Recording - December 2015 - 12

Part 1: Hands-on With Hardware
Yamaha AG03 and AG06 USB
Mixing Consoles
$149.99 and $199.99;
www.yamahaproaudio.com

For a long time, the "mixer with a USB interface built in" paradigm has been less than
ideal. What you usually have is a 2-in/2-out USB interface with A/D and D/A converters attached (somewhere) to the signal flow in a conventional desktop mixer... and
such mixers often have issues of their own that are exacerbated by USB use. It's refreshing to see Yamaha finally approach the problem from a fresh perspective and give us
a pair of truly computer-friendly portable mixers.
The AG03 and AG06 are small desktop-format bus-powered USB consoles with 3 and 6
inputs, respectively, but they sport a slate of features that make them seamless and intuitive to
use with a DAW-or when streaming live music to the Internet. I've been kludging together
streaming rigs for over a decade, and I was thrilled to see what the AG mixers had to offer.
The AG03 has a mono mic/line Neutrik Combo input with a smooth long-throw
fader, phantom power, and a pad, plus a stereo balanced line input (1/4" TRS) that is
defeated when a guitar is plugged into its mono Hi-Z input. The AG06 has two mono
inputs with Neutrik Combo connectors-one for a mic or line input, the other for a guitar or line input-plus two stereo channels, one with balanced 1/4" TRS line inputs and
one with unbalanced RCA inputs. There's also a minijack Aux input with no controls
that's summed into the main stereo bus.
The master section of the AG mixers is completely computer-friendly. There's a separate level control for audio coming back from the computer, two Monitor level controls,
one for the headphones and one for the Monitor Outs, and a Monitor Mute switch for
the mono channels. What's really noteworthy about this setup is that the headphone
and monitor outputs are not in series, as they are on virtually every other small mixer!
You can turn the headphones and monitors up and down independently. For broadcasting or live performance, this is a huge advantage.
Speaking of broadcasting, a 3-position switch lets you quickly decide what's being
fed to the computer: the first two channels without effects, the full input mix, or
Loopback, which is the full mix plus stereo audio coming out of the computer. This last
is ideal for live music performances that you want to stream.
The AG03 has Monitor Outs on TRS and RCA; the AG06 has Monitor Outs on TRS
plus a separate set of TRS Stereo Outs whose level isn't affected by the Monitor pots.
There's a pair of minijacks for a conventional computer headset, superseding the mic
input and headphone output, and a footswitch jack to control the effects.
Effects? Oh yes. Not only are these little mixers able to handle up to 24-bit/192
kHz audio conversion, but the mono channels have high-quality DSP effects built in.
The mic channel has buttons for Comp/EQ and Effect, and on the AG06 the guitar
channel has buttons for Comp/EQ and Amp Simulator. While the mixer itself offers
simple on/off control of these effects, there's a full-featured control panel program
that has a huge number of tweaks that can be saved as presets.
Have a look at the screenshot and be amazed at what's under the hood; yes, that's a
full-featured compressor, a 4-band parametric EQ plus highpass filter, and an SPX digital
reverb with four algorithms, with realtime metering, send levels, pan control, and more.
The effects sound incredible, as does the rest of the AG's audio path. There simply
aren't any mixers out there that are this small and do this much, and sound this good.
There's even a rear-panel micro-B USB input so you can power the mixers from a separate power supply and use them with an iOS device.
I used both mixers for a variety of live streaming projects over several weeks and was
enchanted with both of them. While I loved the AG06 for its excellent amp simulator,
simultaneous mic and guitar inputs, and extra stereo input, the AG03 charmed me with
its smooth vocal fader and tiny size. I might end up having to buy them both....-MM

Eventide H9 Max Multieffects Pedal
$699; www.eventide.com

A few years ago, Eventide offered an interesting alternative to its popular line of ultrapowerful effects stompboxes: the H9. This
highly configurable effects pedal traded the
depth and fast tweakability of pedals like the
Space and TimeFactor (which had dedicated
knobs for a wide variety of parameters) for a
generic user interface that could support any
of the other pedals' programs, plus others
that were unique to the H9.
The stereo in/out H9 sported MIDI In and
Out ports for remote controllability, a large
push-click knob with LED ring that could be
used to control three designated parameters
in any given program as well as a quickly
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http://www.yamahaproaudio.com http://www.eventide.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - December 2015