I'm just writing down what great results I'm having from using SAC so far....

I supply the house PA system for a venue over here that does quite an eclectic mix of different music styles; from folky stuff to indie rock. The venue itself has always been a bit awkward to set up in, as it's constrained by the ability to easily run a multicore out to a good mix position. Until I started using SAC there, I was mixing off to one side and too close to the speaker stacks for my liking.

I can now set up the SAC host at side of stage and have been using a ProMix 01 and laptop on top of it as SAC remote and fader pack and am able to get right out to the back centre of the room, away from the hordes of punters and in a much nicer mix position for stereo spread. Last week was the first run with SAC on one of the larger rigs and it went really well apart from a glitch where I was initially connected to the network but then it dropped out (this was all pre sound check), so I needed to run out about 25m of Cat 5 in a small panic.... I actually realised later that I had just connected the host and laptop together, bypassing the router, so I'm guessing that I had maybe just set up an ad-hoc connection? Anyway, it all worked fine from that point on and apart from the band being ridiculously loud on stage, the night went fine.

Last night everything worked flawlessly (I had moved the router to a better position I think), I was able to spend some more time tweaking the FOH SAC paragraphic EQ (I'm still amazed it sounds great with just 7 bands!!) and my monitor mixes EQ. I had an indie rock band headlining, a kind of gypsy folk / trad band with double bass, acoustic guitar, stomp box and border pipes, and an acoustic duo.....

I've found that I'm having to approach how I do things a bit differently. Normally, I'd sound check FOH first and then do monitors, but with SAC having totally independent EQ settings available for mons, I'm standing at the host machine and dialling in the monitor mixes first; letting the bands play with just the monitors running and I'm able to hear myself how the stage sound is, and tweaking where necessary. I have them play through a song like hat and then I head out to the remote, and have been able to get the FOH mix up really quickly. One thing I've noticed is that my channel EQ settings are flatter than previously. I've had kick drums running flat EQ (Audix D6) and sounding amazing and punchy. Vocals have just tended to be taking some of the low mid out.... I felt last night was the best mix that I've ever had in that room. It was just sounding really sweet.... Had some really god comments from the musicians about the clarity of the monitors especially, which I had noticed myself when I was up on the stage, very hi fi sounding....

I really am so, so happy with SAC. I feel like I'm some kind of crazy evangelist when people ask me about the computer at the side of the stage with the fancy software!!

I had one doubting Thomas last night who was all concerned about it running on a PC and that it was going to crash.... I just gave him a knowing look....

I can't wait to have the ability to control my FX patches remotely, properly within SAC. That's about the only gripe that I have at the moment, and an integrated media player would be fantabulous too, save me patching winamp into 2 of my inputs and running browseamp, but these are just minor issues and they have current workarounds in place...

So... I guess I'm mostly preaching to the converted here, but I just wanted to post a big THANK YOU to Uncle Bob, saviour of me having to lug around a huge analog beast, 2 FX racks and multicore - NO MORE!! YAY!

Just amazing.... more power to you, Sir....
Looking forward to this new ouput / LMS module you're developing!