Soundcraft Notepad-12FX Reviews

Amazing quality for it's size

Probably the best for it's price and size

Solid and versatile

I have been using this mixer now for 6 month, mainly for electronic music producing. For the first impression it is a solid unit with nice bulit quality. I have recorded manly synthesizers and other line level inputs, therefore I have not much experience with recording vocals with it. However I believe in this price range this mixer provides a really clean sound and the FX processor is just giving that extra touch for your mix that melt sounds together.

The user experience of it is really nice. Everithing is under hand and quiet straight forward. It does what you would expect from this level of mixer.

I found it relyable, it connects easily with my DAW.

I can recomend it into home studios and even I believe it can serve good for small bands on live performances.

It's small mixer

Not many features but does the job good sound as you can expect from sound craft

Soundcraft Notepad-12FX

Very good choice for a home studio. My Novation Summit (A and B outputs) and Model D are connected with it. Good quality vs. price ;-)

Does a good job recording synths over USB.

Excellent sound. It seems just right for my setup: currently a Volca Bass, Microfreak and Medusa plugged into mono channels, and Blofeld and Model:Samples in two stereo channels. It has one mono channel and one stereo (but RCA version) still available. I use the secondary headphone output as send effect (Ocean Machine effect pedal) which returns a stereo signal.

I just wish the onboard effects could be effective even when receiving an effect return. Also it would have been nice if all channels would be recorded separately over USB (it can do two mono channels, or the stereo mix).

Also, for a beginner without experience in mixing, I found it a bit obscure to fiddle with synth volume, input gain and the proper channel levels for my effect send pedal, which can crackle if the input is too loud. Most of the time I can resolve any issue quickly, though.

I suspect isolated brief drop-outs in the recorded audio were produced in my laptop (i7, 16 GB, Windows 10, Audacity) by background processes.

I thought this was the one... Not..

I got this one for using in live performances. For a large part this is experimental music and having many inputs with a small portable formfactor, Lexicon effect and usb streaming capabilities made it the perfect candidate.

Sound is pretty for sure but the low frequencies of my synths make it crack and pop easily and way before the red signal starts flashing.

There is no way to meter/view your signal flow. Live I feel like skating on thin ice. You have 3 lights metering on the master but it gives no sense of your balance or anything for that matter. To be safe I now can not let the master get higher then one light flashing.

To have the send pre fader to use the send as a possible monitor send sounds nice for monitor users but for any other user like me it is absolute stupid and it makes the build in effects unusable for me. Or I have to fade out channels and the reverb out at the same out and so on... so I cant use the effect processor in a live situation.

Then I already read a lot of complaints about the usb/computer recording but it is a drama. I can get my daw to recognize the Soundcraft but recording one channel gives dropouts in the recording and it is not able to handle the sound out without dropouts either. This is without any demanding settings no vst.. plain audio recording and playback.

So I should be giving some compliments too but I am too disappointed. I found out about the issues in due time and I can not send it back anymore. I am now working with nice sounding but hugely flawed mixer.

Great mixer

Great for live or home performancies. Has built in effects. Very good quality. No complains

Nice sounding Mixer

Sounds nice and is sturdy made. My came without manual or any hint

how to get the USB-Audio working.

But anytime I'd prefer a poorly documented but nice sounding mixer to a mixer with a perfect manual, that sounds like sh...ooot!

Best value for the money!

Well built and very flexible.

I use it mostly for recording directly to Mac. 4 Ins and 4 Outs with different rooting options.Decent effect. Very good Mic Pres and EQ.

Have not used it live yet , but for sure it will shine there as well.

Broken after 2 uses.

I was initially very pleased with the sound quality but that is a given when you buy Soundcraft (this isn't my only one). It feels good and inspires confidence when gigging. Unfortunately I played a 3 hour duo gig with guitar and vocals on the Friday and a DJ/Vocal gig on the Sunday and half way through that it tripped out and started making a boom boom noise and is now dead! I will be asking for my money back or a replacement as I am sure I've been unlucky with this unit. But. I do not expect this from such a manufacturer and I expect professional results regardless of this units size. My little Behringer from 10 years ago is essentially rubbish but it still works!! Very disappointed to say the least.

Perfect for every situation

i use this is a small live situation and in recording sometimes, its a really complex piece of kit, all under a easy to use interface. with an extremely high build quality and a easy to navigate layout, it makes for a brilliant mixer for every venue.

I run a stage piano, and 2 wireless saxophone systems, plus sometimes a Bass drum, snare and Overhead mics. It handles condenser mics perfectly without fault, and when using headphone it provides a nice splitting technique which allows you to play different mixes through the Main LR and headphones. Which in a live environment is great because you can check your inputs etc. before sending it live through the Main LR.

Overall it is definitely the best analogue mixer of this size out of all of the Behriger's etc.

Compact quality mixer

I us it in a small bedroom studio,so it needed to be compact,which it is,plus it has great sound quality with superb Lexicon effects(chorus,reverb,delay) built in.It also has a nice feel and design about it.I have only one criticism,that is channels. 7 to 10 do not have eq,which there’s room for,put over all I would recommend for the reasons listed.

Best mixer . Super clear sound . Effects is top quality.

Easy and small .good for small setup.

Perfect solution if you're looking for a small good quality mixer

I've bought the NotePad 12FX for my home studio. I have a couple of synths, drum machine, microphone, piano, guitar and bass. I could connect everything here with compromising space (it's really really small and I didn't have much space on my table).

Built quality is excellent and the pre's and overall sound is excellent.

Really recommend it!

Received Last week, First impression is good

Look nice, small and lightweight. Maybe not the most robust but no problem for homestudio/rehearsal

Simple and minimalist (no power switch, no power indicator, no 48v switch, ..) But not a problem for me

Preamp clear, Neutral, Good gain, no breath, pop's or other

All linds of Mic / Inst are well supported (Sure S58, RodeNt1, Bass guitar, Digital Piano, ..)

Simple and effective effects

Real 2/2 USB (Directly recognizable by Ableton after Installation of PC drivers)

You can record two tracks simultaneously in your favorite DAW

Different routing options in order to assign Mixer Inputs to the two USB tracks

Also two separate output tracks from the DAW to the mixer

The only "weak" point i see, but you can deal with it:

You always have to play with two

Knobs "FX / AUX (blue)" and "Input Level (big red)" in order to adjust the good balance between level and effect on a channel.

Also in order to completely silent a channel, your have to turn both knobs to zero

But first impression is Simple and Efficient

Update to come