ART TubeMix 5-channel Mixer with USB and Assignable Tube Reviews

Gives your sound some bite!!! very nice!!

I needed a convenient way to record my guitars, and this is it. Both my analog and digital pedalboards have stereo outputs. So I run them into either two miked amps or if I want to play quietly and still get a great sound in my DAW, straight into the line level inputs of my main mixer, or another preamp or mixer then eventually to headphones.
The TubeMix gives me all three options at once, in one place, and frees up my other gear. I can mic the amps, run the stereo lines in, and have a dedicated mono channel to pan, all with different EQs, and vary each volume to taste...at the same time.
I did this by wiring output jacks in parallel to split my left output signal to three and the right into two to feed the five mono inputs on the TubeMix. Tested it, then stuck them in a little metal box. This works perfectly with both pedalboards displaying no loss of signal or change in tone at the mixer.

As for the sound, it's quite good. Not spectacular but still inspirational. Mic pres are clear and bright, the amp sim and tube on channel 5 add midrange, and the line ins on 3+4 are clean. The reasonable price makes it a good fit for my home studio.

I really like this thing, it has been a very useful little swiss-army knife in my studio. I use it primarily as a streaming interface, which I think it works perfectly for, but it also gives me 2 extra preamps that arent the best like depth-wise but with the tube and gain control can be quite characterful, and besides that just having a little mixer around seems come in very handy very often. I also like the guitar amp simulator, some cool sound potentials there. My main gripe, which can be pretty annoying, is theres no power indicator, making it very easy to forget to turn off, and in my case end up leaving on for at least a week on one occasion. This could be solved so easily by adding a backlight to the VU meters, which would just be a nice feature anyway. Otherwise this thing performs as advertised and is a great tool for the price.

I've got a couple of other mixer/interfaces that let me USB into my laptop, but when I saw this it seemed to have some nice features for a great price. There's no EFX built in, but that's OK, it's got the send/receive and I have all the outboard effects I need. I like the 3-band EQ and the phone jack on the front (not the top). I was really keen to see what the "Tube" did and to check out the instrument input. I tested it with a condenser mic in and also music into Channels 1 & 2. Yes, the tube 'does' add something. It's subtle, not over the top or in your face, but to my ears it adds just a bit of gain and an open "airy" quality, like you were removing a piece of fabric from in front of the speaker. I liked it and heard it on both the mic and music tests. The tube effect also whitens teeth (this statement has not been verified by the American Dental Association or Sweetwater). The tube effect was also heard when using a guitar into input 5. Again, it seemed to give a bit more gain and that open quality. (My own music room stereo is a Dynaco PAS-3X into a Stereo 70, fed by a Shure V15 Type III cartridge with 1968 Altec 15" coax speakers, so I'm kinda familiar with a 'tube' sound.) So yea, it's a flexible mixer in its inputs/outputs and tone shaping. For me it will stay on my work desk, mostly for narration/voiceover work/music dubbing; I've got another compact mixer I use for live music gigs. As an older guy I dig the old style VU meters, wish they were lit, that's why I took off half a star. Would've have been nice to make the tube user accessible; I've got some choice NOS 12AX7s. But the build quality and looks, with the wood, are nice. Seems to have enough gain to work with some mics that might need a boost, yet was quiet to my ears. And...it removes nasty pet odors (this claim has not been verified.) No problems hooking up to my laptop or latency issues. Thanks again to my guy Sam, at Sweetwater.

Only thing it lacked was a built in reverb unit. I hooked it up to my 1994 ART MT-R reverb unit and it sounds like a million bucks, though. I've only used it live so I can't attest to it's worth as a recording tool.

The device worked great for me for 4 years, relatively light duty. Now the pots are going south, crackling on the the inputs, some distortion where the keyboard is plugged into 3/4. Seems like its all happening at once, which seems odd, but its enough trouble to warrant replacing it with something else, and something that will last longer.

I would buy something else at that price point, knowing its longevity is limited.

I haven't taken this out for a live set yet, but I can say that it does well to recreate room abiance for home recording. I can now use my stereo and phantom-powered mics simultanously with an instrument line through the amp simulator, to get a decent mix before tracking it. It's been a gamechanger for me to be able to dial in the mix before sending it to my DAW. Be advised: this is basically a 5-in / 2-out mixer that offers USB capability. It's not a 5x5 channel interface as I originally assumed. After a two-week learning curve, though, I've come to appreciate its features. The amp simulator and tube warmth are fine, if barely detectable. And the unit has some audible operational noise if you really hunt for it (which is to be expected for the price). I wish the VU meters had lights like other ART hardware. That was an unfortunate budget choice made by ART. Otherwise, I have no compliants. I've been running the "control room" outs through a seperate interface (M-Audio) into my DAW (Ableton) and getting good results.

Would totally pick this up if could use it as my master section between my 16x16 mixers. . . buuuuuuuuut I can't . . . . cuz its got no channel mute.

Only got to use it a few times, now it's out of warranty and it died. Only a couple years old.

As a consumer, I hold grudges... I won't waste money on ART again.