Soundcraft Signature 22MTK 4-stars Reviews

solid mixer

very good mixer.

some USB connection issues, but this can be fixed.

sound quality is good

effects are nice to have

routing takes some time to get used to, but in the end there are many possibilities in how you want to set it up just for your needs, so i would say that this is a very versatile mixer

currently using it as the center of my "hybrid" studio, taking advantage of the analog path with the direct ins for my hardware gear and the digital path through usb for ableton instances, loops etc coming from the pc or DAW into the mixer for further processing, and then recording it back into the DAW to make the final mix.

very happy with it so far.

if you are looking for a mixer with lots of inputs and can be the center of any hybrid setup, than this is your mixer, look no further!

One word Latency

Got it mainly to work with the 22 inputs. The latency makes it very hard to work with the DAW. Tried everything but it is what it is. As a stand alone it has great pre-amps.

Mixer = soundcard

I looked for mixer that allows to stream independent channels to computer for recording. Last 11 years I had small size mixers Phonic MKII 24 and Phonic Helix Board 24 universal and needed to find something similar for on-location recordings and sometimes also for sound reinforcement. Before buying Soundcraft Signature I tried a digital mixer that offered 16 tracks to computer, but, as I expected, I found that it is difficult for fast / one-the-fly work because everything is hidden - not like on analogue mixer where you can see everything. So I chosed Soundcraft Signature 22MTK that offers me even more - 24 channels to computer, stereo inputs, 2 effects, 5 auxes, 4 subgroups. Long - 10 cm - faders. Effect returns throught faders. I am satisfied.

But there is some things that should be planned better by producer and some things that I really hate. 1) Phones is forever coupled to main mix, i. e., there is no possibility to listen to subgroups - just main mix or mono PFL even on stereo channels 2) No control room output. Of course, using different external devices I can manage everything I need, but... 3) It is easy to forget and get lost on which channels you pressed PFL button - no led indicator at channel buttons / fader, but position of buttons is not so easy remarkable. After using Phonic I feel really dissapointed about these things.

After my previous mixers this is much, much bigger and heavier, but offers approximately the same possibilities.

For all that, my needs, as described at the very beginning, was to get analogue mixer that streams at least 16 channels to computer, and I found it in Soundcraft Signature 22 MTK. If you have similar needs and can suffer that several insufficiencies described above, this mixer is a solution.

Great piece of gear but read through

INTRO:

I got super excited when I learned that Soundcraft was about to release these new analogue boards that could run multitracks. It's the heart and soul of my recreational studio. I basically use the PC as a glorified tape multitrack recorder and as soon as the recordings are done, I feed the tracks back to the board and mix with it.

PROS:

- pre amps are clean, though can be noisy if you drive them too hard. I guess the limiter is a nice feature but I didn't explore it too much; if it turns red I'll just take some heat of the gain knob.

- EQ is really nice. It's sensitive and easy to use for someone who is used to this kind of analogue pieces of gear.

- Tons of routing options though it feels like it's something more useful for live situations or to use with outboard gear which I don't have many.

- 2 separate DSP (Aux 4 and 5) which is nice but I guess you have to be really creative and experienced to take advantage from the majority of the effects. If you aren't you'll probably use 3 or 4 out of the 22 different options.

CONS:

- This one really bugs me: The phone output is not decoupled from the master! that is, if you want to hear on your headphones only, you can't. only way is to have every track routed to a group, say 3-4, patch that into a stereo channel with a couple of jacks, and press PFL button but even still you get a mono signal. What a shame...

- No inserts on channels! This is something that I underestimated. If, like me, you want to mix more outside of the box, you can't insert dynamic processing on each channel before the EQ. Only VSTs. If you like to use that analogue compressor you found on ebay, you have to patch the channels through one of the 3 Aux (assuming you have the other 2 Aux occupied with effects) and to bring it back, you have to occupy another channel on the mixer.

- For some weird reason, the USB send of the master channel is super low.

- Some channels can get noisy when you drive them too hard, namely the Group channels and the PFL.

WOULD BE NICES:

- An USB return on the master channel to listen to the Master after it runs through some VSTs and/or outboard gear.

- AFL/PFL toggle button, as there is none. It is set to PFL although on the LED bars you can read "AFL/PFL"

- 2 48V groups so you can use sensitive ribbon mics and condenser mics at the same time.

OVERALL:

It's a great mixer if you are an amateur and can tolerate some small poor design faults. It's the cheapest option for analogue USB multitrack I/O, apart from the ones from Behringer, which might be worth take a look into also.