Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2017 15:55:25 GMT -6
I picked one of these up recently, got to say on the whole quite impressed by it.
If you don't know what it is, the MTK-22 is a 24 in / 22 out USB analogue mixer with 100mm faders, EQ section and Lexicon effects built in. The biggest pro is obviously the USB interface with converters that are actually very good. I've upgraded my monitoring recently (Dynaudio LYD 48's (amazing monitors)) and I couldn't tell much difference quality wise between this board and my MOTU 1248.
It's got a bit of mojo going on which is nice, the A&H Zed-R16 and Mackie 1640i sounded a little "too transparent" or clinical whatever you want to call it. The pre's have boat loads of headroom and I prefer them to my Daking's.. I've used a few LFAC's on my travels and honestly the MTK is a nice sounding board whatever you want to compare it to.
EQ section sounds great and has a sweepable mid band, it has a HPF on all tracks at 100hz which is useful for everything but bass and kick. The interface portion is rock solid, latency is a little meh (as in when you run VST's you do need to notch it up to at least 128 samples, of course dependant on your machine). Oh and it has a single master fader, which is very nice when you use a board that has seperate L/R faders and no catch slots.. GRR!.
Although after all it is a cheap board and if you have an SSL I doubt you'll be running out to buy one any time soon. There are a few con's..!
The Lexicon effects sound mediocre at best, also the feed gets noisy and bleeds when routing said effects. The master out uses up one of your stereo fader tracks so you get a 20 channel as opposed to an all out 22 channel board, not sure if there's a way around it but that seems to be how it works.
There's no off switch, can't say it's a major issue but a little odd. When recording it's always pre effects, for e.g. you can't record a track with EQ and / or effects (although with the sound of the Lexicon effects that's a pro IMO)..
There are no hardware inserts, you can of course route external effects via the aux busses but you are limited. Although it kind of goes against what this board is supposed to be, which is a hybrid mixer.. As in you use plugins as your "hardware" inserts, so you record your tracks / add your effects and re-route to various channels to be EQ'd etc. and finally be mixed down.
What I would of liked is a proper 24 channel version with no compromises, as in slightly better latency / proper compressors on every channel instead of the barely used not great sounding DBX limiters they put on a small subset of channels. Some better effects than the Lexicon unit with better bleed resistance, I know this would be a big ask but motorised faders? I understand this will probably at bare minimum increase the cost by six times, but you would sell them in spades they would be the defacto studio centre piece for a lot of hobbyists / engineers.
I'm not sure why manufacturers keep pushing into the digital live board domain as decent hybrids like the Soundcraft MTK obviously sell well (and sound great), there's a ton of people with them. It would be great to see some more "refined" options and hey Soundcraft might do it at some point and just wrap this market..
If you don't know what it is, the MTK-22 is a 24 in / 22 out USB analogue mixer with 100mm faders, EQ section and Lexicon effects built in. The biggest pro is obviously the USB interface with converters that are actually very good. I've upgraded my monitoring recently (Dynaudio LYD 48's (amazing monitors)) and I couldn't tell much difference quality wise between this board and my MOTU 1248.
It's got a bit of mojo going on which is nice, the A&H Zed-R16 and Mackie 1640i sounded a little "too transparent" or clinical whatever you want to call it. The pre's have boat loads of headroom and I prefer them to my Daking's.. I've used a few LFAC's on my travels and honestly the MTK is a nice sounding board whatever you want to compare it to.
EQ section sounds great and has a sweepable mid band, it has a HPF on all tracks at 100hz which is useful for everything but bass and kick. The interface portion is rock solid, latency is a little meh (as in when you run VST's you do need to notch it up to at least 128 samples, of course dependant on your machine). Oh and it has a single master fader, which is very nice when you use a board that has seperate L/R faders and no catch slots.. GRR!.
Although after all it is a cheap board and if you have an SSL I doubt you'll be running out to buy one any time soon. There are a few con's..!
The Lexicon effects sound mediocre at best, also the feed gets noisy and bleeds when routing said effects. The master out uses up one of your stereo fader tracks so you get a 20 channel as opposed to an all out 22 channel board, not sure if there's a way around it but that seems to be how it works.
There's no off switch, can't say it's a major issue but a little odd. When recording it's always pre effects, for e.g. you can't record a track with EQ and / or effects (although with the sound of the Lexicon effects that's a pro IMO)..
There are no hardware inserts, you can of course route external effects via the aux busses but you are limited. Although it kind of goes against what this board is supposed to be, which is a hybrid mixer.. As in you use plugins as your "hardware" inserts, so you record your tracks / add your effects and re-route to various channels to be EQ'd etc. and finally be mixed down.
What I would of liked is a proper 24 channel version with no compromises, as in slightly better latency / proper compressors on every channel instead of the barely used not great sounding DBX limiters they put on a small subset of channels. Some better effects than the Lexicon unit with better bleed resistance, I know this would be a big ask but motorised faders? I understand this will probably at bare minimum increase the cost by six times, but you would sell them in spades they would be the defacto studio centre piece for a lot of hobbyists / engineers.
I'm not sure why manufacturers keep pushing into the digital live board domain as decent hybrids like the Soundcraft MTK obviously sell well (and sound great), there's a ton of people with them. It would be great to see some more "refined" options and hey Soundcraft might do it at some point and just wrap this market..