Colin Benders Embraces Solid State Logic’s BiG SiX SuperAnalogue™ Mixing Console for his Modular Synth Rig

BiG SiX: absolutely perfect

“I’d been looking for a good portable mixer that I could take with me on the road. I’ve had some experience with bringing mixers with me, but it always felt like there was a tradeoff between either size or sound quality. And I just got sick of everything sounding a little bit thin or tinny. But the BiG SiX is absolutely perfect,” he says.

“I have the four mono channels for my kick, snare, high-hat, and main bassline,” he elaborates, which are generated out of his Eurorack synth system. “Then the four stereo channels are perfect for all the other tracks and effects that I’m sending out of my modular rig.”

Although Benders creates most of his effects in his synth setup, the BiG SiX comes in handy when he needs to interface with outboard processors, he continues. “Then I use the BiG SiX as a bridge. It gives me a lot better gain control, especially since there’s a big level differences between the Eurorack and normal line level. So I need to boost stuff up or bring it down.”

Quick set up, set and forget

Often, Benders is on the bill between other electronic music artists or a couple of DJs, which means he must be able to set up fast. Once he’s performing — he sometimes plays hours-long sessions or even through the night — he needs to be laser-focused on the music and not worry about the technology. “The BiG SiX is very comfortable, just a set-and-forget part of the rig. That’s essential for me, because if I get too distracted with what’s happening outside of the modular, then I’m not looking at the modular. If I’m not looking at the modular, I’m not changing things. There are so many modules in that rack all doing something that I have to make snap decisions. And if I have to spend 20 seconds diving into a mixing console menu for that perfect setting, that’s 20 seconds that I’m not playing anything else.”

A long legacy of SSL

Benders’ history as an SSL console owner began when a local studio went out of business and he moved the 9048 J Series desk into his Kytopia facility in Utrecht. The studio will be familiar to anyone who has seen any video of Snarky Puppy’s 2014 live performance recordings from We Like It Here. “That entire album was recorded in my studio,” he says.

Back then, Benders, who started as a choir singer then took up trumpet when he was a teenager, was leading and conducting the Kyteman Orchestra, 18 musicians, singers and rappers playing an amalgam of hip-hop, jazz and other genres. Kytopia was the band’s main rehearsal and recording space. When Benders relocated the studio, he took the SSL 9000 with him. But as he began to concentrate on electronic music and build out his massive modular synth the console became too much, he says: “It was just too big and too power hungry for what I was doing at the time.”