Soundcraft

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Soundcraft is a British manufacturer of mixing consoles and other professional audio equipment. Founded by sound engineer Phil Dudderidge and electronics designer Graham Blyth in 1973^[1]. It is now owned by Harman International Industries.

[edit] History

Soundcraft first made its mark with the launch of the Series 1, the first mixing console built into a flight-case. It was available in 12 or 16 input channels. It featured 4 outputs, Main stereo plus a post-fader ‘echo’ send and pre-fader foldback. Each channel had 4-band fixed-frequency EQ. The Series 1 also included a multi-pin connector that integrated with a multi-channel microphone snake to route signals from and to the stage from a mix position in the audience.

The Series 1S was introduced in 1975 as an upgraded Series 1. The Series 1S introduced the classic Soundcraft 4-band EQ with 2 sweepable mid-range sections. In addition to The Series 1S added a second foldback send and was available in a 20 channel version^[2].

In 1975 the Series 2 console was introduce as a live/recording console. The Series 2 began to build Soundcraft's reputation for great-sounding desks with the classic 'British Sound'. The Series 2 was introduced as a 4 bus console and was later available in an 8 bus version^[3]. It was initially offered in 12 and 16 channel versions. Over time was expanded to a 24 channel version. The design used a semi-modular approach with individual channels in separate modules. The master section was made up of echo return, group output, cue master and monitoring modules. The input channels were available in fixed-frequency EQ standard channel and swept EQ versions. The seeped EQ version also allow switching between microphone input and line input which was typically attached to a multi-track recorder output. All channels provided stereo pan as well as 4 cue send buses that could be configured as pre or post fader and allowed individual monitoring via a Pre Fader Listen (PFL) function. Each channel could be routed directly to the L/R mix bus or to odd/even pairs of sub-mix buses^[4]