FIRST LOOK: Sound Devices 633

My wife and I bought a pop-up camper a couple weeks ago. We've always wanted some sort of RV and finally settled on this efficient design. It's awesome. It's super easy to tow with my Acura MDX and it won't break down in the middle of nowhere. It folds up into this super-compact design for storage, but expands to two king beds and a little kitchenette and everything. If someone could make a mixer that does the same thing, that would be amaaazing! Turns out Sound Devices did just that.I got my SD 633 this past Thursday and was ready to put it to work the next day. The job was a series of commercials featuring 9 people in front of a green screen; mostly singles and some doubles. Below you'll find a stream of notes that I was able to keep throughout the day.

In the bag:

• Ch. 1 - Line level
• Ch. 2 - Line level
• Ch. 3 - Mic-PH
• 1 SRb, Switch Mode, Backlight=Always
• Power distribution with BDS v2 and one nearly fully charged NP-L7S
• Petrol PS601 bag

Let's first establish that this is a very powerful piece of gear that has used the evolution of the 664 to really hit the ground running. Almost all the software updates that have been made to the 664 have been implemented in the 663. 

When the 664 came out, I was most excited about the headphone jack being on the left side of the unit. You see, all of our headphones that have a single cable connection are always on the Left headphone. It makes perfect sense for the jack to be on the left. Well on the 633, it is on the right side of the unit. What makes the placement of the headphone jack even more perplexing is that the AUX 3 & 4 jack (output) is on the left side with all the inputs. Oh, well...Keeping with the ports on the unit, I still don't know why they use USB Type B. USB Type A is much more common for keyboards. The adapters needed really clutters up the media door area. However, this is nothing new, as it was all an issue on almost every other model they produce. 

There's no noticeable RF spray, either (B19 SRb)

I have particular appreciation for the redesigned gain knobs. The silver gain knobs on the previous models had a white indicator line, which was nearly impossible to see in dim lighting. Now they are black, making a stark contrast and easy to see. The PFL switches operate a little differently, too. They have a 3-channel mode and a 6-channel mode. When in 6-ch. mode (on by default), the PFL switch activates the channel menu AND PFL function in one direction. If you can recall, the 664 you PFL left to get the individual channel menu and PFL right to PFL. The 3-channel mode on the 633 works in this way. I, personally, would prefer to only have to switch the PFL once for each channel to access everything. The PFL function also only PFLs one at a time, unlike the 664 which forced you to stack the PFLs and listen to multiple pre-fades at once and de-activate them as needed. The 663 operates like a traditional PFL, allowing you to listen to one channel at a time. I didn't see an option to change this, either. I wish the 664 would gain some of these PFL functions.If you've used a 664, then this unit is like picking up where you left off. All the shortcuts are pretty much the same. I use a small handheld wireless keyboard, found here,to input my metadata and all of my shortcuts that were programmed on my 664 are identical to the 633.

SD is really pushing the PowerSafe™ technology, and I have to say, it is quite incredible when you do need it. PowerSafe™ provides the user 10 seconds of internal reserve power and shuts down the unit properly. In addition, the 633 also took a note from the 7-series with its power distribution and automatic source selection feature. It has an ON/OFF switch and automatically chooses the power source unlike the manual INT/OFF/EXT switch on the 664. It's much easier to deal with and one less thing to think about than having to select internal or external power, or even powering down the unit. I actually have quite a few slim L-mount Sony batteries we use for homemade batt sleds for our Zaxcom RX900S units that I put on the 633. They aren't too heavy or bulky. I don't plan on actually needing them for primary power, but ya never know. I'm not currently using any internal AAs. That's just a little too much redundancy for me.

On this first day, I did a runtime test using my battery rig. In short, my single NP-L7S lasted 6 hours, 51 minutes. It was fully charged about a week ago and had since been left off the charger, so it wasn't quite 100%. As mentioned previously, my power was affected by the below settings.

• Ch. 1 - Line level
• Ch. 2 - Line level
• Ch. 3 - Mic-PH1 
• 1 SRb, Switch Mode, Backlight=Always
• Power distribution with BDS v2 and one NP-L7S at 95%

There really wasn't anything too surprising in these results, honestly. I believe I get similar results with my 664. I'll put that to the test next time just to see. You'll find a chart of the runtime test below.

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