RCF M 18 Reviews

RCF M18 - A Good Little Unit

After lugging around my A&H QU-16 to solo acoustic gigs for too many years I decided I wanted a smaller console without having to sacrifice too much on features. As a bit of a RCF fanboy I stumbled across the RCF M18. This sleek little unit really caught my attention with its powerful processing and aesthetic design!

I use this console for gigs where space is limited and when paired with my RCF 705 ASII Sub and ART 310A MK4 top boxes this package really packs a punch for such a small foot print.

Here are some of the pros and cons of the RCF M18.

Pros:

Great design - sits nicely on top of a sub for an all in one look

Sound shaping features are a plenty with parametric and graphic EQ's

Totally useable FX and great AUX options - good for multiple monitors

Just about everything you need to get your solo or acoustic duo up and running

Cons:

iPad app is a little clunky at times especially when using the parametric EQ

External antenna is prone to damage - internal one seems to work fine though

Could have done with at least a "mute all" button on the unit for those "cant't make sense of it" moments

Don't forget your iPad and keep both the iPad and M18 up to date with each other

All in all the M18 is a really good unit. Its got all the features and more of your more conventional 8 XLR in desks and does it in style! Once you get to know the often clunky UI and usual iPad mixing muck abouts you really can get a lot done with the RCF M18.

RCF M 18 flimsy, weak, cheap, plastic case

I have not had this long and new to digital mixers so haven't fully explored yet using the RCF M18 to it's full potential. This is more about the construction material of the case.

For a pro piece of kit, this should be in a metal case as it is far too flimsy and I imagine if you dropped this on a concrete floor would break into a 1000 pieces. It's a cheap flimsy plastic case which forces you to either buy the rack ears to mount it in a protective case ( the rack ears should have been included with it), or the rubber bumpers, both of which are expensive for what they are.

UPDATE

I wanted to do an update on using this. Firstly I bought the additional bumpers for the M 18 as I wanted to keep it light and small format with no additional rack gear for easy quick setups. The bumpers are great and add a lot of protection also it now sits nicely upright for easy cable connections. The bag for this is a bit pricey if your not fussed it will fit in an old laptop case where you can find loads of good cheap ones for a fiver or less in charity shops.

I work solo as a singer guitarist, I have a rack with all the toys in it for larger gigs but wanted something small and easy to setup for small, short gigs, overseas flights and busking. As regards busking I think this is fairly hungry power wise as the seperate battery pack with inverter I use drains a lot quicker using this unit(the M18 is not battery powered). It gets quite warm so I think the computer gear in it is working quite hard.

There is a bit of a learning curve if you haven't used a digital mixer like this before and getting used to not physically turning knobs and sliders. But I have been told nowhere near as bad/complicated as the Behringer X18. I haven't had any reliability issues with it at all, just user mistakes. Classic is at the wrong moment I have pressed the wrong button on my tablet that takes me out of the screen and silly things like that but if the worse thing happens and your getting flustered just switch the unit off. The unit is very user logical/friendly/intuitive. Personally the presets that come with it are a bit OTT. They may sound great in a studio but not live. For example all the preset voice eq's cause loads of feedback, the acoustic guitar presets make it sound like a cr*p electric guitar and the preset output setting either sound far too boomy or squealy. You have to tweak them. Unless your a sound engineer the eq even on the easy setting is confusing and complicated. The rock electric guitar sounds are brilliant and that was one of the main reasons I bought this over the Behringer X18. And the backing track music player is great, if a little hard to read and select a track on a smaller display. You can also record but only the complete mix in stereo which is useful just to listen back too critically. I use in ear monitoring and although basic the unit deals with this well. One thing for me that is missing that is fairly essential and on most units of this kind have it, is a feedback suppressor you have to fart around with the eq settings while the squealing deafening feedback is clearing the pub out, so I took a star out for this reason. although its maybe a trade off for the excellent guitar amp modelling. Personally overall this is a great unit a game changer. I am amazed how much can be packed into such a small unit. Before I need tons of expensive big heavy complicated rack gear with cables everywhere that took ages to setup and a nightmare to track a fault, and in some situation is just not practical. This has made life a lot easier. One achilleas heal is to change any settings or use the music player on it you need a tablet or phone at a push. I dropped a tablet the other day it cracked the screen and rendered the tablet useless also the battery can go flat on a tablet( I had to make do with the tiny screen on my phone). I found it useful to have 2 tablets and a mains charger so for example you can display the mixer on one and for me as a solo act the backing tracks or effects settings on the other without having to go through the menu. Also if one tablet goes down you still have the other one. You may still find you prefer some of your external effects over the ones in the unit that's not to say they don't sound good on the M18. For example my TC Helicon Mic Mechanic sounds nicer on vocals to my ear but for the sake of convenience I stick with the effects on the M18. You can't easily physically label up the inputs, so if your mounting this in a rack and inserting cables on a dimly lite stage can easily put them in the wrong inputs. Also if you mount the M18 in a rack the light that shows its on is around the back so you won't see it.

Some useful added connections that you find on many analogue mixers but are not on the M18 would have been a 6.35mm stereo jack input so you can add music from either your phone or a portable MP3 player. An additional 6.35mm jack for headphones. An addition set of quarter inch jack outputs. A set of stereo phono inputs and outputs.

Amazing digital mixer at a reasonable price

This product packs lots of features in an affordable price.

In general digital mixers are the only serious choice if you want an in-ear mix and this one packs all these features that you would need. If you play live you do not need to worry again for your stage monitoring or ask your sound engineer to increase a bit this or that. You simply open your smartphone and do it with a few clicks.

Another great feature is the stereo recording in a usb stick. It's so easy to create demos of your band, record your live or simply an idea of yours. Valuable for drummers or bands.

For a live situation you can either send your final stereo mix to the house (if it is a really small venue) or combine this with splitters in a small rack and your mics/inputs will feed both your d.mixer for your monitoring and the venue. Software is straight-forward and easy to learn. Finally, the wi-fi is ridiculously strong and stable. No need for an external router (as in the Behringer competitor).

Being now really strict given the price, here are some cons:

- only 8 xlr input out of 18 total inputs (so you need pre-amps to connect more mics. Thankfully e-guitars and bass can go directly from amp to the mixer without mic)

- no USB audio interface in order to separately capture the 18 inputs + 2 mono tracks

- only 1 stereo headphone jack (you can of course use the 6 additional mono aux outs for more in-ear or combine them in couples for 3 more stereo mixes).

Wish RCF was releasing their M24 as announced in 2016 as that would cover all of the aforementioned cons.

All in all, this is a great quality product for the price. I would definitely recommend it.

USB recognizing is not allways 100 %.

Multiple track record is missing.

Otherwise very good choice, way above average.

Great value

This is really a great item. Easy to use and set up. I bought a swissonoc router with it....have not needed it yet. I can walk about 30m from the mixer and its perfect, so hold of on the router until you test the mixer. It is worth reading the manual. The EQ is easy to use both on the main outputs, and the AUX outputs....which is very useful for monitors. you can connect many ipads to it, this is handy if you want an AUX mix on one ipad, and the main mix on another ipad.

Its wort keeping in mind, when you save the settings....they are saved to the mixer, not the ipad. So if you loose ipad simply get another and download the app, and you are ready to go. (This was obvious when i though about it)

The only down side is the cost of the rack mounts....far to expensive, but RCF know you will buy them, as you really have no choice. i am using an ipad with the RCF software, and its easy to navigate. The maximiser, and the HPF are amazing and well worth reading up on. One thing that is very badly needed is a LED light on the front of the unit. There is no light to show you if its on/off. (there is a light on the back, but this is useless if the unit is in a flight case.

For this money best mixer

i have 3 pcs, very stabile wi fi conection, very god sound, softver is not very logical, but if someone have expiriance with digital mixer, dont need much time to understand app.... at all best mixer for that money.....

Now this beauty

Never again RCF products. Zero customer support. The mixer app for android is terrible, i have contacted 5 times with the company to at least CHANGE the resolution in the app but nothing. 3 years now hasn't been updated. Stay away.

use in the bandwidth test at home, which makes it quiet with headphones for everyone (band of 5 elements each with your smartpone controls your mix), you can record some idea or change music directly on a USB stick and listen on the spot . With a signal splitter is an optimal monitor circuit in ear closed to the band and unleashes to a situation where the PA fails + the mixer being wireless is top ... I recommend 5 stars