London; InnovaSON's new Sy48 digital live mixing console made a very successful debut at this year's PLASA show at Earls Court, London.

"The Sy48 has been tailored to meet the needs of those looking for a mid-priced digital live mixing console without wishing to compromise on power or flexibility," says Nick Cook, sales and marketing director at InnovaSON. "It also has the benefit of being designed by a company with 10 years' experience of producing digital live boards, and over 400 consoles on the road around the world. We've combined functions and features from our large format Sy80 with new ones added in response to user feedback and packaged them into a compact and lightweight surface to create what we believe is the digital live mixing console the mid market has been waiting for."

The Sy48 packages the feature sets from the successful large format Sy80 digital mixing console in a compact and lightweight stand-alone surface ideal for those events where space is at a premium but quality and reliability cannot be compromised. With the capability of mixing up to 64 mic/line sources to 32 busses, the Sy48 is equally at home in touring applications at front of house or on monitors, in broadcast situations, and in theatres and houses of worship.

As a compact stand-alone system, Sy48 can be fitted with up to six 8-channel InnovaSON audio cards. A typical configuration could provide 32 mic/line to 16 processed outputs, plus 16 line inputs and outputs for bus inserts or aux sends and returns. With the optional digital stage box connected via coaxial or optical fibre, up to 64 inputs (48 on stage and 16 local) can be mixed.

With a wide range of analogue and digital I/O modules to choose from, each Sy48 can be configured to suit the job / installation requirements, and rental companies can maximise the usage of their inventory by supplying systems which meet the job requirements exactly.

For clients who want to run their I/O modules and DSP externally to the console control surface, eg. OB trucks and theatres, a 19-inch 7u Local External Mix box containing up to eight I/O cards can be connected to the rear of the console via a 5m Jaeger cable. This handles the 'local' audio and can itself be connected to a 'remote' Stage box for larger installations.

The Sy48 control surface has been specifically designed for live mixing, offering a straightforward, uncluttered interface which allows engineers to concentrate on what really matters: the mix. Following the design first realised in the Compact and Sy40 consoles, Sy48 is fitted with a central control panel for adjusting input gains, EQ, dynamics, delays etc; an onboard folding TFT screen which displays the key elements of the mix on-screen at all times; and 48 motorised faders. The console chassis itself is compact and lightweight, but rugged enough to withstand the rigours of touring.

A new version of control software, Sensoft 9, allows each user to define exactly the console layout they want for individual shows as each fader can be freely assigned to be an input, group, VCA, matrix, bus output, master etc. In addition, the unique XFAD technology enables a single fader to be set up to control multiple inputs (sources/stems) or outputs, so unlike other digital desks, fader layers are unnecessary. Sensoft also saves and replays every setting of the console as snapshots which can be controlled either manually or via Sensoft's show automation for Q/page control.

Sy48 will be shipping from October 2004 and several orders have already been received.

Compact, lightweight and extremely powerful, the new Sy48 brings the best of digital audio technology to the art of live mixing.