Soundcraft Signature 12 Mixer with Effects Reviews

Picked this up recently from Nick at Sweetwater. All I can say is oh my. I'm 53 yrs old and been in music my whole life. My favorite mixer of all time haha down. So useable. Everything I need in a mixer. Bright, warm, clean and easy on the ears. Love it!

I'm new to music equipment but this was a great buy. The amount of channels is perfect for my small church. I was surprised there was no on and off switch.

This is a great mixer especially for the price. I love being able to run extra speakers other than just the mains, it"s nice to have options to run your monitors through the monitor outs and 3 aux channels. The effects are a nice touch. It"s nice to not have to always run dry. And there"s a low cut which is also a great step up from the EPM8 that I used before purchasing this.

This Soundcraft mixer review is for live music, not DAW.

First off, why there isn't a power on switch on the Soundcraft Signature Mixer is for protecting your speakers in live show situations. Often, beginners damage their speakers and monitors by switching the mixer off or on while the main powered speakers are still on. It's a safety precaution, one that I applaud from the engineers at Soundcraft. I upgraded to this unit from a Yamaha MGP16x, my thoughts- first the Soundcraft has a way easier layout for routing and mixing live, the faders are larger, and the EQ is way more accurate. The Yamaha suffered from low headroom on the mic pre which always landed us in trouble with live clipping during shows. The Soundcraft Sig 12 has two features that help with a higher headroom. First, in the larger fader and second a limiter on the first 2 channels for your worst live situation high headroom peak limiting. The Yamaha had very small faders and eq buttons making it hard to dial in a decent sound, basically for the player/soundman, the Soundcraft is just easier because the dials / faders are larger and easier to see and move. Sonically, The Soundcraft has a beautiful live sound, the built-in Sapphire EQ is pleasant and full. My complaint is the onboard effects, there is only really one- You may have reverb, or delay but not at the same time. Yes, there is a Reverb/Delay effect, but it is a joke, just a big reverb with a fast delay that sounds bad no matter where you place it. The Yamaha SPX Dual effects was clearly better. I think Soundcraft could have the dual Effect processor on all the Signature series mixers, after all they offer it on the Signature 22, as a bonus for buying the largest mixer in the series. After checking out Yamahas newer MG16X line, (Which I didn't own) Yamaha has scaled back to a single SPX effect engine, not dual, So even Yamaha cut this area. Oh Well. In my opinion, every vocalist wants both a bit of reverb, and a bit of delay on the vocal. Thanks.

Just received the Soundcraft 12 and I must say it is awesome. Very compact yet the most versatile board I've ever owned. It's routing capability is second to none that I've experienced and the Lexicon FX section is a real added bonus. I use it for doing a single show as well as a duo, but it could easily handle a band. It is misleading in that 4 of the inputs are designated stereo leaving 8 actual mono inputs for mics and instruments. I'm still exploring all the options, but so far I'm really impressed. Also it's the first time I've owned a Soundcraft and that's pretty cool as well.

Eight full featured channels with mic inputs, an extra channel for an iPod in between sets, two aux sends (pre/post switchable), L/R group out, great sounding effects, portable and lightweight. This mixing board works great for smaller venues with my two four-piece bands! (acoustic an classic rock)

Bought as a demo in April 2018, sounds pretty nice for what it is. I work and play in the Florida Keys in an outdoor, high humidity, corrosive environment. This little unit has done hundreds of solo gigs as well as some smaller band gigs. It still powers up but has a few dead/scratchy channels. Deoxit is great but rust never sleeps in the salt air of the Keys. I imagine if this was in an indoor environment it'd still be working.

First of all lets get this out of the way. I have no intent of beating this thing up on the road, and so on. It is mostly for my Podcast and Voice Over work and a few audio projects for myself and maybe some friends.

I think from a robust build, you better spend more. Yes no power switch is mental. Why do that? Well, because as the mixer is always warmed up and ready to go, it is not going to sound different, if you believe in those audio tweak things. Too many years in high end audio. Yeah I know.

From a creation point of view for me at least, I couldn't be happier. The Mic Preamplifiers are fine. If you were expecting Rupert Neve Preamps, get out of it!

... It is competitive with Mackie's which I had an old 1604 VLZ. Yeah dating myself huh? And unless you are running really difficult to drive dynamics or something these are fine.

Well what about workflow? It is easy man. Works with my simple stuff using Audacity, and free baby, and Ableton 10 lite. Still learning that last one. So far no snags it caused. Me? That is a different story.

The controls feel about right for the price, and the eq is nice with just the right transitions for what I do. The Mic Preamps are doing just fine for me even after compression and normalizing. Now I am not making the next greatest hit or anything like that, but for what I do? Tickled pink. Love the faders and FX sends etc. Feel like I am having way too much fun.

My AKG P220 Mic I also bought here, is doing well for my work, and play for that matter. Yeah wished I had more gain. Could use more ooompth there. But hey no worse than a Foucsrite or similar.

I had looked into a Shure SM7B, and no way this preamp even going to get that going let alone an Electro Voice Dynamic. Just not enough gain to make them happy. Cloudlifter minimum and get a beefier Mic Preamplfier.

For more friendlier mics, it is fine. Noise floor is not objectionable. It is what it is. Line level balanced and unbalanced are fine. Sounds great from my sources from Cassette to DAT to CD to files and my Tascam SD recorder.

For a modest beginner starting out, this is just fine. Way better than any Behringer frankly. Used one for 2 days, brought it back.

I had a Presonus AR-12 that was real nice too. I think that one is a winner too. Put it all in perspective, as long as your expectations and such are in line, these will do fine. If you need to spend more, knock yourself out.

I really love the Lexicon effects. They are a hoot. Playing around with some friend's gigs and making them sound like a concert hall sound is great fun. Is it accurate? Of course not. Who cares?? It is great fun and it adds some to the subject. Not overdoing it. Everything else like everybody else is pure marketing.

If you want state of the art,what you doing looking at this for?? If you are looking for a way to get in the door and you want more tactile feel of the action vs. just the computer, this is great.

As long as this is a stay at home unit, it will make your day. It is NOT a Roadie, and I don't think Harman intended it to be.

Mic pres are fine. Line level is dandy. Plenty of facilities to get you going. Okay software bundle though Presonus will give you more if that is important to you. I sometimes wonder when you get so much in bundles, what happened to the device you initially paid for. Or did you just buy software, and the device was almost free?

Okay, wrapping up this most un-technical thoughts and impressions. This is certainly competitive for the price range. It hurts no ones feelings and does as advertised. Is it a Neve wonder box?? Hell no! So don't expect to be. Mackies, and others here in this price are pretty close. You want real good, you better be ready to pay.

For what it is. Sure I would recommend it. I would say if you can save a bit more look at an Allen Heath and more and so on. But if you need a mixer now? There are worse ones that this one. 4 stars for the class. 3 outright no matter what is fair.

I bought this board for mixing (mics and music) for karaoke shows. I use hosting software for the karaoke backing tracks on a desktop PC. Instead of using the motherboard soundcard out (low quality), I was going to send the stereo tracks out via USB to the Signature 12. This worked fine while the music was playing but approximately three seconds after a song ends - during period of silence - a singular small pop (not enough to damage my speakers) could be heard through the sound system. It was enough to be annoying. I did contact Soundcraft support and they opened a ticket and said that their engineers are looking into this. Still no resolution from them. So I ordered a Scarlett 2i2 and use it as a USB soundcard and go from it to the Signarure 12 via Mogami Gold TRS to XLR cables. No pops with 2i2. Outside of this issue I would say that the board does introduce a little noise, but that's just in the nature of an analog board. I use one aux send for stage monitor and one aux send for sub mix and main L&R out to QSC K12.2 FOH speakers. I do use one of the onboard effects for reverb on the mics. It does a decent job. Only other con I can think of is there is no power switch on the board. All in all it serves my purpose, but if I had it to do over I would have not bought this board. More than likely I would have went with a digital mixer or interface with appropriate number of inputs and aux sends.

I play bass and handle sound duties for a busy band. This past summer we were playing 12-14 gigs/month We use this mixer with powered speakers. After only about a year of use inputs (and one output) started dropping likes flies. Maybe we got a lemon, or maybe it just isn't tough enough to handle gigging. When we sent it back to the manufacturer for in-warranty repairs, 4 XLR inputs and 1 of the XLR outputs had died.

A few other notes:

- No power switch. Must be unplugged to turn it off.
- Not a huge fan of the preamps, but you get what you pay for. I definitely recommend some sort of in-line preamp for dynamic mics to avoid pushing too far.

Had a signature 12fx. Sent it away for repair. First channel high end treble eq not working. Sent it directly to harman. They sent another brand new over night. Fantastic service. But service doesn't matter if the stuff is no good to begin with. Within a few weeks back to channel one not working again on the board they sent. . I take care of my stuff like no one imagines.
Same thing with JBLeon15. Would not turn on all of a sudden.
I'm done with any Harmon. In my mind wayyy over rated.
Purchased a simple Yamaha 12xu. Little compression with fx along with some zlx12Ev's. Amd sub. Sounds great. No issues and much more cost effective.

I bought the Signature12 AND a Signature10 for use during Wedding Ceremony and Cocktail hour set ups ...
And both units had to be sent back for faulty Faders ..
Also the signal is so weak across the Gain stages that you have to CRANK the faders on Channels AND the Main to get an acceptable signal to the speakers , and this is with the Gain to the Channel Preamps set HOT ...
Ive been doing sound for nearly 40 YEARS so please dont tell me I have poor Gain Structure ...
The Effect select Rotor is WONKY as hell and will skip back to the starting point if you dont change from effect to effect slowly , and will sometimes skip back even after you have finally dialed to the effect you want and then press the Rotor to load it up...
Really disappointed in these units , they are NOT the legendary quality Soundcraft was once know for .... Chinese Built garbage ...