Recording - February 2018 - 49

in groups of faders, clearing the Cue
mix selections, or copying and pasting
channel settings.
The rear panel offers 24 XLR channel
inputs (four of them being XLR/TRS
combination jacks), 6 balanced 1/4"
TRS inputs for three stereo sources, 30
channels in all. (Channels 29/30 can
also be fed by a smartphone, thanks to
a stereo minijack under the front-panel
1
/4" headphone jack.) While some
engineers will miss digital connections
like S/PDIF or ADAT Optical or AES/
EBU, I feel that there's a definite place
for a mixer that focuses completely
on analog inputs; it's what most live situations and entry-level studios demand.
Many high-channel-count mixers and
interfaces may only have a few actual
analog preamps, relying on optical digital
connections to external preamp racks for
the rest. This represents extra expense
and cabling that the TouchMix-30 Pro
neatly avoids. It says you can plug in 30
channels, and yep, you can!
There are 14 XLR Aux outputs, stereo
XLR pairs for Main Mix and Monitor

outs, and three 1/4" headphone jacks
for the Cue mix, Aux 11/12, and Aux
13/14. There's an XLR Talkback mic input, too. Digital connections include
two USB-A connectors for storage media, an Ethernet jack for connection to
a computer network or wireless router,
and an all-important USB-B connector
that we'll get to in a moment. The mixer
even comes with a locking IEC power
cable to prevent accidental unplugging.

Operation

With 30 physical inputs, 24 mic
channels, and a whopping 14 Aux
channels, the TouchMix-30 Pro is well
suited to live situations with multiple
monitor mixes to feed. In the studio,
some of the Auxes can be used to feed
headphone amplifiers while the others
can be pressed into service feeding
signals to outboard signal processors.
Speaking of signal processing, the
TouchMix-30 Pro has a fair bit of effects
horsepower under the hood. Each input channel has its own EQ (four semiparametric bands plus lowcut and high-

cut filters), compressor, and gate. There
are also six FX processors shared by the
mixer; each channel has its own sends
and returns, and FX can be routed to the
Auxes for monitoring purposes as well
as to the Mains. The Mains themselves
have a 6-band fully parametric EQ,
31-band graphic EQ, Anti-Feedback (a
network of 12 notch filters with global
Q and up to 16 dB of cut), and a Limiter. There's even a Pitch Correct effect
that you can assign to one input of your
choice-for that pitchy lead singer who
makes you cringe.
The FX engines were a pleasant surprise, offering surprisingly good sound
quality for monitor mixes or recording.
While they won't replace a high-end
hardware reverb or full-featured delay
plug-in, they'll do the job nicely for basic reverb, delay, and chorus, with easily tweakable parameters and a large
library of presets to choose from.

We're off to see the Wizards

It's a fact of life that live mixers are
often handled by employees of venues

http://www.adkmic.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - February 2018