review :: Martin Fay
rating: 10/10
In short, WOW!
This desk packs a huge amount of functions, and after using it for the last few months I'm totally sold. It's quite different in use compared to an analogue desk which has a knob for each function, but the use of motorized faders with a group of buttons to switch functions works suprisingly well. There are also dedicated knobs and buttons to control pan and EQ for a selected channel, which would otherwise have been awkward. The big bonus is total recall of all desk parameters (bar the input trims).
I got the desk with the 8-in analogue board making it a 24:2 with 6 sends (4 external, 2 internal fx), which I'm pretty sure will provide enough inputs for the foreseeable future. But this hasn't got to the other extras over an analogue desk...
The O1v has 2 effects processors of a very respectable quality built in, and 24(!) dynamics processors. I most commonly use these as gates which are nearly essential after using distortion effects (and we do that lots don't we?), and it's so easy to set them up to clean up other slightly noisy sources that I do.
Finally the desk can be largely controlled over MIDI, for which easy option setting up simple MIDI controller mappings for whichever parameters actually need dynamic tweaking.
Oh, and just try adding up the cost of seperate components to match the functions of the O1v...it's scary :D
