I completely agree. Like, I understand what they are going for. It’s portable, it’s feature rich, you can stream right onto your phone at the beach or the forest or wherever. I even get the price point (kinda). But I just don’t understand why the had to make it that small. My only guess is they were just seeing how small they could make it. They were so concerned with if they could that they never stopped to think if they should.
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With commodity price inflation, making it bigger was probably a meaningful consideration.
Less aluminium is less costly.
Components are still cheap. Chips are expensive but don’t change with a bigger box.
I agree though, moving two knobs at once seems a challenge if you have shrek fingers like myself.
There is opportunity for smarter micro design in this area. TE didn’t have enough voices in the room when Mr Tiny proposed that smallest is bestest.
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There were, but he was just too adorable to contradict. He did a whole dj set on the boardroom table with just two quarters after being helped out of tobias’ shirt pocket. Don’t be heartless, Mr Tiny deserves a mixer too. Imagine having to bear hug and use your legs just to adjust an eq.
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A few things argue in favor of small size:
- A smaller device is cheaper to ship, and shipping is significantly more expensive in 2022 than 2019
- A smaller device takes up less luggage space. I can fit a TX-6 in any of my messenger bags. If I put just my 402vlz4 in my bag along with some cables, I won’t have room for anything else.
- Coach airline / rail trays. I could probably jam with two volcas and a TX-6 in a coach seat as I slowly go mad on the flight from Chicago to Sydney. More seriously, I could see jamming on the TGV or Shinkansen with this and a few tiny synths
- $1200 is steep, but I could see it getting used as a home office volume control: send the PC output, Switch and PS5 all into this thing and the output to the monitors. Probably not a primary use case, but a good secondary one. (possibly ideal for chiptune artists as a submixer in front of their sampler, for bringing various vintage consoles and chip synths together)
- Finally, all of the use cases that are impossible and thus invisible now because of the size of ordinary mixers.
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Getting mine delivered today!
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Can I use the TX-6 as an interface for my guitar? Probably not as it only has line inputs but still wanted to ask (especially since it has a guitar tuner)…thanks!
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yes
you can
You are going to need a pre amp I suspect as they are just line level inputs.
nope
there’s plenty of gain and a user on another forum shared a recording w/ guitar plugged straight into tx6
you might still want a preamp but it’s (surprisingly) not necessary
I agree completely about the other improvements but when this synth can be sequenced via usb or bluetooth midi, why cram more pattern editing into it?
What I want to see is expanded midi control so whether someone uses their daw. phone & tablet apps, te sequencers, or something else…we can get the most out of the synth mode
That is surprising and extremely interesting. Back on my fantasy shopping list for when international travel becomes sane again (
) and Japan opens its borders to synth enthusiasts and cherry blossom appreciators.
Edit: it’s particularly good because “consumer” (RCA) line level is lower than “pro audio” line level. Plenty of gain is useful if you are messing around with weird old sound toys and DIY experiments.
It would be easier to ignore if this was a $200 device in $1200 clothes. Unfortunately, TE seems to have made this thing useful enough that it isn’t easy to dismiss as an overpriced toy. Possibly a properly priced tool for playing with toys.
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Interesting…I have. Ever been able to get good tone from an electric guitar in to a low impedance line input…even with gain cranked up…more noise than tone usually…be interested to see that video.
listen here
again
it might not be what you want but at least the demo will help decide
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I’m surprised it doesn’t come with a dongle for turning the knobs.
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Mine finally got out of its box. Holy shit is this thing small. It’s really amazing that they shoved a mixer in this size. And it works well for what I think it was built for.
But I don’t know if it’s for me. The knobs are pretty unusable. I can see the sliders being useful for a small portable setup though and this would be a great iPad audio interface.
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Thanks…quite hard to tell how the tone is in that mix but it obviously works. I don’t think it was designed with guitars and mikes in mind, but it’s good to know it has that much gain without too much noise.
I wonder what stops the little mixer moving around with a guitar lead plugged in when you are playing…I tend to move around a bit!
Just received mine in the mail.
Unfortunately it does not power on, even after plugging into to a USB-C source.
Only shows me a 100% battery when plugging it in. Nothing otherwise.
Bummer.
Here we go to reach out to the terrible TE support.
mine didn’t power up unfortunately, returning it.
u have any issues with that?
Maybe you could try downloading firmware from TE web and entering firmware upgrade mode.
doesn’t even boot up into firmware mode sadly, just a powerless screen.
Mine is on its way back to Sweden too.
Bad inconsistent and noisy, main out connection.