Softube Console 1 MK3 Released

[dwilliams]

New for Fall '23, Softube announced Console 1 MK3. Lots of changes. New software suite. 27 pots vs. 26 encoders. USB-C. Multi-color LEDS. 2 high res displays built it. More. I chose Console 1 ecosystem vs SSL due to better integration in DP. Not in a position to upgrade and test right now but thought I'd start this thread for us to discuss.

[James Steele]

Looks interesting. I’m going to remain on my Mk2 for a while primarily just based on cost/benefit at this point. Looks really nice though.

[dwilliams]

Hi MOTUNation.

I have purchased and pretty well tested the Console 1 Mk3 as VST3 with DP 11.3 (on a MBP w/ 13.6.3) and am pleased to report the integration is excellent.

I won’t review the product here. Suffice it to say, it is freaking awesome. Very fast, very powerful and very easy to use. Once all the busses and routing are setup, except for some transport functions, you can do a whole mix and only touch the keyboard and mouse a few times. The included channel strip is fully featured. It includes tape simulation, transient shaping, a gate, a spatial panner thing, a dual dynamics thing, two EQ slots including a “vintage” one for vibe and a “modern” one for surgical needs, two compressor slots, including “FET”, “Opto” and “Bus” (I guess think UA 1176, Teletronix LA-2A and API 2500) and a drive section with a “character” shaper. Naturally it sounds great. And of course, I’m sure it would be nice to have more Softube channel strips (I don’t). The LCDs vastly improve the user experience, and it is built much better than the previous version. The layout of the knobs is better, the feel of the knobs is much better, and they are touch sensitive. All the mini-LEDs are very bright. It is worth the extra $400 IMO. There are a few nits, but I won’t get into that here.

Now the DP bit… All track colors and track names pull over in the OSD and the LCD display on the unit. There appears to be no limit on the number of characters to appear in the display track name field. The 20 channel selectors on the top have LEDs that change color to match the track color. You might find, as I have, you need to tweak your preferred colors. Black for examples shows up very poorly while white pops. You can control pan and volume in the DP mixer, including mutes and solos, and you can control six sends in the DP mixer (all per track of course). I have a 32” 2K display over a 25:9 wide display. Normally I only watch TV or have meters on the top display. I can have the OSD in the top monitor and all my normal DP windows in the bottom monitor and still have room for some meters.

Regarding UAD plugins. I have struggled greatly with this because I love my UAD API, SSL and Avalon channel strips. So, can you use your UAD plugins? Mostly yes, with some compromises. Only some are compatible, but the list has a lot of the ones you would want. When you load a UA plugin into a slot, the parameters change to match. I always wondered about that. However, not all parameters are always present, and some have different behavior than the UA GUI. Once they are loaded in the Console 1 environment, you can’t see, or edit from, the UA GUI. The biggest bummer is, if you want to use the saturation of the API opamp and transformer, as I often do, you’ll need to add another instance of the API channel strip outside of Console 1. Also, while you can load the API Vision EQ, it loads the whole Vision channel strip. Want the Vision compressor too? Ok now you’ve loaded two full instances. It starts sucking down UAD CPU fast. You can mitigate this somewhat be disabling “Loadlock” in the UA Control Panel, but then I found it to be a bit unstable. This limitation isn’t relevant for the single module plugs such as 1176, LA-2A, EQP-1, 670, etc. I was also getting a buffer size incompatibility error message, that continued even after I changed the buffer to match. I’m assuming this is some preference I need to tweak. We’ll see. BTW, UADx/Spark plugins need not apply. Only UAD plugins are compatible.

SSL just announced they are opening their “360” platform to 3rd party plugins so you can load your UA channel strips. However, they do not and are not expected to support DP. I wish I could do a head-to-head with my X-Touch and the Mk3 against the UC1/UF1/UF8, but “360 Link” third party option isn’t released yet. I may still try a UC1 before I commit the Mk3.

In closing, go for it. This product is revolutionary, and the DP integration is very solid.

[dwilliams]

Update.

I tested the SSL UC1. It is also a great product. My goal was to do a head-to-head comparison, but I find they’re very complementary actually. Unfortunately, however, the integration with DP is poor. You still get to own the SSL plug-ins, and it will control an SSL channel strip, or native bus compressor plug-in that is opened and follow along when you open another instance so that bit is cool. The plug-ins sound excellent and is very nice to get your hands on the knobs for tweaking. But the 360 integration and the ecosystem integration is clunky at best. You can’t see the track names so the track selector is basically useless and the 360 mixer tracks instance number, not position and keep incrementing even when tracks are deleted. It doesn’t update when you move tracks around. It kind of sucks actually, I’m keeping the UC1 and the Console 1. I’ve tested both installed on each channel in a Luna session and a Studio One session. Luna integration is better than DP, but it is still Audio Units, not VST3 so some features are missing., The Studio One integration is perfect. My X- Touch, Console 1, and UC1 all worked beautifully together and all the features work as intended. It is great. I wish this was the case for DP, but I don’t think it will be. I contacted SSL and they essentially said they aren’t going to do DP integration in 360. Sad. After diving into Studio One in greater depth for this test. I see there are many things about it that are superior to Digital Performer. I hope MOTU can step it up or after 25 years of use, I might need to bail.

[dwilliams]

Thought someone may be interested in how I colored my knobs. This is very easy to do and inexpensive with craft paint and rainbow loom bands. It would cost vastly more to do replacement knobs. Note that the paint has no effect on the touch sensitivity. Note also, the colors are to simulate an SSL4000, but there are many more functions so some of the colors are just based on my selection. Craft paint is available in a wide range of colors at a craft store for $2/bottle or so-and-so dollars for a larger set of which there are a few options. I chose singles to get exactly what I wanted.

[labman]

Wow Dave. Beautiful job.

[npj]

Hello fellow Console 1 users.

Wanted to give a heads up of a bad bug I've just reported to Softube...

I'm using C1 Mk3 + VST3 plugin. Latest version (2.5.80). Latest version of Sonoma. DP 11.31. I like to live on the edge.

This only happens for instances of the plugin which use the 4000E modules.

- Open project. Everything normal.
- Save project and reopen. Everything looks normal but the 4000E modules have actually been reset to default values (it's audible).
- Save project and reopen a second time. Now the reset values are visible.

For me it's a big PITA. I have many projects that use the 4000E modules. Also a bunch of channel presets. These cannot be saved without losing settings.

If I want to use any of those files or channel presets, I have to go through each instance of the plugin and change to another channel strip (which resets to default settings) and recreate from scratch.

Console 1 does have an option to 'shift' click into a new channel strip to retain settings but this doesn't work properly. The settings are wildly different. Must be because of the bug.

Would be curious if anyone else is seeing this? It happens with previous versions of DP. I'm not sure if it's Sonoma specific or DP specific.

The AU version is fine.

Unfortunately, it took me a week or so to figure out what was going on... I've got current projects in progress using 2.5.80 so can't revert back to 2.5.76 as they recently changed the saving logic (2.5.76 can't read 2.5.79+ plugin saved data)...

Hoping this may save someone from the pain I'm going through!

[dwilliams]

Sorry, I can't say. I haven't been using the 4000 strip cause I'm selling it with my Mk 2 (which I never really used much so I don't have it on any of my old projects). Sounds like a nightmare. If I find some time, I'll try it out and let you know.

[dwilliams]

Same as UC1 thread...

I can see the selected track everywhere, ironically except in the DP mixer, and I can change the selected track anywhere and everything follows along.

[dwilliams]

And one of the hardware...