Allen and Heath ZED-10 10-Channel Mixer with USB Interface

ZED-10 and ZED-10FX are amazing little desks for small band mixing. They are extremely portable for carrying to the gig, and can be used for recording live or in the studio. Guitars can be plugged in directly to the mixer using the specially designed high-impedance inputs, while the mixer has two stereo inputs for MP3/CD players or keyboards. Equipped with professional XLR main stereo outputs and a flexible monitoring section with headphone and speaker feed outputs. In the FX version, they've added a set of fabulous effects to give shimmering reverbs and enhance your sound.

What's great about the ZED-10?
ZEDs are great for live mixing. Their layout makes them very easy to use and easy to achieve a great sound. They are also perfect for recording, either a live show or an audio project at home can be built up track by track using the USB digital audio interface.

The flexibility and quality of these mixers make them stand out from the crowd. You can plug your guitars or instruments straight into the class A discrete FET high impedance inputs, cater for up to four microphones, two stereo sources with MP3 player compatibility, separate 2-track record outputs and a stereo playback input for 2-track replay or perhaps interval music from a CD player, XLR main stereo outputs with inserts, comprehensive monitoring with headphones and separate monitor speaker outputs, 48V microphone phantom power, DI level switching for sub mixing, and not least of all, the same digital effects algorithms… read more as those used on the flagship digital consoles costing 150 times as much.

Features

Inputs
One of the great things about the ZED series is the number and variety of things you can plug in. In addition to the sixteen mono channels there are two dual stereo channels, each with a main stereo input on jack sockets and with additional inputs on phono sockets. the USB return can be selected to one of the additional inputs so that it feeds either the main LR bus or the stereo channel.

Guitar DI
In place of the DuoPre, the ZED-10 &10FX have pre-amps similar in design to the MixWizard range of mixers, but with a twist; inputs 3 & 4 have a high impedance jack input capable of taking either a normal line level or a low level input from a guitar pickup.

These reengineered inputs have been crafted with the aim of replicating the sound of a classic guitar or instrument tube pre-amp in a combo or head amp. An extremely high input impedance ensures loading on pickups is minimal and a Class A FET (field effect transistor) circuit powered from 48V is employed to give the valve-like gain stage. There is a gain "Boost" switch associated with the guitar inputs which boosts gain by 26dB to cater for instruments with very low level outputs and the overdrive characteristics of the guitar inputs are very similar to a valve (tube) circuit, being asymmetric and soft. All this makes for a wonderfully natural sound to be reproduced from the instrument, full of warmth and character.

EQ section
ZED-10 is equipped with a responsive 3-band EQ with MusiQ, an optimized slope (or Q factor) for equalizing individual instruments.

Auxiliary sends
6 aux sends are provided, of which 1&2 are pre-fade for foldback monitoring, and 3 & 4 are switched pre- or post-fade for effects sends and 5&6 are post-fade. Auxes 1&2 can be sent to the USB bus for recording pre-fade signals independently to the main mix. Auxes 5&6 can also be sent to the USB bus for use as effects sends.

USB audio flexibility
Getting audio to and from a computer easily is now a common requirement for live sound and music production. The way they have implemented this on ZED is super-flexible and super-easy. No longer do you need to fiddle around the back of your PC to get to the sound card inputs, only to find that the levels are all wrong and noisy. Just plug in a USB lead to your ZED, select the USB routing on the mixer and the device on your computer and you're done. Quality audio to and from your PC or Mac. Three switches provide different send/return configurations for recording, playback and utilizing external FX.

Build
The ZED-10 has been designed using individual vertically mounted circuit boards with each rotary control fixed with a metal nut to the front panel - making a much more robust product that will resist damage and give years of reliable use.

AmpliTube X-GEAR Software
Allen & Heath is pleased to announce a partnership with leading music software company, IK Multimedia, to bundle its pioneering AmpliTube X-GEAR software with the ZED-10 and ZED-10FX mini USB mixers. read less