Overview
The Soundcraft Si Impact is a special digital mixer made for live sound. It’s easy to use and has lots of great sound features. It’s mostly for pros but might be hard for beginners.
Design and Build
- The Si Impact boasts a sturdy build, ideal for on-the-go use.
- Its layout is clear, enabling quick access to controls.
- The touchscreen interface enhances the ease of operation.
Performance
- It delivers exceptional sound quality, catering to diverse venue sizes.
- Equipped with high-quality preamps and processing, it ensures clear audio.
- The onboard effects and dynamics processing enrich the overall output.
Connectivity
- Ample I/O options accommodate various instruments and peripherals.
- Remote control via tablets or computers expands flexibility during performances.
- Built-in USB interface facilitates easy recording and playback.
Pros
- Robust build suitable for touring and live events.
- User-friendly design and intuitive controls.
- High-quality audio output and versatile processing options.
- Extensive connectivity for diverse equipment.
- Remote control functionality enhances live performance flexibility.
Cons
- Initial setup might be overwhelming for novices.
- The learning curve for using advanced features could be steep.
- Limited to 32 input channels.
Conclusion
The Soundcraft Si Impact is a strong digital mixer ideal for live events. It has great sound, lots of ways to connect devices, and can be controlled from a distance. It might be a bit tricky for beginners, but it’s fantastic for experienced professionals who work with live sound.
Wayne C. Hope –
Solid board for a mix between analog and digital. It’s really easy to assign mixes and channels to different areas of the board and cycle through customizations. 4 stars because you can hear the power supply/power supply fan.
Dread Worf –
TL;DR: The Impact has 24 channel faders with programmable scribble strips, but lacks the Expression/Performer per-channel Gain/Pan encoders. If that’s not enough faders , you get 6 more with the Performer 3 or Expression 3 (if you don’t care about scribble strips). Don’t buy a Performer 2 or Expression 2, the Impact is cheaper and better.The Soundcraft Si Impact is a worthy update of the Soundcraft Si Performer 2. Like the Performer, the Impact has programmable scribble strips on all channel faders and selectable bandpass/shelving filters on Hi and Lo EQ bands. However, the Impact has 32 XLR inputs on its back panel, compared to 24 on the Performer 2. The Impact also has 24 channel faders compared to the 22 channel faders on the Performer 2, but the Impact lacks the rarely used DMX controller features of the Performer.The one downside of the Impact is its lack of per-channel Gain/Pan encoders. Virtually all other features of the Impact and Performer 2 are identical, including the touch screen, which takes up more real estate on the Impact, but works exactly the same as the Performer. Aside from the Impact’s missing row of Gan/Pan encoders, the only significant reason to prefer Performer over the Impact is the 30 channel faders offered by the Performer 3.As for the Expression, it has all Performer features except the programmable scribble strips, bandpass option on Hi and Lo EQ bands, and the DMX controller. Of these, the lack of scribble strips is IMO the crucial flaw of the Expression. One of the standout features of the Soundcraft Si consoles is their brilliant implementation of motorized fader banks, which enable you to switch fluidly between the board’s 4 input channel banks, 14 submixes, 4 effects busses, and 4 matrix mixes. But what makes this elaborate mechanism practical is the instantly updated text labels displayed on the channel scribble strips. Without that essential feature, Expression users must resort to manual aids to recall which inputs are routed to each of the faders in each fader bank.What makes the Impact and Performer models so flexible is the ability to quickly map ANY input channel, submix master, or VCA to any channel fader on any of the four fader banks. This allows you to quickly group channels and submixes in any order you prefer, any time you feel like it. No awkward eight-channel block boundaries, no artificial fader-assignment limitations, no deep dives into nested menu layers – you can literally put anything anywhere you want it. The Soundcraft Si was one of the first full-featured digital consoles on the market, and while its utilitarian touch screen is outdated, its ingenious design and intuitive user interface have set a standard that remains best in its class.
Amazon Customer –
I have been doing sound since the 70’s and when I saw the features on this board I thought I would grab one up for our church sound system. The board is a good idea,but my gut feeling is the built in computer does not have the power to do everything it needs to do. It is a lower end board when it comes to the price on digital boards. Has great features and is great when it works right. We have had issues with snapshots distorting channels not because the signal was saturating the channel, but it just would periodically distort the monitors or certain other channels because it felt like it. Before one service, the main outs just quit working. Later just came on again. (and yes we checked everything). Another time, a channel would keep feeding sound to the monitor system when everything was turned down. It seems software related. I updated to the latest software. Did a factory reset. Tried all kinds of things. Fortunately it is under warranty so we traded it in for another one. The next one had some of the same weird kind of issues I just described above. Got rid of that one and now we are on our third one. Maybe it is just bad luck, that we got 2 bad boards in a row. After a few months I may get back to this review and let everyone know how the third board is doing. So far so good. So several years later I’m adding this to say that this last board has been working very well. I strongly recommend the board for churches. Hopefully the company has ironed out the problems I stated before. We love this board now that we have one that is working well.
Hyde Park Baptist Church –
I’ve been in church music for 25+years and have been around every kind of mixer you can imagine. The Expression 3 is as good as it gets for hitting the main marks of 1) Digital console, 2) motorized faders, 3) Budget-friendly, 4) ease of use (with a little help from someone who knows the mixer), and 5) compact.TONS of YouTube videos on how to set it up and use it to its potential. We moved up from a PreSonus and could not be happier.
sorrell gillespie –
system is not user friendly we had all kinds of problems no one wanted to help including amazon, the manufacture, the seller nobody. just buy something else really!!!
Pierrot –
DéceptionExcellente console mais incompatible avec OS Hy Sierra sur Mac…. et le service de support est désastreux ils m’ont répondu des stupidités à mon premier courriel et aucune réponse à mon second… en plus aucune instruction en français. Pour une console de ce prix c’est vraiment pas fort!!!