DiGiCo has updated the dual-screen S21 and its larger three-screen sibling, the S31 S-Series mixing consoles with V3.1 software, available immediately and free of charge from the DiGiCo website.
‘Many of our Quantum and SD-Range customers are very familiar with the incredible longevity that they can get out of their consoles thanks to our R&D team’s downloadable updates,’ says DiGiCo Managing Director, Austin Freshwater. ‘But that same level of ROI is just as accessible to our S-Series user base, some of whom are now crossing a decade with their desks, and still getting new features and functionalities with our very latest software enhancements.’
Chief among V3.1’s new facilitites is that it allows the S21 and S31 to each fully support DiGiCo’s latest Madi-based stage rack, the MQ-Rack. This features 48 high-quality microphone inputs and 24 line outputs, with four of these outputs switchable to AES/EBU digital outputs, at 48kHz or 96kHz sampling rates via Madi over BNC connection.
Version 3.1 offers User Layouts, allowing multiple operators to have their own preferred way of laying out the console easily accessible or the ability to change layouts for different bands as a show progresses, containing only the channels needed for that band. Users can change between layouts with a single press of the touchscreen, and the user menu can also be opened from a macro. Loading a new user will not interrupt audio, unlike loading a session, and can be done mid-show.
Alongside the User Layouts, DiGiCo has added Separate Layer Control, which allows for the left screen of an S21 – or the left and centre screens of an S31 – to view and control a different layer to the one displayed on the right-hand screen. The layer up and down buttons are added to the top menu bar, meaning they are always accessible. Separate Layer Control is ideal for leaving a set of output controls on the right-hand side while scrolling up and down the inputs on the left-hand side.
Additional new features can also be found on the auxiliary section of the S-Series desks. First, DiGiCo has implemented Link and Reverse Link pans for stereo auxiliaries. Link pans are helpful for keeping FX sends lined up with the master panning layout. And with Reverse Link pans, mixing monitors from front of house is greatly simplified, with no need to manually pan each send inverted to the main mix.
Additional features:
- Position of the aux sends is always displayed on the channel strip.
- Control Group and spill CG macros condensed to single menu.
- New User Layout and Separate Layer Control macros.
- New Fire Snapshot X macro.
- Skip Prev/Next Snapshots.
- Hide Clock.
- Shift Key now has shift and caps lock modes.
More: www.digico.biz