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[John O'Brien]

I worked on one this past weekend, and I have to +1 the workflow aspect of the desk. Never before have I seen faders snap in to position that quickly.. it was almost frightening. 

[Andrew Moyer]

Our venue recently purchased a Vi4 and once our municipal council get around to approving our budgets for 2011 we will be purchasing a second one for monitors. 

I absolutely love the console!  As John mentioned the workflow is fantastic.  I find the preamps have a nice warm sound unlike other digital consoles I have used (Avid, Yamaha and A&H). 

And the user defined layers are very easy to work with and a big time saver.  Being able to put my money channel on each layer, and configuring my output banks for those that I want quick access to have been a show saver numerous times already!

[Chris Tate]

Hey there,

For What it's worth, I love the VI6 and reiterate what others have said above.

When I get the choice, I prefer the VI6. It sounds great and removes a layer of distraction when mixing. In fact work flow would be my main reason for loving it so much. It's no use having an amazing sounding desk if you have to think about your next moves 3 verses ahead all the time.

I for one am sick of the control surfaces of some consoles 'getting in the way' (I'm sure that there are many here that would flame the hell out of me if I mentioned brands so I'll just say that only being able to do ONE THING AT A TIME is not optimal and I've heard plenty of mixes suffer for it).

As an FOH guy I've used pretty much all the offerings from all of the manufacturers. The company that supplies my act in Australia provides me with a Pro6, I'll agree.... It sounds really nice... but so does the VI and the VI is much easier to set up and mix on.

As a sound company owner I have purchased quite a few of the offerings and heard the resulting mixes night after night....... I still rate the VI stuff as a no brainer..... The VI6 is also the most reliable digital console we own.

Oh yeah, one last thing I see as an advantage with the VI / Vista stuff is the fact that the knobs are on the glass. I've seen many innovative upgrades to the VI feature set implemented without the need for anything other than a graphics change (a MAJOR advantage of having the controls on the screen).

chur,

Chris

[Tim Weaver]

The VI consoles are great. I love mixing on them. They seem to be able to get the mix to "gel" much better than any other console on the market, although I will admit to not using a Midas digital yet. Out of all the other major players that I've used, the VI is my favorite.

On the other hand I will say that there are some things that bug me about the VI user interface. Channel naming is one. I would love to be able to stay on the keyboard and just tab/arrow to the different channels to add names. The way you do it on the VI means a lot of back and forth button pressing to get channel names entered. the 5d wins here.

Copy/paste could be a little better implemented. you can easily copy an EQ from one channel to the next, but I like the drag and drop style from the 5d here. It would be cool if I could press a "drag copy" button and then be able to just press a screen module and drag it to where I want it.

Output pairing is confusing. I would like to be able to marry up matrix or aux outputs to be able to make changes, but still having them act as independent outputs. Yamaha does well in this area too. Pair up some outputs and change eq, or delay, or whatever, but then you need to change level on one and not the other? Just hold the select and it becomes unhinged and you can freely make those changes. The VI uses the "gang" button to kinda do this, but be sure you remember to untoggle the gang buttons or you'll screw yourself on another page somewhere.

It would also be awesome if multiband comps were included in all new digi desks. Yamaha, please make your's usable!

As you can see, these are nit-picky things about the desk that could use some improvement. Overall the desk is a hit.

[Bennett Prescott]

On the other hand I will say that there are some things that bug me about the VI user interface. Channel naming is one. I would love to be able to stay on the keyboard and just tab/arrow to the different channels to add names. The way you do it on the VI means a lot of back and forth button pressing to get channel names entered. the 5d wins here.

Tim,

Name your channel and then hit the select button below the fader on the next channel you want to name. Only works within the same bank of 8, but saves you a few taps.

I wish they had smart labeling like the Venue desks, having to make my own long and short names every time is what annoys me.

[Tim Weaver]

I know and use that shortcut. I am just too used to the 5d way that everything else bugs me. One screen with a spreadsheet-like field of all channel names that I can tab to? Yes please....

[Christian Tepfer]

Tim,

Name your channel and then hit the select button below the fader on the next channel you want to name. Only works within the same bank of 8, but saves you a few taps.

I wish they had smart labeling like the Venue desks, having to make my own long and short names every time is what annoys me.

This method (using the select buttons) is fast enough for me.

That and tab - double backspace for the short name.

Another method is exporting and importing channel labels to/from a .csv file. This is faster when you use the editor to name a lot of channels.

[Tim Weaver]

I forgot to mention that this desk is one that 2 people can truly work side by side on. That is huge.

I hate it when I've got to wrangle house music and an MC mic while the BE is futzing with stuff and always stealing the focus from my channels. This doesn't happen on the Vi. Plus, when a BE steps up that is not familiar with the desk, I can help them get going by taking care of the drums while they tweak lead vocals or whatever. That right hand section is golden.

[John O'Brien]

I forgot to mention that this desk is one that 2 people can truly work side by side on. That is huge.

I hate it when I've got to wrangle house music and an MC mic while the BE is futzing with stuff and always stealing the focus from my channels. This doesn't happen on the Vi. Plus, when a BE steps up that is not familiar with the desk, I can help them get going by taking care of the drums while they tweak lead vocals or whatever. That right hand section is golden.

+1

[Rob Bird]

Tim,

Name your channel and then hit the select button below the fader on the next channel you want to name. Only works within the same bank of 8, but saves you a few taps.

I wish they had smart labeling like the Venue desks, having to make my own long and short names every time is what annoys me.

From memory after you type the first name, tap the short name (which will highlight all text in the field), then press backspace twice and it will bring the long name across automatically. 

As for the Vi in general as everyone else has been saying they sound great and the workflow is awesome.  I've used it at both FOH and Mons and and its very easy to teach walk up engineers to use and I have only had positive feedback in the time we've been using them (3 years)

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