
I found bugs soon after purchasing but I believed they would work for fixing because it was not discontinued item.
I sent reports via my distributor although I didn’t know the outsourcing team offed.
Actually all of digital mixers in the world that have channel safe function, it makes safe channel gain. Preamp are separated analog parts, the fact is same as well as all other mixers. If the preamp settings can be saved in snapshots, the safe function should work to the saved gain too.
At first, the purpose of the channel safe is isolating the channel from the loading snapshot temporary.
Who can imagine this terrible state before purchasing?
It’s really unbelievable.
There is common standard at least.
Everything of Yamaha, Soundcraft, Midas, Digico, Allen&Heath and even behringer has common usability.
They have different approach and policy for many features but the basic standard is also exists.
The channel safe and solo issue is a kind of it.
It’s same meaning the faders top is high level and bottom is low.
It’s same meaning the right pedal is gas pedal of cars.
Who loves accident?
It’s every time pre proc.
Not according to AFL/PFL switch.
Some one said that’s a bug since ver3.
I can’t try ver2 because mine was manufactured as v3 although some one said they could listen post proc when the ver2.
Watch the players channel of your ui24r.
There is a AutoGain button in that comp section.
Nothing happens.
Aren't they ashamed?
I want soundcraft to fix the problems and adjust some inconvenient stuff according to their standard mind at least as common operators approach like si and vi as a same maker.
I never say about new features like UDP.
And I know this is a cheaper mixer than SI.
I just want a basic works without problems.
When I share this console with guest band engineers, I don’t hope they occurs any accident.
They think this console is normal but it’s abnormal yet actually.
I don’t think it’s my standard.
Actually I can use this console without problems that surprises the audience because I know the bugs and abnormal things. The standard guest engineers can’t do it.
They didn't outsource. A bit of history...Danny Olesh, a world renouned live audio engineer in Australia, owned the Australia-based company SM Pro Audio. They created the uMix line of mixers, although they never made it to production. Google search "SM Pro Audio uMix". You'll see they look eerily similar to the Soundcraft Ui mixers.
There is a reason for this. That reason is because Harman bought SM Pro Audio and the uMix technology. The SM Pro Audio uMix mixers became the Soundcraft Ui series mixers.
Danny Olesh and his development team were also retained by Soundcraft to continue development and maintenance on the Ui mixers. They stayed on with Soundcraft until February 2019, when him and his team resigned due to a production disagreement with Harman.
Danny now works as the Chief Technology Officer for Mackie.
I don't know if Soundcraft intends to hire a new development team to fix the bugs that are left or not. That was the main reason behind my original post. But it seems no one from Soundcraft replies to these forums so...
This was the SM Pro Audio uMix 24 -
Harman bought them and their design team out, and used the uMix technology to make the Soundcraft Ui series mixers. Danny Olesh was the original creator of it all. He was also responsible for development and maintenance of the firmware up until February of 2019.
I bought 2 units for cascading and I’ve waited 1years and few months for bug fix and issues.
Is it my own responsibility?
Temporary errors were okay for me because it would be fixed. I didn’t think they ignore them.
I think users and the programmer can maintain the program together until it’s going to be matured level.
ui24r has NOT been there yet. There are many things to fix.
Actually soundcraft has the responsibility, I think.
In the USB 2 track player,
There is the Random play mode, you know?
If you put a media that has 5 songs then played in random mode, what can you imagine ?
You can imagine that
4 > 2 > 5> 3>1 something, can’t you?
Actually this player will
4 > 1 > 4 > 4 > 2 >1 > 4 > 5> 2 > 1 > 3 …..
I have never seen such literally random mode. Definitely random. Exactly random.
I think that it’s the out of global standard. It’s the abnormal program that surprise users and audience.
I may say that
No no no, That’s okay, Just I don’t use this random play mode. Because same songs would be played many times even if I put many songs.
But, aren’t they ashamed?
@TAICHEE in regards to the "channel gain save" in Isolate -
As I've mentioned before, the physical input hardware and the channel are two separate entities. The preamp belongs to the input hardware. There is a BIG reason for this separation.
In addition to the ability to route different inputs to different channels, and the input being married to the connected audio source (thus the gain should stay set to match the source output), the Ui24R has a tap point between the input hardware and the channel that is used for both the onboard multitrack recorder as well as the DAW routing. When routed to a DAW, the input preamp output routes into the DAW over USB. The gain then dictates how much signal we're sending to the DAW.
The DAW signal then returns via USB and is routed into the channel. The track output controls on the DAW are then metering the signal level into the Ui channel.
That's why the "per channel gain save" is a misnomer. They could add an "INPUT" facility to the Isolate menu, then select "per input" gain saves that way. But the gains DO NOT belong to the channel.
I mentioned about the safe function over the fact you mentioned.
Haven’t you used any other digital consoles?
Head amps are separated parts.
Those are analog parts.
Some of consoles, they don’t have head amps in the console because head amps are in stage box. Stage box is physically another device. Consoles remote the head amps in the stage box.
Channel safe function in the console must work for those linked head amp in the stage box. This is the most important basic of the function as a global standard. All of engineers use the channel safe function when they recall a snapshot for the same purpose. We need to isolate active channels i.e. host mc and interval music, in some unpredicted situations.
This is what I mentioned.
Why isn’t there a safe button for each HA even though there is Safe All HA button?
It because the programmer didn’t know the standard.
That’s not a big problem. User can upload the report for next update. And the maker can fix them. This is very normal maturity.
Is that a bug in the program?
Or is that a bug in the programmers brain?
Otherwise joke as an unique specification?