Allen & Heath ZEDi-10 10-channel Mixer with USB Audio Interface Reviews

I use this for my synths and fx etc (live rig).. LOVE IT. Had it for years now. No issues. I did have to cut off the bumper to make room.. but i'm sure some would appreciate it. Beats my my Yamaha MG10XU 10 out the water… was always kinda finicky…

My opinion had been through the 20th century that the Mackie VLZ 1402 series of mixers were the swiss army knife of mixers. Useful for their routing capability long after one outgrew their sonic limitations. The Allen & Heath Zedi 10 would be the sonic swiss army knife for twenty first century. Overall I am wary of the idea of including a digital interface into a mixer - it feels like a hardware form of dependency injection. In the Zedi 10, the result is ... freedom and possibility!

This is the best first audio interface for anyone getting into computer music production. Why? Learning to use the virtual mixers that come with many interfaces can totally crush a beginner's creative success due to the additional learning curve - especially if the beginner doesn't understand the analog mixer metaphors used for the virtual mixer in the first place! The AD/DA convertors are very respectable spec wise, almost all other analog mixers cap at 48k, and you get four channels up and down. It is also awesome to be able to plug in your musical instruments and have playback on your monitors WITHOUT HAVING TO TURN ON YOUR COMPUTER. Sometimes having to turn on the computer to sit down with your instrument and just play after a long day at work on another computer will snuff any motivation out completely. When money is tight getting a mixer and an interface at this price point is a good thang.

Once you have had your Zedi 10 for a year or so, its limitations will become apparent. One aux bus, one effects bus, and no second pair of outputs that you can route your third and forth playback channels will cramp your style. Someday you will crave better preamps. You will definitely want more channels.

This is the point where the Zedi 10 morphs into a production side kick you can use to solve problems. I've used mine to solve complicated playback problems on the video set, as a playback interface from QLab for my Theatrical sound designs in blackbox studios, a submixer for synthesizers, an interface to get disparate DJ and Iphone. audio into the main console in our auditorium, etc. The ability to route things across the digital and analogue domains means this device will likely not get sold. It just keeps finding ways to be helpful. You might give it to a niece or nephew you truly love so that they can start their musical journey off right.

Get this mixer if you are starting out. Get this mixer if you trying to teach students basic sound production. Slip it into your interface bag when you need to route the board feed to OBS for the band's next livestream. The Zedi 10 can't do everything, but it can always do something.

cheers

This little Allen and Heath is great!! Perfect for your home studio, podcast, or guitar rig setup. I personally bought the unit to mix Voiceover microphones with the stereo out of my computer setup, along with stereo in off my OX guitar rig, and finally an input from the bass rig. All mixes can be routed to the computer via USB, headphone mix or in my case a pair of studio monitors. For the price you cant beat the functionality and features.

This was a move up from an Audio Interface. Zac, one of the reps here, recommended Allen & Health. Up till then I saw only Yamaha MG10XU & Mackie ProFX10v3 on YouTube at this price point. I am glad I listened to Zac. Even doing Zoom interviews for my podcast, I noticed an immediate improvement in sound quality.

As a podcaster, I didn't need FX. That brought the price into a sweet spot for me.

Also I love having true USB 4 track recording on the computer. The other 2 mentioned above don't have that ability.

I needed to beef up my home recording studio for multi-track recording. This mixer is an incredible value that includes a 4x4 interface and the 10-channel mixer. I had it set up and was multi-track recording in my DAW in under an hour, and I am not at all a recording wizard or anything. Thanks to my sales engineer here for pointing me in the right direction, I'm glad I didn't choose something cheaper that would have been more difficult to set up and use.

It's robust enough that I'll be able to use it on live gigs where needed (once we have those again, lol). But it's super compact so it doesn't take up a lot of room in my tiny studio space. It has a bunch of interesting signal routing features as well so it seems like it's adaptable to a wide range of activities - more powerful than my admittedly limited usage requires right now, but it's good to know that I have options if I get more ambitious in the future.

I'm happy with this purchase and for musicians with limited budget that need an all in one solution for smaller projects, I can enthusiastically recommend this mixer. If possible (?) I will update this review if anything changes.

It looks intimidating, but it is great for a growing podcast. This unit allows you to have 4 distinct USB outs to your DAW - in my case Adobe Audition - which makes life 100x easier for mixing and editing. This unit also allows me to easily add phone call interviews to the podcast with a couple of connections to the phone. I know nothing about using these and I had it up and running in about 10 minutes.

The sound is great through my XLR mics and more. I'm very pleased with this purchase; the value is great.

This "mixer" is just as much an interface as it is a mixer. I have to say that I'm blown away by how much it can increases efficiency. I've been through about 10 interfaces and one thing or another always seemed to interfere with workflow. This one is opposite. I love that I can leave 4 instruments plugged in and monitor and practice without having to fire up my computer, the DAW and a routing matrix everytime I get inspired. Things I love-1) size, portable for the road and perfect for a small desk, doesn't get in the way. 2) for mac and iOS users, core compliant. DOESN'T need dumb drivers or software that get in the way, just works. Also when I turn the mixer off and then back on, OSX recognizes it right away without having to dive into settings or rebooting the computer. Same is true when I close the lid on my laptop and reopen it. It's pretty amazing! As simple as that is, it eliminates the countless inspirational buzzkills that I've experienced with all my previous interfaces. 3) USB. previous interface was Thunderbolt and was fast, but had to daisy chain it to my monitor. Every time the monitor went to sleep or I powered down the interface, something would go wrong with my system. Again a lot of unnecessary reboots and buzzkills. Also another thing about thunderbolt, check out the prices on cables. I didn't realize the longest one you can purchase is 6 ft. Anything longer is hundreds of dollars. Crazy. 4) USB 2.0, direct monitoring is so easy, latency is a non-issue 5) Sounds great and really out classes by miles all the other inexpensive interfaces I've tried. The DI's great too. 5) value is insane and I would have paid more. 6) Build quality is way better than I expected. Really can't nitpick at this price point, it's awesome. Highly recommend this product and hope you found my review helpful.

I'm a huge fan of small mixing boards but have never used one for its USB interface capabilities. Seen other similar boards with USB interfaces but usually the output is just the left & right main outs. The ZEDi-10 is different; it offers seemingly solid internal routing for both USB input and output. Use the true 4x4 channels with assignable USB inputs to pre-fader dry signal, or send the signal through the onboard EQ & FX routing, capturing the post-fader signal for your computer. No built-in FX processing (which I much prefer!). Similarly, you can direct your computer's audio outs to an Aux bus, the mains, or the headphones. Way more flexibility than I've seen in other boards and a very reasonable price point. Loving it so far!

Okay I know very little about mixing and what goes along with that. Though I have had a long relationship with other boards and music related gear. I bought this board as an entry level board, that would save me money in the long run due to the fact that it was also an USB interface. This board is great it does everything you would want and then some. But...would I do it again? No. I love the board don't get me wrong. Though after buying this I feel that USB interfaces and soundboards should stay separate. It just makes things more unnecessary. Also don't buy this for the software it comes with because Cubase it terrible.

An external 4-channel sound card w/ mixer...Niiiice! Have had no trouble with it; it installed automatically (see note below), and has worked just fine since.

Note: Documentation says you need to download a driver from the Allen & Heath website if you're installing this unit on Windows. The location in the documentation does not exist, and there does not appear to be a windows driver for this unit anywhere on the website. I simply connected to my new computer, and it just started working. (My installation was on Win 10 Home...perhaps that's why no additional drive was needed?) My software recognized it, and it works just fine.

Haven't had a chance to use the unit. It is very well designed. The layout is excellent. The size and weight are perfect for studio as well as live performance.

What beats the other cheap stuff is 4 usb in/outs. Most of the mixing is superfluous for me, but it all works well. Some noise in the 48v phantom, but most won't ever notice it. Having to go through additional circuits to use eq to record is silly, and prevents 4 channels of direct recording with eq, but hey, it is cheap!

The only real issue is windows drivers. The thing dies all the time. I have it as my audio interface so TV, youtube...it all goes through it and every once in a while (2 or 3 times a week if on all day) it just disappears. Unplugging and plugging back works eventually, as does rebooting. I cannot record live with it as it is simply not trustable. Can kill a good take too. Sad, as otherwise, it works and sounds great. The driver is not updated, the support and documentation is weak...but so is anyone else with such a good/cheap product. I see little other complaints on the drivers though...so who knows what issue or conflict there may be? I know my $20 Behringer interface never 'disappeared' in 10 years of use, however. When upgrading I tried a Focusrite 2i2 first...now that was junk! This smokes that...in fact my experience was so bad I'll never own or use a focusrite product again in my life!

Don't get me wrong. Unit sounds great, very transparent. However, there is no channel mute which I still can't even believe. Also there is no effect/aux return so you burn a channel or two coming back in. These two things are so ubiquitous on mixers it didn't dawn on me to even check to see if they existed on this board. I saw on a message board an a&h rep say they forwent the mute in order to provide the eq? If you mix like me mute is an absolute must especially if you want to only record the effects channel, this board is a pass. Even full tilt on the channel effects send leaves some dry signal which defeats many purposes for me. What's more baffling is that you ARE able to mute and solo channels for your headphone mix? A real head scratcher, but maybe people don't require it as much as I do...

Noisy. Strange layout. Embarrassingly bad for Allen & Heath. I pitched this a few weeks ago. I have lost faith in Allen & Heath. Garbage!

I bought this mixer for use when more than a stereo pair of mics are required. I have an i-phone 11 using the Filmic pro or Promovie apps. When I start recording with Filmic pro, I get a message "multi-channel audio detected. Recording with more than two channels not supported" (see attached pic) Promovie app just shuts down with no indication why. Also. the USB out config does not port the main L&R mix to channels 1 & 2. I can't imagine why they did this. It might be a good sounding mixer but doesn't work for my application. Allen and Heath responded to my inquiry but can't help with this issue.