Soundcraft Signature 12 MTK Mixer and Audio Interface with Effects Reviews

The Soundcraft Signature 12 MTK is a great mixer for two different purposes (or one combined purpose). It is superb 12 channel (8 XLR Mic, 2 stereo) mixer for live bands - or live anything. Each channel strip has great EQ controls, 3 sends and group and main outputs. But, each channel strip also is an AD/DA converter, or front end to your DAW. Or, simultaneously mixing live and recording all channels into a digital recorder or laptop with DAW.

And, each send has the option of pre or post - giving this mixer undue flexibility for a 12 channel mixer. Overall, in ease of use, being visually obvious what's what, and with multiple output options (use Group and send specific channels, or all) this mixer fills multiple requirements in an easy and excellent-sounding manner. I should point out that it is rugged enough that it can be your "go to" remote mixer for any and all jobs.

A high-reliability and remarkably well priced modern version of classic British engineering.

This is just the bomb!

If I had one of these 30 years ago, I could rule the world! The best interface I have used yet..

I'm using this as the audio interface for the Akai MPC X and it just shines -- you just have to remember to push the USB/Direct button in and out. Everything about this mixer is quality. The preamps are quiet, the EQ has character and the routing is extremely flexible. I use the aux sends to feed a Chase Bliss Blooper and can easily route different signals and effects through it.

At home I play my guitars (335, GB10se, Takamine H5 and a Strat) through this mixer hooked up to Tannoy Reveal monitors. What beautiful sounds! And when I record, USB to my PC with Cubase I get the same beautiful tone. I previously had a Mackie VLZ 1202. It's going on Ebay real soon.

Thank you Sweetwater and Greg Savino for your great service!

This arrived yesterday, and my only regret is not springing for the 22!! Very solid feel, no obtrusive jacks on the rear, Mac Core Audio-compliant, and just overall great. I had a few concerns, which were completely unfounded. First was Mojave compatible — it is. Second was losing channels 8 and 10 if using the XLRs on 7 and 9 — you don"t, it still norms and sends to USB. Another was where to playback — it doesn"t matter, just choose your channels, press the button, and you can still record on that channel"s inputs. The EQ is simple and versatile. The parametric mid lets you mix outside the box. One more concern I had was hum, as reported on some forums — again, a non-issue. It only shows up with improper gain staging, and mostly from the RCA, as one would expect. Soundcraft"s customer service is also fricken amazing, and all of us shopping here at Sweetwater know just how important that is for brand loyalty. Shoutout to Dave Brow for being so chill when I needed to pause the order to call Soundcraft about Mojave compatibility! This was simply a customer experience you hear of in legends

Just got this and I like it a lot. Great eq and the effects are good. The best thing though is the way it connects to my Mac. It"s an audio interface that sends the individual tracks via usb to Logic. The best part is you can then send them back to each channel and then eq and add reverb etc. You can mix down your song back to your daw! Really cool. Some people believe that adds warmth to the digital mix. Sounds good to me. I did get this with a bad channel and had to return it. But this one seems all good.

Another reviewer mentioned that the signal cannot be "pretreated" using the onboard EQ etc before being sent to the computer via USB. However this is because the USB is powerful to use the effects on your DAW in realtime even during live stage performances. According to the manual: once you have brought the signal back to the mixer from your DAW, you can also apply the onboard mixer features to the sound.

When you realize that you are getting this level of integration, not to mention a world class recording interface and British analog...

This is truly the answer for entry level musicians. All you need is a mic, headphones and your favorite DAW.

I own two daw studios. I own allot of rack mount synths and effects etc.
My kids are in high school and wanted a YouTube channel setup.
I had 4 E-mu EIV Ultras that needed a mixer to sum to before going to daw so I found this mixer. I am totally blown away! I have spent big bucks on small analog consoles.
This sounds clean and no bacground noise. It has effects and groups. 7/8 9/10 are stereo if wanted. Really cool board Eq is there when you need it. If you are hesitant to buy because of name, don’t be, just buy this. I did a A/B comparison with a exspensive other. Soundcraft board won hands down. Sound was clean, smooth not brittle and does not hurt the sound coming in. It’s buttons are nice not cheap. Faders are tight and smooth. Plenty of gain when needed. Pan works great. Grouping, EQ is where you need it.
Quick mutes on all channels PFL etc. I have not used usb function.
Amazing clean smooth well rounded sound with no noise or hiss.
I will be buying a 16 or 24 track of these. I never thought this brand was so good in quality. My Mics sound awesome through this board! My kids YouTube channel is a hit! I will keep this board for myself too.
Thanks to Nick at Sweetwater and the great service at Sweetwater purchasing was a pleasure.
It must be said.. Sweetwater blows all other stores off the table. It’s old school at Sweetwater, they care and give you great deals. They treat every customer like gold. From $100k purchase to pro-co mic chords you get the royal treatment. This board will not let you down for DAW, and YouTube, front end for live musicians.

I purchased an XR12 digital mixer, which is controlled via tablet, and I love it for what it is. Reality struck tho, and it became obvious my live gig situation called for a single unit mixer with physical faders to run into powered speakers. I was also looking to buy a multi-track USB unit that would work with Studio One at the same time. Luckily,after a lengthy search and ponder session, the 12MTK came to my attention... so I purchased one. Amazing and awesome! Gives me all I need for my solo-to-3 piece live gig set-up, and double-duties as one spectacular multi-track recording interface. I have an Audient iD14 and a BLA-modded Behringer ADA8000 as my home studio front end, and was going to just use the 12MTK as a live recording interface,but the options(and ease of use!) on the 12MTK make it a better set-up,period. Hard to beat the Audient's preamps, so as an option, I run a second laptop for the iD14, sending it into a channel or two on the Soundcraft.I can also master into the Audient and take advantage of Burr-Brown convertors for final mixdown. Truth of the matter, Soundcraft made a do-it-all mixer/interface specifically just for me! Sure seems like it...Thank you, Harman! Final analysis says this mixer rules for live gigs AND multi-track recording. Although the internal effects are above decent, actually very good, I love being able to bring back recorded tracks to the 12MTK and use per-track effects within my DAW along the way. Sweet deal, indeed! Look, best thing for everybody, just buy one. Now would be best!

This mixer (DAW recording interface) sounds AWESOME with lots of headroom and very warm., much better than the 16-channel Analog/Digital Firewire mixer I removed. Very simple to use and once you figure out the input and output settings to use in your DAW software i.e. Main outs assigned to Outputs 11 and 12, not stereo 1 and 2, it runs flawlessly. .

I just got this unit, still getting use to it, but really happy with it. Excellent unit for the price and quality. Delivered on stated date, no problems.

I've had this board for about 4 months only however it's long enough to know it's solid! The effects are great. I'm primarily an acoustic player, performing in a duo with another acoustic and vocal, and this is just so clear. Soundcraft makes good gear and the price was perfect. If your looking for a great little mixer this is yours.

I normally do not write reviews, but I am so satisfied with the sound on this mixer that I had to pass the word and share with others. unique about this board is an analog mixer with multi-track recording capability on your DAW software. the only other analog mixer with this capability at this price point is the Behringer UFX1204. I compared the two side-by-side, and the Soundcraft is superior in sound, layout and function. I use Sonar Platinum DAW software to record and the Soundcraft drivers worked seamlessly. Whether I play audio or MIDI tracks with this mixer to my JBL EON speakers and separate sub sounds amazing.

Ecxellent and afordable sound!!

I'm a 30+ year full time lead guitar/vocals and have been through tons of gear. I use this with 2 EV elx15 and 2 elx118 for mains and 2 elx12 for monitors, plug and play. I get a great kick sound and the mic headroom makes everything crystal clear. I'm lucky to play with musicians that know how to get a great tone so I don't have to fix their sound in the mix. Y'all can keep all that menu driven digital stuff and while you are tryin' to save scenes or recall or edit, my band and I will have been jammin' for 20 minutes. Peace!

I'm a long-time fan of Soundcraft, so I will admit to my bias up front; I love working on their boards. I needed a small one for projects at home and this fit the bill perfectly. The reasons I didn't get it a straight five are that I really would have preferred Aux Returns instead of built-in effects, and I'd like inserts at least some of the channels. I can get around both of those, but those would have been the icing on the cake. As it is, it's a great board for working at home.

I use this primarily for the multitrack interfacing capabilities. While the 12 MTK is using USB 2.0, which is admittedly slower than other alternatives, it really shines as a discrete monitoring system for both the source I am recording and the effects I'm using.

Even after recording, I can use one of the channels on the mixer as an aux send from my DAW to the boards FX section and cut down on latency even further. This is great because DAW reverb is a demanding effect and the 12 MTK reverbs sound good for most things - they're also easy to dial in.

I've had this product for almost a year now and it's really changed the way I work and opened up a lot of possibilities. This is a great product with a lot of flexibility and I think it can satisfy the needs of many home recording geeks like me :)

This was our 1st Soundcraft purchase and the more we use it, the happier we are with the way they do things. This mixer sits between computer and DAW like an actual studio board, with excellent routing options. Sure like the simple button on each channel to send the recorded track back to the channel/fader. Set up within Studio One took ten minutes, including downloading the driver. The routing matrix is simple/basic/easy. We had a power outtage while we were in the middle of downloading the free software Soundcraft provided and couldn't use the same code to try the download again. We contacted Soundcraft and within 20 minutes they returned the message, plus went WAY out of their way to get us re-hooked up. Amazing customer support. The Ghost preamps are a real thing, not just a gimmicky name. The effects are good-to-okay,providing a really good plate reverb. The headphone amp get's it done although we have heard much better ones on lesser boards. Well made,solid mixer that does just about everything a modern musician/home recordist could ask for.

I started playing live gigs in 1981,witnessed the analog mixer days and the digital mixer days, in all their glory and limitations. Soundcraft has taken the good parts of each world, thrown them into a cooking pot of sonic mojo,then served savvy consumers exactly what they ordered. This board is solid,has some weight to it. Took me a couple of hours to fully get the hang of the EQ section on the 12MTK. Final analysis, it really convinced me Soundtrack knows their stuff. Preamps are as good as those in any multi-channel recording interface that's available at this price-point; better than most, actually. But how many have a 14-in/12-out USB interface?! It has hi-z inputs. It has effects. It features 2 input channels with limiters. I would purchase again to use as a live mixer, for that alone it is worth the money. Add in the USB multi-track recording capabilities, deal done. It's been a fun journey along the way, and I am glad to have found some true old school 70's analog vibe on my channel strips to go along with my 2017 digital-style recording needs. At a price I can afford. If I ever need to upgrade, the 22MTK is the obvious route. * Half star off for faders; they are very smooth and consistent but a little less solid than I would prefer.

Soundcraft did a great job with this mixer, a real quality unit. My only complaint is that the faders are flimsy-feeling. Considering this is such a solid feeling mixer,no shortcuts anywhere else,it seems odd. For the money this is an excellent live board,add in the multi-track features,wow. One thing to know, the EQ and effects are for the live mix. The USB multi-track channels go to your DAW before all that, sending clean input info. And I mean clean! That's where I really got excited with this mixer as an interface because it captures sound sources without adding color or hiss or anything else. So now, I don't need that 8-channel interface and outboard mixer,anymore. Plugged a bass guitar and an acoustic into the z-inputs,all good. The effects were perfect for the acoustic and provide basic,solid parameters for vocals. There is a lot to love about this mixer/interface,I would upgrade to the 22MTK in a heartbeat,though.

I gave it 4.5 stars because I don't have a long, extensive history working with these. I have two of these so I don't have to haul them around between my home and away studio. It's perfect for what I need and use it for. It can do multitrack recording and that was the major selling point for me. Great sound. Very happy with them! Would recommend to anyone else looking for the same.

Great pres,
Love that it connects to mac as audio interface to Studio One.
I recorded a rehearsal and really pleased.

This mixer is a great size for basics and expanding. We have an electronic drum kit, so it saves us some space on the mixer, but we like to throw horns and extra vocals in. We like the FX features and individual controls for FX and Aux. The dual XLR/1/4" input jacks are awesome. Another time saver. The only issue we've run into (mind you, this could be our own ignorance) is that the gain at the top of each column has to be cranked to full just to recognize the input. It's acting like an on/off switch instead of a gain.

Wow. I love what this mixer can do.

I have been mixing "in the box" for so long and miss the days of interacting with actual faders and knobs. This mixer provides so much flexibility and features at such an incredible price! I could go on and on, but just look at all the other reviews--a lot of it has been covered before. I wish it had insert points for some of the gear I have, but, the ability to add "plug-in gear" through my DAW certainly makes up for it. I probably will not use this much for live, but that is really the only place where the limiters on channels 1 and 2 would come in handy (especially to avoid any "hot mic" moments...).

I would easily give it 5 stars, but I have only used it for a few weeks, and cannot vouch for its endurance.
(My last board--a Mackie--lasted for 20+ years.)

And, one more important thing--Sweetwater has the most fantastic folks working for them. I cannot say that enough.

I have been look at this mixer for years and I finally got one. The pre amps are amazing

Strange no power switch! No eq for aux mix! It would be excellent if it had those. Sounds fantastic! Great effects and love ghost mic preamp.

I have used the MTK12 extensively as a live mixer, also works very well as a user-friendly recording interface. Soundcraft did a great job all around,feature-wise, providing a do-it-all workhorse at a reasonable price. Much better idea for a home recordist/musician to purchase this complete mixer as an audio USB interface than the standard 19" USB rack units, due to the in/out options the MTK12 offers. The positives list for this mixer goes on forever, and I would purchase a second unit, the MTK22, TODAY if I had the $. Here are the negatives: the headphone amp is noisy enough that it aggravates me,although the board signal path is very quiet. I use an Audient iD14 daily and it has one of the best headphone amps period, as good as it gets. The Soundcraft isn't in the same league;It's a shock to switch from one to the other. Fader caps/knobs feel flimsy although the actual glide is smooth and consistent. Effects are a hit-and-miss affair, but the basic reverb's shine enough to use. I run it through Studio One 3 DAW, so I just add plugin effects on the USB channel return. Simple,easy,awesome! Also, I add either a CLA mixdown plugin or IK Multimedia Lurssen mastering plugin to the final mix buss, a super nice option.So are the limiters on channels 1-2, very smart addition. As a stand alone unit, this mixer rocks! Add a couple powered speakers and you have an easy to use, great sounding live gig set-up. Add a laptop/DAW, and you have a very effective, user-friendly studio mixer that beats out any other USB recording interface offered in this price-range. Soundcraft!

I own the Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 6x6 USB 2.0 Audio Interface but had been missing using a conventional mixer. When I saw this mixer I decided to try it and I have not been disappointed! Playing my Pianoteq 5 software on my Mac has never felt more natural! Transient response is night and day better using the USB return on a channel and out to my monitors than it ever was using the Focusrite. I'm just getting started integrating this with my DAW but wanted to let people know how well it worked as a USB sound interface. I am also impressed with how logical and user-friendly the board is to use.

Gateway drugs - get you hooked so you need more. As in better preamps, better routing. More inputs, better meters, etc etc…. Had this for 4 years now. Starting to get crackle in the sliders, bus buttons randomly cut out, master fader has wonky panning issues. Build quality is showing flaws. The FX sends are PHASE REVERSED !!!! Big pain in the ***. It's got sooooo many bells and whistles for $ - with that comes a limit re: the quality of build and sound. Working on my last project on this board. Step up is gonna cost bucks. Big 6 or Cranesong? It was good while it lasted.

The only reason I'm giving this product two stars is because the console actually sound pretty good (despite the noisy FX return, which is unusable). It's not without its charm. But the build quality....OMG the build quality is just terrible. It's been at the center of my studio for a little over three years. A coupe of days ago the USB connection stopped working and it was the final straw in my relationship with Soundcraft products. This is actually my second console - the first one was so noisy I had to send it back. The knobs and faders are cheap and toy like. The pots started crackling almost immediately out of the box. One channel doesn't work at all and three of the gain knobs stopped working altogether. Add in the unusable effects return and you have a greatly diminished and subpar product. I'm not even angry that it's out of warranty. It gives me a chance to move on to a different company. Be warned!

If you have a Windows machine, just skip this and the 22mtk, the driver is unsigned so Windows actively tries to stop you from using it. It will work, after an eight step process at every boot up where you unlock the bit locker that windows puts on your computer after starting this questionable process. Once you get that far and have it working with your DAW, prepare to have very quiet sounds streaming into your computer. If you turn up the volume on the headphones Jack you'll get lots of static, so maybe get two warm audio mark 2 on the main out put into an interface, and then you can use this on your windows machine. Good luck.

There is no doubt that this mixer looks like a great value, based on all it can do for you. You can use it for recording, mixing, analog summing, eq'ing, and adding effects. Unfortunately, all of that may become irrelevant once you consider the following: (1) the pre's are quite muddy and provide very low headroom, (2) the DIs are so muddy as to radically change any guitar tone, (3) the headphone output is very different from the actual sound that is playing.

Maybe I should not be surprised by the poor sound quality at this price point, given the versatility that is offered.

The Signature 12 MTK is a good mixer. I purchased it in the hopes of having an all in one live sound and home recording solution. I suppose I shouldve done more homework here, but the system comes with an unfortunate fixed parameter. The USB output only sends post gain / pre EQ audio, not the whole channel. Your dialed in EQ and/or any onboard effects DO NOT get sent to the USB output. Coming from live sound, this board appealed to me for recording as I assumed I would be able to shape output on the board itself. Unfortunate that this information isnt made available. on the spec page or overview.

I really wanted to like this device. It is a very capable mixer, but the driver support on macOS is absolutely terrible. The driver technically supports 44.1k and 48k, but makes an obtrisuve noise on 44.1k and is only usable in 48k. I was told by their support that there are no plans to fix this and that I should just use 48k. it's a really annoying limitation, to say nothing of how it cannot go to any higher resolution than 48k in the first place. The headphone output is also mono, so if you want a stereo headphone mix you have to use the group outpurs and send them to an addtional headphone mixer.

All in all, it's 2023 and I cannot believe this thing is still on sale with this poor a level of support and features.