Looking into a mixer myself. Mackie 1642 VLZ4 seems to get praise here. How about the Soundcraft Signature 22 MTK - seems like you get a lot more for $100 more than the Mackie. I’m sure someone here can tell me why that’s not true.
Soundcraft are great products—better than Mackie, as far as I can tell—but I ultimately bought a Mackie and I’m very happy with it. My selection criteria went something like this:
- No onboard FX, regardless of quality.
- No USB.
- None of the occasionally hidden compromises that come with point #1 or point #2.
- Good routing options.
- Price.
But they’re both good options, depending on your priorities and how purist you want to be about your mixer.
Mackie are the best analog mixer for the workflow and functionality IMO. (Send, Stereo return, ALT 34, …)
But sadly it is china bullshit now!!!
1 Like
I had the soundcraft signature mtk22 and sold it. I’m looking at the Mackie 1202vlz bc it has dedicated and sends and returns. If that’s important to you. Also, the soundcraft has a plastic housing and the Mackie is metal. The soundcraft did seem very plastic like to me too. Just my opinion but I’d say you would have less regrets if you went with the Mackie even though it has less channels. You’re getting better quality from what I can decipher. Good luck.
1 Like
interestingly enough, I had picked up a soundcraft epm8 as a solution for something portable, and long story short, I ended up returning it because sweetwater support adamantly stated that the aux/send on it is not for use with fx and the mixer will always have bleed on the return channel if that is what you are using it for.
I don’t have any bleed issues with the mackie (but it’s definitely not portable lol).
1 Like
It’s an “as far as I can tell,” not a certainty by any means. A little distressed hearing about Soundcraft build quality on this thread…
I used Soundcraft and Mackie products side by side when I was studying music technology at college. Some of our rigs had Soundcraft, some had Mackie. The Soundcrafts sounded better, but admittedly this was quite a number of years ago.
I did extensive research more recently related to my purchase, Soundcraft seemed the clear winner based on reviews. I also spoke with a friend who now works in the field, who had no incentive to recommend either brand. I did not A/B the desks, admittedly.
I couldn’t be happier with the Mackie though. I’d consider myself a convert to the VLZs now.
1 Like
I just bought the Mackie 1642 VLZ4 from Thomann because regarding sweepable eq, fx sends, metering led per channel, master inserts … it looks like the perfect upgrade for my live setup. But guess what, when I tried to turn it on it stays off. Seems to have trouble with power supply or the fuse is broken or whatever … grml
I know a lot of electronic musicians are using small or bigger (like 1642) mackie mixers for live. But others are going with Midas (like Pole or Octave One). A shame that the Soundcrafts Signatures have no aux returns … you have to use the 2 or 3 stereo channels … which is, well … need that for the Octa track and other stuff. oh yeah and no master inserts for a compressore etc.
Hopefully I will get a working desk as soon as possible. Fingers crossed!
What pushed me towards a Soundcraft is the warm gentle distortion when you push things a little bit in the red . It can get ugly quiet fast with budget mixers , not so with the Soundcraft .
1 Like
I have a soundcraft Signature 12 MTK and I HATE IT
Whoever came up with the horrible EQ topology design should be ashamed of themselves. You know how the Q value changes depending on whether you are boosting or cutting with a freq? An effin nightmare to use for sweeping the freqs I tell you…
Mackie is perhaps a more boring option, but at least it will never let you down.
1 Like
I hear you! Also don´t know who selected the frequencies of the sweep eq on the Signature … only up to 3k on the smaller ones. Mackie goes up to 8k. When I had my old Mackie Pro FX, I loved to sweep the mids of the chords, sending to tapedelay and reverb … that´s where the fun starts you know.
But have to send the Mackie back to see whats going on with the power. No leds lid up and no sound at all. What a shame 
No doubt you got a bad unit. Just get it replaced and you should be good
so Mackie got replaced byThomann to a new working unit. It works well for live sets due the routing options etc.
But I removed it from the signal chain in my studio due some Facts I noticed after 3, 4 months of working with it:
- mute switches are clicking
- Crosstalk between the channels, you can hear the others when all channels are down
- it degrades the sound somehow
I have a Mtk 22 and I’m very happy with it.
Hey people,
i got some problems using my soundcraft 22mtk.
When using USB return while using Ableton (it’s the only DAW i’m using, so i can’t check wether it’s the same with other DAWs) i got latency. It’s driving me nuts. The only way i see would be to turn monitoring off, so there won’t be latency on the incoming signal, but then nothing is send via USB back into the soundcraft - because the channels in Ableton are like muted.
Any help would be highly appreciated! Thank youuuu