Hello,

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on my "New Mixer Hunt" post. After lots of reading and research I ordered this.

Soundcraft Signature 10:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Sig10



It is a newer model and design with lots of good features. One feature that has improved in the last few years is the onboard effects. The effects in this mixer are from Lexicon and most people report they sound great. There aren't enough of them to satisfy any of us fully, but they are fine for some things. I ordered this morning and will get it tomorrow. I won't bother with an unboxing video, this isn't as exciting as a new Stick. (Few things in life are, eh?)

I'll repout back on how it goes this weekend, hopefully. Something about a day job is keeping me from doing a lot with music these day. Those pesky day jobs...

-Eric

By the way, just stumbled on this low price solution

http://mackie.com/products/prodx-series

Those look pretty cool, but I want to use my iOS devices for effects. I can't find apps that I like so I'm writing my own. Some day...

-Eric

Well, the mixer arrived, when I was out of town. I haven't even had a chance to try it yet. I got home and unboxed it to find something interesting, it has no power switch. The owner's manual is for all of the Signature models and says there is a switch on the bottom. There isn't one at all. Is this common for gear these days? I'm off to try it this non-small beast that is supposed to sound great. Hoping!

-Eric

Well, in a word, wow. I had no idea my rig's sound was being shaped and limited by a cheap mixer. I expected the built-in effects to be an improvement over what was in mixers several years ago. They are! The Soundcraft Signature 10 has effects made by Lexicon and they sound pretty darn amazing. But, the dry sound is so much better than my old mixer I'm just blown away. Everything is fuller and there is no noise, it's dead quiet. I had a bad hum in my cheap mixer sometimes and I couldn't never find a way to get it to stop.

It has Hi-Z inputs at 1MΩ which are not quite my preference of 2.2 or 3. But, they still sound good and I'm having a hard time distinguishing between my preamp at 3MΩ and the mixer's Hi-Z input. For live gigs it's probably just fine. With the built-in effects being so good this makes for a simpler live rig for some things.

The only drawback is the size. It's a medium size and it's all-metal case makes it a bit heavy. For someone like me, who doesn't gig a lot, it seems fine. I'm a happy camper and I'm enjoying hearing what my Stick really sounds like, for the first time.

-Eric

Congrats Eric. I was just checking it out: look pretty amazing!


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Well, I used to practice at home connecting the Stick to my Yamaha MG82cx mixer via a Samson dual DI.

DI stopped working and instead of buying another one, I bought the Soundcraft 10.

I read here, I tested it in a local shop and I was taken by the good sound and the convenience of plugging directly to hi-z inputs with no other gear to connect.

Well, +1 on "wow".

There are many gears on the market but I think some of them have so many options while some of them have a good sound in any case.

Soundcraft mixers and Lexicon effects are among the latter.

Yamaha sounded good (price, 5 years ago was similar) but this one sounds better.

From 0 to 10, if I give 7 to Yamaha+DI, I give 9 to Soundcraft and its hi-z inputs.
But I have to give 10 to sfx SP2 connected to Soundcraft, which I did it just for test.

(I use SP2 mainly live with my MarkBass AC101 amp)

SP2 was a little noisy when connected to Yamaha mixer, now it is no more when connected to Soundcraft.

Happy listening to everyone!

Here for the comments! Good job Eric.

I'm glad you like it, Nicola. I'm more impressed with it now than when I first got it. There's something about the sound, it's just better than I've heard my rig sound ever before.

-Eric

Thanks, Gene. Gear hunts don't always have a happy ending. This one sure seems to have. One more feature the Soundcrast 10 has for Stick players is that channels have a built-in 100hz high-pass filter. That's perfect for the melody side.

-Eric