Soundcraft Signature 22 Mixer with Effects Reviews

The ability to have 4 monitor mixes makes this a great product. Easy to use!

Ive had it 5 weeks now and have done a few sessions with it the pre-amps are nice very quiet and good head room the eq is real nice im able to get a real good mix on acoustic guitars and percussion the 5 aux. sends is nice to have. being able to use both effects processors at the same time is great I ran my telecaster thru with spring reverb and tremolo and you'd swear the ventures were in the room awsome !!! Its a very well built unit and im pleased but like I mentioned in my first review its larger and heavier than what the pictures show so measure and check your work station first I had to remove a shelf to fit it in.

I had been wanting this for quite a while but was out of my budget when a price drop and instant rebate came along it was now in my range. I contacted roq martin my sales rep. and he made it happen ( like alway's ) It was ordered on tuesday and I had it thursday. I havent done any session's with it yet but did set it up and check all the function's and its a very good mixer, very accurate adjustment's, the two effects send's can be used at once which is awsome. I will give another review after some session use. Also this unit is bigger and heavier than what you see in the pic's I had to modify my work station to fit it in so check your space and measure first !

Analog Mixer Excellence! These Mic pres alone are well worth every penny. Using this beautiful USB interface as the front end to your DAW is equally as satisfying. The digital return channel switch is awesome! This feature lets you lay out your tracks onto each of the channels for mix and effects. So awesome for running to outboard analog chains.

IT feels well built and sounds awesome.

There's a bit of a squeal at about 15kHz @ Unity across the board, but who listen that loud!?

GReat desk, best price. And Sweetwatrer is awesom because they send you candy! :)

The best mixer in its pricer range,hands down. Sounds great,effects are very good, features are just about anything you need for small footprint mixer.

Great mixer for a live band. We can mic everything. The only thing it lacks is RCA out for quick recording, but with all of the AUX outs we can still record. Love the 100mm faders.

I have had this unit for 3 years as of this month. I have done a lot of sessions with it, and have never had any issues. The ghost pres are awesome, they don't exactly have any mojo or pleasant colration but on the other hand they are very clean, transparent, with good headroom. The EQ is awesome but is very sensitive, a little goes a long way so be careful because it is easy to over do it. I at first had issues tracking drums because ideally I try to keep the highest peaks around -10db going into pro tools to leave lots of room for mixing and mastering, I was having issues where even with the gain all the way down close mikes like snare drum were still coming in really hot into the daw, but weren't even touching anywhere near red on the board its self. The soundcraft software offers the ability to turn down the inout and output going into your computer so you can easily fix this issue. The lexicon effects sound great and its awesome you can run 2 of them at once. Having the aux outs, and group outs leave plenty of options for monitor mixes, and sending your signal out for re-amping or sending to other external gear.

Now for the few negatives

To start the line ins I do not believe bypass the preamps, but are just a -10db cut.
There are no inserts at all which kinda sucks because running to an outboard compressor or another outboard piece didn't seem possible BUT... I did find a work around there is one stereo channel that is at line level and I do believe it doesn't go into a preamp. So I send the signal out of an aux out or a group out to my outboard piece and then I send the outboard out into channel 19/20 which enables me to use it as one stereo in or 2 mono ins. 23/24 has an RCA which i think may also not have the preamp but being RCA it is unbalanced so I have never tried to run into that channel for anything other than with something that has a dedicated RCA out.
My last gripe is that the eq, effects, are all prefader so you can't track into the eq or the effects. The signal goes in dry no matter what, but of course you can send the channel out of the daw via USB and print it back into the daw using the onboard eq or effects, which can be time consuming.
Ultimately I wish it had at least a couple inserts, and I wish it had a switch to give you the option for pre/post for the onboard eq and effects.
All in all it is a great board and cannot be beat for the price. As I said I've had it 3 years now with no issues.
You won't find anything with this many capabilities for the price, its great for both live and studio use as long as you don't heavily depend on outboard pres! I wouldn't hesitate to buy this board again, and have even considered the smaller versions to throw over my PA for band practice as the mtk 22 stays for only studio use. I give it 4 stars due to the few weaknesses I listed but again for the price it can't be beat, even though I would have paid a little more for inserts and pre post options. None the less it's an amazing board!
BUY IT!

I've owned this mixer just about 3 years. For the first year, no problem. Very reliable and great quality. Not long after I owned it I noticed the backlights for the built in effects were flickering. No big deal since I don't use them.
Within the second year I started noticing the gain pots were starting to fail on every channel, one by one. If you press down on the pot it seems to work but that's not a solution. Also there is a widely known issue with the USB failing entirely and you lose connection to your computer, due to the poor design. Some users leave their gear on 24/7 and since there is no power switch, it's overheating but no where in the manual was it suggested not to keep it on all the time.

Harmon's support group is utterly worthless and of course they deny the issue, claiming it's all 'user error'.

I will never buy another Soundcraft mixer again.

I bought this board about a year ago and was loving it. It was doing a great job and then I got the clip of death. The interface to connect to my computer would not work anymore. I was very bombed!!! And still am!!!
Out of warranty and I just ended up selling it to somebody who might be able to fix it or use it for parts. Now I have to buy a new soundcard very Very disappointed in soundcraft.

I know this is a ongoing problem that they have with these boards. I will never buy anything from this company again. Pretty much just ate the dollars.