Allen & Heath ZED-16FX

Multi-purpose mixer with FX from ZED series that is ideal for groups who need to travel light: it provides musicians, venues and hire companies with access to 10 full mono channels, 3 stereo channels and a high quality FX unit in a compact, rack mountable format. Configurable USB audio in/out makes it easy to capture stereo recordings: just plug in a USB lead to the unit, select the USB routing on the mixer and the device on the computer. Switches and connection through jack socket terminals provide different send/return configurations. The mixer further offers an essential selection of 16 time-delay effects, designed for small groups who do not want to carry around an effects unit with their gear but who still want great quality FX at their gigs and on their recordings. The effects are easily controlled using 3 buttons with 9 display LEDs. To alter effects parameters, the TAP button is held down and the up/down buttons pressed to adjust the specific parameter for that effect, for example, the decay length on PLATE, or the depth on CHORUS. Based on the proven pre-amps from the hugely successful PA series, the unit has DuoPre pre-amps, which use a two stage design, with carefully controlled amounts of gain in each stage. When amplifying the signal from the XLR input, the gain range is 69dB and is very evenly distributed around the gain control, meaning better control of signal level. Most of the gain comes from the first stage, so unwanted noise is kept to a minimum. Line level signals are simply plugged into the second stage of the pre-amp by using the line input jack socket, which has the great advantage of less noise when using the line input and also matching to higher input impedance. Included with the mixer is Cakewalk SONAR LE with so user can start recording music right out of the box with the most complete introductory music production software for Windows PC. Based on Cakewalk’s award-winning SONAR X3 digital audio workstation, SONAR LE has been enhanced with cutting-edge instruments, effects, and creative tools to make creating the music as simple and intuitive as possible. The mixer further features a responsive 3-band, swept mid frequency EQ design which utilises MusiQ – with optimised slope (or Q factor) for equalising individual instruments. Other features include two pre-fade aux sends and one post-fade aux send plus one internal FX send; illuminated mute, PFL and peak warning indicator; ALPS 100mm faders; stereo returns and playback, 12 bar meters or alt stereo output source. All inputs feature independent level control.