I am interested in hearing thoughts / opinions on the old 1990's era Soundcraft Spirit Studio consoles (and also perhaps the Ghost.)

While sort of a "Crap or not crap" discussion, I am interested in nuance, and nuance seems forbidden per the "crap/not crap" rules.

I purchased a 16 channel spirit studio recently very inexpensively, with a goal to merely gain proficiency with certain types of repairs, but it seems to me, at first blush, that this is not a terrible console. The pres and EQ sound decent to me, but I dislike the lack of a kill switch for EQ. It is also more difficult to service than a truly professional console due to its monolithic chassis. However, spares are easy to find (it does not use esoteric parts, although some transistors used are "out of print.")

Thoughts? Be kind. Be cruel. I can take it!

The Ghost has a fairly comprehensive feature set but a bit of a learning curve if you’re not familiar with inline consoles. Also, I believe that while it is not modular in the sense that a channel strip can be removed without decommissioning the board, each channel is on its own PCB which makes servicing it somewhat easier.

The lower end Spirits are pretty bad boards. Less than Mackie quality. Every one I ever touched had at least 1 bad channel, wiggly knobs, noisy... etc. But these were the Live boards, which appear to be the same style of board as the Studio aside from the flippable input section . A friend has a Soundcraft K3 Theater board and it is comparable to an Allen Heath GL3000 series which is on the decent end of Live boards from that era without stepping into obvious higher end things like a Midas, Older Crest... or something like that. I only ever touched one ghost, and it struck me as a similar quality to the K3 or the GL3000, but seems tailored more towards studio use. If I remember they are inline boards with separate mic/line on each channel and can be "flipped" between a tracking and mixing mode. Some of them have rudimentary Midi transport control too, as well as midi controllable mute groups, which can be cool. It kinda felt like a cheapo version of a Langley "Big" console without VCA automation. In good shape a Ghost is probably a totally usable board, and I know there are a lot of mods out there for them. I would most likely avoid the Spirit Studio unless you just really want a board and it is almost free. Other Live boards from this era can be had for pretty low money these days and are fairly reliable for recording. The EQ and Preamps are usually fine, though not magic in any way. I use my Allen Heath all the time, and even though I have some more interesting preamps, I tend to just use the board pres because it is faster and preamps don't matter that much as long as they are quiet and have enough gain.

My $0.02

That's the first time that I've heard that they are worse than a Mackie!

Both the Spirit Studio and the Ghost have a monolithic chassis but individual cards, as you state. I serviced one channel so far including a fader, and found it to be straightforward. I am surprised to hear about loose-feeling knobs, though. They are individually bolted to the frame with hex washers on the Spirit Studio, just as on the Ghost, so I don't see how they could become loose unless the individual pot incurred serious damage.

Signal-path wise, the Spirit Studio uses TL072s and NE5532s throughout, except for the input preamplifier, which uses a discrete class-A transistor design.

Overall, with all faders zeroed and channels enabled, not a lot of noise either. Maybe I got lucky? Or maybe other mixers bearing the Spirit name (which continues to be used to this day) are worse? To be fair, I am referring to a very specific model from the early 1990s.

I had a smaller Mackie, and while it seemed awesome when I was in college, it was quite noisy even with far fewer channels. I was surprised to see someone comparing this unfavorably to the Mackies for this reason.

nycsynth wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 2:27 pm

Again, I've only ever used the little 24 ch live boards that look a lot like the Studio. Can't really speak to how close they really are, but the live versions were terribly unreliable. This guy:
I've only ever heard that Ghosts were totally decent little studio boards, but they are a different class than the Spirits. The Spirit K range seems to be of higher overall build as well, but I've only ever used the one K3, which was like $14,000 new I think.

The TL072s and NE5532 ICs are ubiquitous in the preamps of pretty much every console in this range and even the higher priced ones. The reality is that the preamp design from board to board aren't very different. Where the major sound differences come from is better grounding, quality of internal connectors, and other parts.

Totally not trying to yuck your yum. I can only report on my experiences. We ended up replacing both our Live 4 24ch Soundcrafts with Midas Veronas maybe 4 years after buying them back in the early 2000's. I'm a big fan of buying and using this era of live board for small recording, basement setups (like mine) because they are usually fairly reliable, being made for live sound, they can take a little abuse. They are also just dirt cheap these days. I've seen several 24-48 ch live boards from Soundcraft, Midas, Allen Heath for under well $1000. If you need a bunch of preamp and EQ, you really can't go to wrong.

I'll add that I've heard fucking rad records mixed on shitty mackies. Didn't mean to dis. They are just kinda a point of reference being everywhere, especially in the late 90's, early 2000's

Definitely no diss detected, I asked people here for a reason.

As I mentioned, I mainly picked this up to hone repair skills and see whether I'd like having an analog console in my DAW based setup. Prior to this, I was mixerless and have a lot of I/Os in my mostly synth-only setup. Almost every I/O (24 ins, 8 outs) are available on patch points but the synths I use the most are normalled in.

I was encouraged to read that Moby used a 24 channel version of the Spirit Studio in producing "18" and "Play", given our similar synth-oriented setups, it seemed like it might be worth it to try. I had originally been eyeing a Ghost, but it was a 32 channel board and needed work. The price was amazing, but I took a pass as it really wouldn't have fit into my NYC apartment without making some pretty serious changes to the rest of my space.

We'll see how the repair work goes. As it stands, this 30 year old thing functions perfectly, although it's dirty and some switch contacts are a little noisy. I figure that if I like the workflow of having the analog console, I will have gained some experience working on consoles that would be transferrable to something more serious.

I'd be interested in what people here have to say about "next level" consoles in that area. I've seen mention of Soundcraft 600s and others that are more modular in construction. My requirements would be: 1) I want an inline console. 2) 16-24 channels. 3) must use obtainable parts / be serviceable.

nycsynth wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 5:28 pmI want an inline console.

I'd love the extra flexibility of a true Inline console, but my board being an old live board, all I get is the choice of Mic or line to the only fader per channel. This hasn't been an issue at all though because of how I rout. CH 1-14 Direct outs hit inputs 1-14 of my MOTU and the LR of the console hit 15-16, all normaled through the patchbay. MOTU 1-14 are normaled to Line inputs of the board 1-14, and 15-16 of the MOTU are normaled to ST IN 27/28 of the console (which shows up on fader 16 when in Stereo mode). I monitor the DAW through the Stereo channel on the board. Aux 1-4 feed the headphone amps on the other side of the wall, so if I'm using the board to track mic pres, you can monitor with no latency. If I'm doing overdubs, I just feed that Stereo Channel to the cans. With set up, I can track through the Preamps, or mix through the board by just hitting the line button on each channel. Works like a charm and it operates in that fashion without making a single patch on the bay. If I want to use external preamps, I patch those where I want them. Same with the Bus Channels, or Aux 5-6. It's completely flexible and very compact, which is important since my control room is only 8'x10' and everything sits on a 6' folding table. If I had a bigger board, I'm not sure where I would put it. It's the main reason I haven't considered a new board. Space. I've considered buying a second A&H GL2200 or 2400 (same strips) for parts to keep this guy running. I sometimes see them for under $300. Why not?

Good luck fitting a Midas Verona in an NYC apartment, unless you want it to double as your bed

If you’re just monitoring your synths as a stereo pair from a DAW you won’t get much benefit from an inline board.

Adam P wrote: Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:12 pm Good luck fitting a Midas Verona in an NYC apartment, unless you want it to double as your bed

If you’re just monitoring your synths as a stereo pair from a DAW you won’t get much benefit from an inline board.

We had a Verona and a Venice, both 320's, which were not huge. If I remember the only real diff was one is a 4 bus and one is a 8 bus. Both were 32 chan. but I could be wrong. It was a decade ago.

I have a 48 channel Verona in a road case. It’s 42x72” and weighs 300 lbs. But I only paid $850 for it!