I'd like to appreciate Aaron for his help and kindness. The mixer my manager asked me to order was not in stock. He suggested one similar and I did not have a clue which one to buy. Very good customer service!

Bought this at a great price from Sweetwater. The board has everything we need for our 5 member band. We were even able to daisy chain an 8 channel mixer (our drummer's) to this for even more coverage. I give it only a 4 star because initially we had issues with getting sound. Sounds silly, but the instructions they provide are totally inadequate. UTube videos saved the day.

Our civic club received a donated sound system complete except for the mixer. None of us are experienced sound technicians, so we contacted the original owners of the system, were advised to purchase the Makie ProFX12v3 12-Channel Mixer, and enlisted the help of local folks (sound engineers from churches). Between them and the wonderful online instruction manuals and videos at Sweetwater, this group of amateurs was quickly able to learn, set up, and operate our equipment. We are very pleased!

I'm now stuck with an 11-channel mixer, because the Channel 3 volume slider stopped working—just one month after the warranty expired. For context, I've only used this board at our annual conference, so it's seen less than 20 total days of use. That kind of failure with such light usage is disappointing.

This isn't a knock on Sweetwater—they're fantastic to work with, and I'll continue to buy gear through them. But as for the Mackie mixer, based on my experience, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

When it worked, this mixer sounded pretty good, with decent transparent preamps. However, it has serious issues with longevity and durability. The potentiometers on the channel gain knobs have mostly all gone out. Some are totally dead, others make horrendous static noise when you turn them until you find a sweet spot that is clean. Some channels spontaneously lose gain as you play, without touching any knobs or faders, like a ghost action. If you expect moderate to heavy gigging use, this mixer will not hold up for long. If you just use it for church on Sunday, and it stays in one place with settings mostly untouched, it might do better.

I'm a keyboard player and gig with several 3 and 4 piece pop/rock and jazz bands in So Cal. Also do singles occasionally. I've had this board for about 10 years now. The board works great for everything I need it for. The track level EQ, FX, preamps and compression pots give you complete control and the sound quality is great -- very quiet. A lot of my working musician friends say this: 'I'm a musician, not a sound engineer.' For those of us that have to mix their own sound, you can't ask for a more straight-forward and easy to use mixing console. Oh, and it is lightweight and very affordable. I wonder how Mackie can even buy the parts to manufacture this for the price they charge. Can't go wrong.

Have a lot of static noise and controls not working good,

I've gone through 2 of these in the last 4 years. First one had a channel go out and then the effects stopped working. Bought another one, had it less than two years before 3 channels went out. I won't make the same mistake again.

I love this mixer, it give my sound from the speaker and the sub more power and great sound.

I bought a Mackie proFX10v3 in 2024 and after use of the mixer on some shows the main meters on the mixer stopped working but only on the right main mater of the mixer so I'm giving it 3 stars because of that.

A venue where my acoustic guitar/vocal duo plays regularly added this mixer to their house system. After a few minutes of surveying it for the first time, I fell in love with it. The compression on the first four channels is a huge bonus. Smooths out both vox & acoustic guitars like one might do in a proper studio...a welcome tool when performing live, too. A couple of the onboard FX presets are serviceable, although it would be nice to have more control over the parameters. Pretty good I/O options. Phantom power. You definitely get more than you pay for. My experience with Mackie gear has been excellent; I still gig (when a house system is not available) with an 808S powered mixer that's 22 years old, and have a Mackie "Big Knob" monitor controller in the center of my home studio. I'm going to grab a ProFX12v3 to track with at home.

No product comes with a manual anymore. You have to make do with a quick start sheet, in 7 languages. Although it took almost an hour to get sound out of it, I am satisfied with the quality. The price is competitive, and as always, Sweetwater's after-the-sale customer service is outstanding.

Love this Mackie ProFX! Excellent effects, beautiful sound, onyx preamps are amazing as always!

The board is pretty great when works, sounds phenomenal, and of course sweetwater's premium customer service is always amazing, but I bought my board new and 8 months later after very light usage its broken. Multiple functions like the main outputs and main monitor are broken and unusable. I knew this was a cheaper board, but that's pretty garbage.

I've owned many mixers over the 60 years that I have been a musician. This one is perfect for jobs when I am performing with my partner.
The preamps and the affects are superb don't need to carry anything bigger for my gigs.

I bought this for live recording and when it's not being used for that it is our USB computer interface for video production.
I just used it for the first time for a live recording of the performance of the great artist Spookey Ruben tour with THUNDERCLAP at the local
performance space The Gem Theater. The mixer was very easy to use, has a lot of useful features, sounds good, and the price is very good.
What more do you need? I would recommend this for anyone that needs a small well built mixer with 48 volt phantom power and even built in
FX. I just listened to the recording from the other night and It came out very well and I am pleased with the results.It has compressors on the first 4 channels that I used but were very subtle and not aggressive, but for this price I can't complain. Thanks to my rep Greg for putting this
together to make our deadline.

PhoTed & Spookey after the gig

We connect ham radio sources: radios and internet sources to the mixer to listen and transmit as needed. We purchased this primarily because it had the capability to mute unused channels. We were using an Yamaha mixer without the capability. This appears to have more gain for line sources than the Yamaha. It was an unexpected bonus. It is ideal for our needs, which aren't what most people need, but it is what we need

This is a great little board for doing small band / acoustic duo gigs. Very easy to figure out, too!

Plenty of output from this size mixer, at least for a typical size band. Mackie has put out top of the line equippment for some time. Glad i added it to my system!

This is a great mixer. I ordered the v3 since I had a v2 version of this mixer. The only complaint that I have about this mixer is that the rackmount from the v2 doesn't fit the v3. Sweetwater was excellent in customer service and was able to explain this to me. Unfortunately, Mackie was the issue for this.

I have owned a couple of mixers in the past. I currently have one that stays home and is hooked up the my computer and another that I used for gigs. I replaced the gig mixer with this one and what a joy it has been. First, I am a musician , not a sound engineer. I needed something that would be easy to use when I do a duo or trio gig. I plug this into my 1000 watt linear speaker system and it is all you really need. It is easy to use, has on board effects that you can put to specific channels, a 3 band EQ and even a sub out. This is great for the solo for duo/trio musician. I also recommend getting the carry case. It is a custom fit and you can put some cables in the bag to minimize the amount of gear you need to transport.

I really didn't need a 12 channel mixer but I went with it just in case, I use it for recording guitars and vocals but I might need to Mic up a drum set one day. I don't use it as an audio interface so I can't speak to that.

The good stuff
Compression
Gain
EQ
Sliders
Effects
Low cut
Has an on/off switch

Cons
None, It does what I need it too and much more.

This is a great board to do small events. It will give you more range with a powered system. Great price for a great product.

I bought this as a gift for someone else who plays out regularly and needed a new mixer for his home studio where the band rehearses often.
He told me a day ago he was very happy with this mixer, nice warm, clean sound. He also said the effects were awesome.
I don't know if this review will help anyone with their decision making but I give it 5 stars.

Recently moved up from a ProFX10 to this one. Definitely a good move for me (even though I did it just before the price drop

I am in live band that can have as many as 8 members at a time, and this mixer is perfect. We play small venues, and it's a great value proposition. The mixers from Yamaha are also compelling, but the added value of an extra mic preamp is worth it for me. Great overall unit!

This mixer can do anything I ask it to... even conferencing a director in one city using Zoom and an engineer in another city using SourceConnect. I also use it to make YouTube videos and it hasn't let me down at all. If there's such a thing as a perfect purchase, this would be it!

Nice simple little mixer, perfect for a 3 piece band that runs its own sound.

I really like the built in compressor and the two channel high impedence input. The design has a flaw, if useing live and you reach down to adjust individual channel volume my hand puches the signal route button. Not sure why they would put them right next to the volume slides. The sliders feel cheap and wiggly. Mackie makes great products but this is not the board for me. Will glady take my old Mackie V2 over this !!

I purchased these mixers (all Mackie ProFX12v3) on 4/16/2020. It is now 9/22/2023. So two I've personally been using are 3 and a half years old. I purchased one as a gift for someone else in 2022, and I just purchased two more, one being a backup and one being a replacement.

These are fantastic mixers. I had already purchased 3 and have just purchased 2 more because the power switch popped off with the spring mechanism on the one I use the most. I'm routinely turning it on and off again every day.

To avoid this issue going forward with this and any expensive audio equipment with a similar power switch, I'll just have them connected to a dedicated surge protector or external power switch that is exclusive to the device. Then I'll switch that on and off instead, and no wear and tear will occur on the device itself.

But the switch buttons on the top of the mixer have issues as well, where it will affect a mono or stereo channel's ability to output to the left and right channel on 1-2 or L-R, depending on set of switch buttons you're switching.

The only way to avoid this issue is to just not push the switches, if you can get away with it. In fact, you want to just not hear sound from a mono or stereo channel, just use the individual mute buttons. The worst case scenario would be that the red LED on the mute button goes out, but they look like they would last much longer than the tiny grey switch buttons that control which inputs output to 1-2 and L-R.

The fact that this mixer has two stereo outputs, where you can control which channels output to which is amazing in itself.

I'm taking full advantage of what this mixer has to offer. I use this to record the sound card output from multiple computers, the output from a TV, and a microphone. I'm also sending the mono output of the microphone over FX and MON, each to a different machine.

Overall, this ia great mixer. But in reality, it's not really one mixer, because there's so much rooom for error in the production of this type of equipment. It's very possible that the one I've almost exclusively been using was not manufactured properly. At the same time, it also seems like the issues developed over time with normal use.

It's also worth mentioning that when the main one I was using broke, I immediately switched to the one that I wasn't using much, and I noticed a different in how loud certain channels were, specifically the microphone. Before I switched them out, I made sure to turn all of the knobs and push all of the switch buttons into the same position as on the broken mixer.

The ProFX12v3 is definitely the best form factor and configuration for me, especially since I do need two different stereo output, one for monitoring and the other for recording. It's all awesome that there are 4 stereo inputs, one of which that is 3.5mm, which I use to capture audio from a TV that is already having to be converted from optical to 3.5mm.

Of course, don't think you can get away with lower quality cables and lack of ground loop noise isolators because of a higher end mixer. You will still need these items to get the most out of this.

The microphone I have connected to this mixer a is a U87 Ai clone (GTZ 87), which is actually connected to an Aphex Channel (no longer manufactured, because Aphex was bought out by Rode), and the output from the Aphex Channel sounds great on this mixer.

And the computer and TV inputs sound great as well connected to the stereo inputs on this mixer.

love it i use it to mic my drums run in 2 ld 15 mains and 18 jbl sub easy to use light weight i have 3 other older mixers this is by far the best one i own

This is almost a 5 star board. Easy to use and set up. Simple. Good effects. Professional sounding preamps. This only gets 4 stars because it has no built in graphic eq, which is a useful tool for fighting feedback.

Since we switched over to the EV powered speakers and Subs, we decided to purchase another board, so we didn't have to carry in the heavy Gator Case with the power Amps and other installed electronic accessories needed for the passive speakers. This board works very well for what we use it for. It does take some studying and getting used to to understand proper setup and use. But if you have pretty good knowledge of music sound setup, you'll figure it out.

in its price range you cant go wrong. Works great.

The only thing i would recommend is if your using the studio side for headphones while at the same time running external left and right self powered speakers you may need as I did a multi headphone booster, the boar does not provide enough power to the headphones, once you do that then just control the output to the headphones from the booster. other than that its great
I would absolutely recommend this product.

EVERYTHING IS WORKING GREAT! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR EXPERTISE IN CHOOSING FOR US THE BEST!!!!


APPRECIATE YOU MR. NICK CHURCH. YOU ARE THE GREATEST!!!!

Loved this mixer the first 2 & 1/2 years I had it. I bought a Mackie product for my DJ and KJ work. So, I take it on the road a lot. When the problems started, it was a snowball effect. First one channel then another, until 4 channels on the thing crapped out. There was always a low grade hum coming through my main speakers, even after I purchased new, high quality speaker cables. But I just went with it and it wasn't noticeable when music was playing.

Since purchasing this Mackie mixer, I learned that the company went bankrupt a few years before I purchased the mixer and was bought out by a venture capital group. Obviously, quality has gone downhill since then.

I have ordered a Yamaha mixer to replace this Mackie product. Yamaha builds rock solid products, I know from experience. I only bought the Mackie because of their long term reputation for quality. Trust me, don't buy a Mackie for high quality. Quality went out the window when a venture capital group bought them out.

The mixer is rock solid. I replaced my 10v3 with the 12v3 for the additional stereo inputs. My only gripe is that the power switch for the 12v3 is inboard, relative to the plug, which means that instead of reaching behind the unit with my right hand to flip the power switch on the far right side (from front of mixer) of the case (as I did on the 10v3), I now need to carefully work my left hand through a jumble of cords to feel my way to it the power switch. That's not a deal breaker, but it is annoying.

BUT BE WARNED! As other reviewers have mentioned (scroll down to the reviews with fewer than five stars), if you plan to use the Mackie v3 mixer as audio interface and monitor your computer audio at the same time, your signal will revert to mono. You will not be able to hear or adjust the stereo output of your mixer. This COMPLETELY rendered the interface feature of the Mackie mixer useless to me.

THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM IF YOU ONLY PLAN TO STREAM MONO!! That said, I don't know why the mixer has so many stereo options only to choke them into mono with the interface option.

To be fair, this problem may not be limited to Mackie. It might a function of mixer interfaces.

Again, the mixer is phenomenal—plenty of inputs and controls. Instead of using the USB feature of the mixer, however, my aux stereo left and right outputs of my Mackie are now routed to the left and right inputs of my Focusrite 4i4–which works flawlessly!

Anyway, it's a great product, with the above proviso.

This is the third Mackie ProFXv3 mixer I've purchased. Clearly, I believe them to be good quality units and, except for the below issues, would give them a full four stars. I have grown into progressively larger units. The problem (for my application) with this unit, and something I should have noted before purchasing it, is the placement of the power switch. The Profx10 had a power switch at the rear extreme right side of the unit. It was easy to reach in a confined space. The ProFx 12 switch, however, is also set in the back of the unit, but at the left of the power cord, which forces me to either squeeze my hand through a jumble of cords over the top, or to feel around the back of the unit and try to reach the switch with one of my fingers on the other side of the power cord. Yes, it's doable, but what once was a simple "reach back and switch" with the smaller units is now a feat of tactile acrobatics. This might not be an issue for those in an open space, but within the close confines of a editing desk, it can be a pain. (see pics)

Oh, and the reason I won't give this or any of the other Mackie ProFx units, five stars is they are advertised as a "USB" mixers as an option for those who want to bypass using a separate audio interface, but if you want to listen to the audio from your computer or headphones while using this unit--say on a zoom call or while using your DAW--you will only be able to hear mono from the Mackie. It cannot/will not transfer and stereo signal while computer audio (monitors or headphones) is engaged (That would be he "To Phones/Control Room" button. That's fine if you only care about mono, but if you want stereo, you'll need to get / keep an external audio interface.

And, as usual, Sweetwater and Will Crisp get Five Stars!

Love it - I have a 5 peice band and most places we play do not require the big sytem we were carrying around long load ins and outs.. so I decided to condense our 5 piece band into a much smaller PA for my own peace of mind Love how the control rooms and choices of out put and easy mixes o thr control room outs made that possible - our sound sytem is way less complilicated now , sounds good and still professional yet small for quick load ins and set ups - This little mixer guy was made for our Group!

I bought the Mackie ProFX12v3 12-channel Mixer with USB and Effects to replace a low end board bought a year and a half ago to perform at small acoustic venues. This Mackie pro series board just crushed it. It's easy to use and the sound is absolutely pristine. We used it in an acoustic venue for the first time on Saturday night. We got compliments on the quality of the sound. If you're looking for a quality board and a good price this is the one to look at. Props go to my sales engineer Alan Moon. It was his recommendation and I'm glad I went with it.

My very old Mackie mixer finally gave up, and I bought this as a replacement. It has more channels, compression, midrange control, and lighted mute buttons that my old one did not have - all very handy! I have used it for three gigs and it sounds noticeably better than my old one and is very easy to set up. I bought a gator bag to protect it and to keep dust away. This unit could be used for home recording as well as for bands/single acts with great results!

I have been using and raving about Mackie products since 1994. Their longevity has historically been so superlative that I have only replaced my boards when there was some new feature that I needed as they just keep on tickin'. This particular board has changed everything for me, and not in a good way.

If you are unaware--as I was--Mackie went bankrupt and was scooped up by a venture capitalist group who also purchased the rights to the Ampeg name and a few other big time music brands you doubtlessly recognize. Collectively, they do business as "Loud Audio, LLC." Loud Audio moved everything overseas, and while there are millions of products being made in Shenzhen which are of truly exceptional quality and well worth your money, Loud Audio is not paying to have their manufacturing done in any of the facilities that crank out the good stuff.

Aside from generally feeling cheap to the touch and sporting signal routing which makes virtually no sense, the USB boards in these units fail, and fail hard. If yours fails outside of your 30 day return window you are pretty much stuck with a paperweight as Mackie support is completely nonexistent. After spending months emailing, calling, and sending certified letters, I finally resorted to filing a small claims case against Loud Audio as they were refusing to even attempt to honor their warranty or the laws of my state. Loud Audio of course ignored the court summons so I had a default judgement rendered in my favor. I'm sure they will ignore my attempts to collect the same way they've ignored every other attempt at communication to date.

No longer being concerned with the sanctity of my useless warranty, I decided to open the thing up and see if there were any obvious reasons why the board might have failed. Needless to say, there were several. SMD components appear to have been placed by hand--and a shaky one at that--while electrolytic capacitors have been barely tacked on to the board by what would appear to be an inebriated monkey. In addition to the clumsy stab wounds everywhere, there is also flux all over the board. Great big heaping blobs of flux. The fact that it ever worked at all is somewhat of a miracle.

Anyways, long story short, spend your money somewhere else. The Mackie of old is gone and all that's left is sad, overpriced junk designed and assembled by people who do not care.

To begin working with Mackie ProFx is exciting. Let's get herrr done. Then on to the next one.

We have a home studio with 2 hot mics that need to be stereo. Every time I tried something new I'd get the same results, 2 mono mics splitting a stereo channel. Finally a friend recommended this Mackie and the friendly helpful folks at Sweetwater allowed me to exchange the mixer I had previously bought and now I've been wondering how it took so long to get this! It is everything I ever wanted! the sound qulaity is amazing, the features are everything I could ask for and the ease of use is beyond. If you have a home studio you need one stop shopping for mixed inputs and effects, this is a beautiful thing.

Great mixer, my sales engineer was awesome thanks again!! Our sound at church sounds awesome now.

Shout out to my engineer Conner Smith, top shelf service. I had a 12c comparable Yamaha mixer and no comparison on quality in my opinion. The sliders are very solid and smooth compared to the Yamaha. Clean, clear mic channels very easy to use, had it up and running with mic and DI guitar in minutes... A clear winner in this category of mixers....

I own 2 of these. I for my studio the other for gigs. I also own version 2. This is definitely a step up from v2. Adding compression and other features that usually you could get in the 16 and 24 channels. The graphic eq is not necessary at all. This is the cleanest sounding mixer I've ever owned. The digital effects are clean without overtones. The price absolutely doesn't reflect the quality. You truly get more than you paid for.

I have to admit the mixer does sound great the the mic pre's are good as well but I just can't get over the fact that when any audio you feed into it is done playing you hear the same low humming tone you use to hear when you got a hearing test back in the 70's. It didn't seem to effect my recordings but that tone is like nails on a chalkboard. I tried 3 different units from two different resellers but no luck both did the same thing. I've even reformatted my computer but I can't seem to resolve this issue. I would not recommend this unit for anyone.

The ProFX12v3 is a very functional board for the money. Clean signal and pretty good built-in effects. I recommend to anyone on a budget who is looking for a lot of bang for their buck.

The analog side of this mixer is fabulous and worth every penny of what they charge alone. Dead quiet amps everywhere, highly visible mute buttons, buttery smooth faders and most every hook up option right on the front panel that you're likely to need if you're shopping for something compact.

The digital side is... Less fabulous. You've probably seen some demos where they tell you that all you have to do to get your coveted "mix minus" is press a button and blend the USB audio into the headphone jack. This is basically true, but what they don't tell you is that engaging that badly-labeled blend button hops you over to a mono signal bus where you are blasted with the output of every single channel pre-fader. I can understand why you *might* want to go mono if you've got channels hard panned one direction or the other but it should be a choice that you make and it absolutely should not be a pre-fader signal. Why Mackie made it work this way, I cannot explain. Maybe it's something podcasters want.

But the hits don't stop there. You might see that it touts 4 USB input channels and think that they're all usable. They only kinda are. If you send through channels 1 and 2 then the only thing you can do with this signal is press the aforementioned blend button which is not called a blend button at all and listen to everything in mono. You can't route it anywhere else or do anything meaningful with it. If you send through channels 3 and 4 then you can sacrifice the 12th channel strip to it and route it semi-normally. Depending on the software you're using, you might not even be able to send anything over channels 3 and 4 at all and you'll be extremely confused as to why all you can hear are crickets coming out of your shiny new mixer.

On top of all of that, my USB port just spontaneously died after a month. If you do even a little bit of searching, you'll find that fried capacitors on the USB board they outsourced to LOUD Audio, LLC are far from an uncommon issue. Getting a response from their support department takes weeks and seems to be handled offshore.

The effects are obviously karaoke quality. They really should have left them out, but they're vaguely handy if you want a hint of reverb in your monitors but not on the track.

Again, the analog side is wonderful. Buy it for that and buy a separate interface for everything else.

I purchased this Mixer for my Alesis Crimson II SE Electronic Drum Kit with my QSC K12 powered speakers for my rehearsal application, Wow! very satisfied I love the feel in every beat of my Drums! This Mixer Mackie ProFx12v3 12 channel Mixer with USB Effects have a lots of features you name it! and it's there! Planning to purchase soon Powered Subwoofer 18" for Bass Guitar application. Thanks Sweetwater

This mixer is an excellent, really cost-effective solution for keyboardist playing multiple instruments live. Why? First off, it's the only 12 channel analog mixer that offers four stereo inputs (albeit one is an 1/8" input/USB from the computer, but three true, stereo-input channels is rare at this price point).

I'm running a Sequential OB-6 (stereo), Prophet REV2 (stereo), Behringer Model D (mono), an OB-e (digital emulation of the classic Oberheim SEM eight voice synth - stereo), a Strymon NightSky (stereo) and euro-rack gear (mono) through the mixer. All except the OB-e were Sweetwater purchases (best in the biz!).

The effects on the mixer are pretty decent, too, at least for my purposes. I like the ping-pong delay and a couple of the other settings, but I didn't buy this mixer for the effects...just a nice little bonus from my perspective. What's wonderful is the EQ for each channel, compression effects on four of the mono channels, FX level controls for each channel and the entire board, and a decent sub function.

I highly recommend this mixer for any of my fellow synth heads out there!

I've been using this mixer for quite some time now and It hasn't let me down! the effects sound great and I also like the monitoring aspect of this mixer.

This thing does just about all I need it to do for a small rock band. Nice little effects section and 7 inputs for mics (love the odd number). The break button is a nice touch. Overall feel of the unit is a little more plastic than older mackie tanks, but for the features at a great price, that's a minor complaint, just hope it holds up. Fast delivery and great Sweetwater service.

Like other Mackie Mixer Boards I own, this is great! Highly recommended for studio or stage applications.

I went from a ProFX8v2 to this one. It's just familiar enough to feel comfortable with but I still had to make some adjustments to how I used to do things. The effects processor is great but I miss the EQ the older model had.

Great mixer, the software has been a little difficult to download. Staff at Sweetwater has been great.

WARNING! USB routing is not as flexible as they claim.
Mackie continues its trend of building amazing mixers at an affordable price.
However, they completely miss the mark when it comes to the 2x4 USB interface.
If you do anything with podcasting, zoom meetings, etc, you will find that creating a proper mix minus is not possible without routing audio back into the mixer from another audio device, which is why I chose to buy this unit in the first place.
To get audio back into the mixer, you need to configure your computer's default audio to channels 3 and 4. This presents different difficulties if you are on Mac or Windows. Then, you can use channels 11 and 12 to route computer audio to the mains or sub out.
However, if you want to hear USB Channels 1 and 2, you need to hit the "To Phones/Control Room" button.
Here, you can blend USB Channels 1 and 2 with the rest of the audio coming into the mixer.
Unfortunately, everything besides 1 and 2 is prefader, and USB Channels 3 and 4 are muted to the phones.
Due to the fact that everything is prefader in this mode, all of your channels are mono, so you're not hearing a good representation of what's going out to your zoom call, live stream, etc.
I would expect this kind of limitation on a lower end model like the PROFX 6, but not on a $300 unit. If this functionality was implemented differently in the units with higher channel count, that's not a good solution either, because you may not have the desk space for a unit that size, just to get proper routing capabilities.
Mackie has been in this game forever. If anyone knows how to do something right, it's them. However, this is one of the biggest letdowns I have ever seen. The simple answer is for them to allow you to route 1 and 2 to a channel, and 3 and 4 to another channel and choose to route said channels to either sub out, or the mains.
I researched the hell out of this product for myself and other folks in my situation, even having read through the manual before purchase. To my knowledge, no mention is made in the manual about what you're actually hearing when you have the "To Phones/Room" button engaged.
Needless to say, their claims regarding the flexibility of the USB interface is deceptive.
It's not really 2x4. It's almost like 2x2 and a half, whatever that means.
I'd love to return this unit, but having done the research, I'm finding that many mixers that include an audio interface also miss the mark in similar ways when trying to create proper mix minus setups.
As I write this, I'm shaking my head in disbelief that Mackie, of all people, could get this so wrong.

I have been running sound for 35 years, and you just cannot beat the quality and features in this small package. I use this primarily for wedding ceremonies to mic the preacher and provide accompaniment music. It is loaded with features commonly found in much more expensive boards, yet it is very portable and easy to operate.

Highly recommended

I needed a mixer that had stereo inputs and this one has 4 stereo inputs one being 1/8 stereo pin jack input plus 8 other inputs so the flexibility of this mixer is over the top plus effects that sound very good. And where it shines for me is I have a stereo pedal board running into one stereo channel then running my gr55 stereo out into another stereo channel then my VG8 EX into another stereo channel and control both units with a Roland us 20 pedal the sound is so huge when stacking the synths and guitar signal it's unbelievably awesome. I'm using 2 Roland kc300's for my output from the mixer but will be purchasing Adam studio monitors to compliment the mixer also so in summary of this mixer you really can't go wrong you won't regret it. Further more I would also want to comment on the professionalism of Sweetwater and mainly Kyle Austin my sales rep for helping me slowly build my studio and with guitars I'm purchasing and other equipment I've been buying. So that being said Thank You Kyle and Sweetwater for your professionalism and love the candy.

I love this USB mixer. Always reliable & works fairly well with my DAW; Logic Pro X. Now I'm going to Reaper...I'll keep you posted.

OK, I had a Mackie 1202 VLZ for over ten years, so I upgraded to this board because I got tired of carrying aroung an extra effects module (my gear is not in a rack). The only problem I have with this new Mackie board is that, for folks like myself who buy a Gator bag to tote it in, there should be some type of plastic cover that fits over the top of the board so that multiple faders, buttons and switches don't get pushed in or out every time you put the thing away and bring it back out. The Gator bag is padded but not enough so I end up wrapping the board in a towel for more padding. Each time I get it out, the buttons and faders etc. have all moved in some way or another. A solid, but lightweight plastic cover that fits over the top of the board would solve this.

Allen Wittig, professional musician.

Been using the Mackie brand mixers for a couple years. Started with an 8-channel and then a 10-channel and now the 12-channel. The new 12-channel has 8 outputs for speakers and that makes a big difference for me. The effects are rather over bearing but you can control the effect with the FX slider. I really like the 2 Combo Inputs and the 3.5 mm jack input for a computer or tablet or iPhone phone. Very affordable for all the features you get. Slight learning curve to figure out all the buttons. I've had many mixing panels over the years and this one does the job.

Thanks to Andrew for pointing me toward this mixer: it solved a problem I had with the old mixer not producing enough volume. Very quiet, too! Does take a bit of experimenting and reading the manual. On that topic, I don't like how they combine several different mixers in the manual -- I understand it conserves the cost of a tech writer and editor, and it is the same line, but the Mackie ProFX12v3 has some features not mentioned in the manual. E.g. I couldn't figure out the FX at first -- no button as mentioned in the manual, so you would turn it to a number, and then it would revert right back. Well, there is no "button": you simply push down the control knob to fix the setting. Oh. Overall, a great improvement to my home gear!

Thanks to salesman Andrew, who steered me toward this little gem! Be sure to read the .pdf manual carefully beforehand, there are some eccentricities (and I'm not sure I'm using all the FX / features correctly, but I'll figure it out).

Perfect for a home studio, and nice output for broadcasting (I'm using Rocket Broadcaster Pro and my old mixer was not sending out a strong enough signal for ShoutCast use from my audio interface).

The extra channels are fantastic, and allow me the use of several stereo keyboards and guitar amp inputs, all at once, and with an extra to add on when I please.

This is a great little mixing board. Easy to use, light weight, great sounding effects. I am using this with a pair of QSC powered speakers.
Would recommend this to others. Thank you Sweetwater for the super fast shipping.

It has a lot of headroom. Its clean sounding. Faders are smooth. I like how everything is color coded. Great for live-streaming & live performance. Great for camara work for sub mixing. Mackie makes it so easy to use and understand. Download the manual. Works on the computer as well.

nice clear vocals still learning how to use it

Mackie makes great equipment and this mixer is no exception. Very versatile, crystal clear, great EQ and effects. I front a 50's thru 70's rock & roll trio. We all sing and I send a guitar mix to the mixer from my pedal. This mixer handles it great and sounds great doing it. Full rich complete sound thru the whole range. I have lots of room for more. I'm using the Mackie 1300 watt 15" thumps with it and let me tell you I will never use all of either one. And thanks to Sweetwater and my new best friend sales manager Aaron, I could not be happier all round. Thanks Sweetwater!!!

Great sound and incredibly intuitive

This is a great versatile mixer,I'm learning how to use it with my Macbook pro, but it also is a great live mixer, and I haven't even started to learn all of the things it can do in a live situation, I am very pleased with my purchase.

It made my whole system E.V. wake up!!!
Awesome gig highs lows mid,now distinguishable compressor, sweet,
Worth the cash.

I'm not a professional sound guy by any means, and I have a very minimal amount of experience running mixers, but I can say that it seems to be of good quality. It has good sound and the controls operate very smoothly.

A new class of USB interfaces has hit the market delivering near-zero latency without special apps to mimic the effect. A blend knob mixes the signal from your Mac/PC with the output while tracking. Mackie and many companies have just begun shipping 2–18 channel desktop units but the ProFxv3 is the only traditional mixer series with the same functionality built in (so far?). They’re available between 6–30 channels — I bought the 12 channel version.

I bought this to use with a MacBook Pro to use as for remote recording. 7 Onyx pres under $325 that you can use with any DAW without special compensation. Uses core audio drivers (Mac only) or the downloadable drivers (PC). Works exactly as advertised — no reason for me to elaborate.

You can download two DAWs but I have no need and will never test that.

It’s a Mackie mixer with the normal, excellent performance. Built like a tank, many routing options etc. In that regards not as flexible as the other mixer line but those don’t have the recording interface built in. Direct outputs on only 4 of the mic pres (larger models have more, of course). All in a package weighing less than 8 lb, just slightly larger than my trusty 1402vlz Pro.

What’s not to like?