New Mixer&Interface Day!
So, I’ve been interacting with Ray for a while now, trying to help him acquaint himself with the multitrack USB mixer that he picked up a while back. I’ve become very interested in it over the time we’ve spent learning together. I’m very familiar with Soundcraft regular production mixers in general, having owned three over the past 25 years. I just traded my first one, a fully functional, early 90s, 12 channel powered mixer that shares much of the architecture of the current live mixer line up...just not quite as lit up as the current crop. It worked well for the whole time I had it, and lived through some of my band’s heaviest gigging. I’ve tried a couple other brands when looking to increase channel count, but never found one that i really liked until I found my Soundcraft GB12-2. An awesome board that has been a workhorse in my studio setup for a decade now...love it...wouldn’t hesitate to replace it with another one if I had to.
A few years ago I wanted another, smaller, lightweight mixer for playing out, as we were doing more, and more cover gigs...so I grabbed an EPM12. It works well, and I have a recording interface that can pull signal at the inserts, and could make some decent live recordings with that set up...but that was only for special occasions. It was another box that needed power, an external hard drive that needed babying, a 12 channel TRS snake, and of course a few more mic’s to set up.
Anyway, long story longer... When Ray was looking to upgrade his USB mixer, I naturally suggested a line that had performed well for me in my experience. He originally had his sights set on the plain Soundcraft Signature 12. The larger base model USB mixer that sends 2 channels(master left and right) to a computer via USB. The board seemed to be Spec’d well enough for his needs...they had stuffed some of their good preamps in it, at least. I told him it looked pretty cool(and familiar) to me, probably a serviceable bit of kit. So he comes back with a bargain price on their higher end Signature 12MTK, asks me what I think...
Now I have one too...
After the cat helped me unbox it tonight...
This should be fun.
Up to 14 individual tracks out to computer DAW via USB(or to an iOS device-iPad/iPhone-it is class compliant) 6-8 mono, up to 3 stereo, and the master bus.
Up to 12 tracks can be routed from the DAW to the mixer channels via USB for analog summing. That’s something unusual at this price point...and kinda cool to me.
It has its quirks though...the USB track sends are in the same place on each channel that a mixer would have an insert...right after the preamp, but before the way cool equalizer.
Something I am used to, but I think it bums Ray out...he likes to play with the knobs and stuff.
I kinda wish it had another insert point (a hardware one for external compressors and such) after the USB insert point...but hey...it’s not a pricey unit, and that’s cool.
This should really be fun.
So, I’ve been interacting with Ray for a while now, trying to help him acquaint himself with the multitrack USB mixer that he picked up a while back. I’ve become very interested in it over the time we’ve spent learning together. I’m very familiar with Soundcraft regular production mixers in general, having owned three over the past 25 years. I just traded my first one, a fully functional, early 90s, 12 channel powered mixer that shares much of the architecture of the current live mixer line up...just not quite as lit up as the current crop. It worked well for the whole time I had it, and lived through some of my band’s heaviest gigging. I’ve tried a couple other brands when looking to increase channel count, but never found one that i really liked until I found my Soundcraft GB12-2. An awesome board that has been a workhorse in my studio setup for a decade now...love it...wouldn’t hesitate to replace it with another one if I had to.
A few years ago I wanted another, smaller, lightweight mixer for playing out, as we were doing more, and more cover gigs...so I grabbed an EPM12. It works well, and I have a recording interface that can pull signal at the inserts, and could make some decent live recordings with that set up...but that was only for special occasions. It was another box that needed power, an external hard drive that needed babying, a 12 channel TRS snake, and of course a few more mic’s to set up.
Anyway, long story longer... When Ray was looking to upgrade his USB mixer, I naturally suggested a line that had performed well for me in my experience. He originally had his sights set on the plain Soundcraft Signature 12. The larger base model USB mixer that sends 2 channels(master left and right) to a computer via USB. The board seemed to be Spec’d well enough for his needs...they had stuffed some of their good preamps in it, at least. I told him it looked pretty cool(and familiar) to me, probably a serviceable bit of kit. So he comes back with a bargain price on their higher end Signature 12MTK, asks me what I think...
Now I have one too...
After the cat helped me unbox it tonight...
This should be fun.
Up to 14 individual tracks out to computer DAW via USB(or to an iOS device-iPad/iPhone-it is class compliant) 6-8 mono, up to 3 stereo, and the master bus.
Up to 12 tracks can be routed from the DAW to the mixer channels via USB for analog summing. That’s something unusual at this price point...and kinda cool to me.
It has its quirks though...the USB track sends are in the same place on each channel that a mixer would have an insert...right after the preamp, but before the way cool equalizer.
Something I am used to, but I think it bums Ray out...he likes to play with the knobs and stuff.
I kinda wish it had another insert point (a hardware one for external compressors and such) after the USB insert point...but hey...it’s not a pricey unit, and that’s cool.
This should really be fun.
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