[Groovekings]

In the continuing effort to drop weight and lug, my duo just sidelined our Peavey 10 board and a small rack with aphex , stereo 31 band eq and headamp for Iem's Dropped 40 pounds. We picked up a new Soundcraft Notepad 12fx and a small ART headamp. We will be using it with one or two Yamaha DBR 10's. We play 60's and 70's tunes to audiences up to 150.

Big selling features of this mixer were 3 band eq on mic channels, 4x4 usb with lots of routing, three different banks of variable effects, flexibility in routing monitor outs and a very small footprint. The price is very reasonable as well at about $150. Great alternative to the Allen and Heath products which are great but higher priced and the newer models have reduced features.

The mixer is dead quiet and has outstanding mic preamps, as you would expect from Soundcraft. Even the wall wart is high quality with rubberized cabling instead or cheap lamp cord, though I don't like wall warts at all. Sound is warm and full and we've found we don't miss the eq or aphex at all. Routing for iem's is easy and seamless, effects are great and you can actually combine reverb and delay ! Who'd of thunk it ! ( sorry for sarcasm here lol ) Channel mic inputs even use combi jacks which I love.

Cons are few - only one master slider for mains, fx and aux out share a layered knob arrangement which works but is cumbersome, and the wall wart thing previously mentioned. For the solo or duo artist with a powered speaker this is a great option that is light and small, won't break the bank and will suffice for 4 track recording and playback via usb. Thanks for reading