Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

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Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by nunocardoso »

Recently i have been looking at Softube Console 1 as an alternative to daw mixing with a mouse. I would like to have a better solution for the mixing stage that does not includes using too much the mouse, Icon Qcon Pro is also an alternative but Console 1 gives you a good analog console emulation and the workflow seems very good and easy, however it is a bit expensive.
What are your thoughts about Console 1 and related alternatives?

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by PixelKind »

I like the concept but its a bit too limited for the price in my opinion. If they would open it up so i could use it as a general midi controller as well then i would consider it

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Lost to the Void »

You could buy a focusrite liquid mix, and as long as you aren't on Mac, they are a bargain at the moment.
I've had one since they were released.
The Manley massive passive alone makes it worthwhile
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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Planar »

Suddenly interested in a Liquid Mix after looking on ebay (this may pass by the morning). Do you get all the emulations with it? Does it offer anything like Satson with the combined console saturation style effect?

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by msl »

Interesting concept, and the soft tube plugins are top quality. Just couldn't see myself spending that much on it tbh...


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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Planar »

Firewire has put me off. I don't have an expansion card slot in my main laptop anyway.

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Lost to the Void »

Planar wrote:Suddenly interested in a Liquid Mix after looking on ebay (this may pass by the morning). Do you get all the emulations with it? Does it offer anything like Satson with the combined console saturation style effect?
Yes and there are other emulations on the website (distressor)

It's not a console emulator, you can have one compressor and one EQ unit of your choice per channel.
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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by nunocardoso »

One of the best things i like in Console 1 is how easy is to switch between channels and adjust eq and volume (or mute/solo), i think is a very improved mixing workflow inside a daw.

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by winston »

i like the look of the Console 1 and i like the fact you can ignore the screen to mix, you don't need to be looking at values and can concentrate on the sound. but it is pretty expensive and i already have the Waves SSL channel strip and i don't think the difference, if noticable by me, would warrant it.

a good workaround would be a Lemur template for the waves ssl channelstrip, but that would just be added to an already too long to-do list.

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Planar »

If it's just a case of being more hands on, maybe a something like an APC40 will be good enough? Assuming you use Ableton, it takes 5 minutes to rack up an EQ and Compressor and set up the macro's to control them. The APC will just work with the macro's without having to set anything else up. Just make the plugins part of your defaults (right click a channel name and you'll see it in the menu). I use an APC and it's a decent bit of kit and the older revision can probably be had fairly cheap these days.

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by tsurani »

I like the what Softube has done with the Console 1 and if what I have read is true it is selling well which is great.
The problems I have is that, at that price point it should have a single decent quality mortised fader
(I really think that they intentionally left this out to make Console 2 more attractive to Console 1 owners when they release it)
or have more than one channel strip from different manufacturors included.
Also the last time I looked they only offer 2 channel strips in total both from SSL
(I know that if you have the Softube plugs you can insert them into the strip) and it has been on the market for
around a year already.
Namm has just come and gone with no news that I saw on any channel strips from different
companies on the horizon, I guess it will be quite a wait for something new.
The other thing to think about is that with this selling well and grabbing the attention of so many people
other comapnies are going to want a piece of the pie. For example I have seen rumours of Universal Audio doing something.

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by UN!T B »

For the price of this you can go out and buy an actual SSL eq and put it in a 500 series chassis. I wouldn't bother wasting my money with this.
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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by winston »

Planar wrote:If it's just a case of being more hands on, maybe a something like an APC40 will be good enough? Assuming you use Ableton, it takes 5 minutes to rack up an EQ and Compressor and set up the macro's to control them. The APC will just work with the macro's without having to set anything else up. Just make the plugins part of your defaults (right click a channel name and you'll see it in the menu). I use an APC and it's a decent bit of kit and the older revision can probably be had fairly cheap these days.
if you have a device mapped to midi so that you can control them with a midi device and then copy the ableton device to another channel, does the midi mapping get copied too? i.e. if you have the eq&comp on channel 1 mapped to your knobs on the apc and you copy the eq&comp device to channel 2, can you just control which ever you want by changing the record enable button, or would you have to re-map the knobs on channel 2?

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Lost to the Void »

The point is it`s softubes system. They are on of the best vst effect programmers, so you get their console emulation and their interface.
I was sorta interested, but the price point couldn`t really justify itself to my pocket.
And I really don`t think they are selling well, I know a ton of studio heads, I know no-one who has this thing.
I think it sits at an odd place in the market, an odd place at the wrong price.
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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Planar »

winston wrote:
Planar wrote:If it's just a case of being more hands on, maybe a something like an APC40 will be good enough? Assuming you use Ableton, it takes 5 minutes to rack up an EQ and Compressor and set up the macro's to control them. The APC will just work with the macro's without having to set anything else up. Just make the plugins part of your defaults (right click a channel name and you'll see it in the menu). I use an APC and it's a decent bit of kit and the older revision can probably be had fairly cheap these days.
if you have a device mapped to midi so that you can control them with a midi device and then copy the ableton device to another channel, does the midi mapping get copied too? i.e. if you have the eq&comp on channel 1 mapped to your knobs on the apc and you copy the eq&comp device to channel 2, can you just control which ever you want by changing the record enable button, or would you have to re-map the knobs on channel 2?
If you map you things you use into a rack and use macro's then yes, it just works. Things aren't statically mapped, you get a ring in Ableton that shows which area of the live set you're currently controlling and then you can switch to any of these channels and use the controls on them. Push works in a similar way but is no where near as good for mixing (so I use both). Make the macro'ed up compressor and EQ part of your default audio and midi channels and you have a configurable channel strip without having to map anything.

You get control of panning, channel volume and sends out of the box, you don't have to map shit.

It's much easier to just see it in action (3m30s for controlling macros).:-

youtu.be/nydOFGR3ZIA

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Mattias »

I'm sure this is a wicked thing, but the price is nasty.

Softube should re-consider their pricing in general.
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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by winston »

If you map you things you use into a rack and use macro's then yes, it just works. Things aren't statically mapped, you get a ring in Ableton that shows which area of the live set you're currently controlling and then you can switch to any of these channels and use the controls on them. Push works in a similar way but is no where near as good for mixing (so I use both). Make the macro'ed up compressor and EQ part of your default audio and midi channels and you have a configurable channel strip without having to map anything.

You get control of panning, channel volume and sends out of the box, you don't have to map shit.

It's much easier to just see it in action (3m30s for controlling macros).:-

youtu.be/nydOFGR3ZIA[/quote]


cool, i'll give it a spin to see how i can use it. thanks.

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by The Quorn »

Well this is my experience using the unit in present time with Windows 10 running Ableton Live 10 and Cakewalk by Bandlab. I was really excited to get this hardware controller which is supposed to not only gives you hands on control (well if it actually worked) over EQ, Comp, Gate, Drive ect, but actually is supposed to emulate the SSL 4000 E console channel strip (standard), which some had said just that alone made their mixes sound better.

I was really excited by this concept, so in the registration process I also bought the SSL XL 9000 K channel strip expansion on sale for US$199 (what a mistake that was). By the way one also has to have an Ilock account linked to your Softube account in order to register and activate the product.

So the whole experience has been hellish, firstly the software does not load at all in Cakewalk, second in Ableton it crashes the DAW and I had to restart my Tower and Laptop (I tried on 2 different systems to be sure) in order for Live to be able to see my I/O in the audio preferences again.

Getting in touch with Mattias in support (who has been completely dismissive of my request for a refund for the SSL XL 9000 K expansion) was absolutely useless, he said it was an issue with their Open GL Code, and sent me a link to an earlier version of the software, which likewise also does not work (slight improvement in Live, the plug-in window opens and no longer crashes Live, but the hardware does not work with the software, so the whole unit and software are unusable.

Therefore, I will be sending the unit back and the retailer has agreed to give me a full refund, saying they were aware "that other customers had reported issues with Console 1" , but really infuriating is that I just forked our US$199 for an expansion that I cant use, and Mattias from support wont even acknowledge my request for a refund after clearly acknowledging that the problem is because of their Open GL Code. I am sure they would not ignore Pete Townsed who endorses this product. So I have written to the CEO Oscar Oberg of Softube hoping he will be more reasonable but so far no response. Amazing how some companies can treat their customers with such contempt! I have never experienced this in 3 decades of buying studio equipment.

In order to get the refund I will have to challenge the transaction in Paypal if I get no response in the next few days, what a pain!

So my advice is if you are running Windows and using Ableton or Cakewalk, stay well away from this gear and save yourself a massive hassle!

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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Lost to the Void »

Yeah I've not heard much good since this thread started.
Lots and lots of people with issues. Poor support.
And still, not really many people using them.

Go for a PayPal dispute mate.
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Re: Your Thoughts about Softube Console 1

Post by Cirklonian »

I looked into this but then I saw the Brainworx SSL E was on sale for $49 and I went that route. Very pleased with my choice, but I don't mind mixing with a mouse.


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