The sound is better than my old Yamaha MW10. The MW12CX is certainly a step up in performance and sound quality. However, you must remember it's only a mid-level board, even with the added bling. That said, I've found its sound quality suitable for all my applications.

Compression is really nice but a use it sparingly, the same with the FXs. It's nice to have the option of compression and FX but, like any unnecessary bling-bling, prudence of use will be to your benefit. Having two busses makes live recording during a performance a breeze.

Love the sliders hate the small push buttons; you'll find it difficult to tell if they're on or off.

Love the sliders hate the small push buttons; you'll find it difficult to tell if they're on or off. The Cubase AI4 software package is garbage. It took me over an hour to activate and install a patch, but hey, it's free and it works. So spend some money on something better. I did, and you'll be glad you did.

Two buses with sliders, compression FX and a USB computer connection for under 400 bucks is just wonderful.

The Cubase support was dismal. It's a spaghetti mess of patches just to activate it, but the Yamaha board works just fine in Sound Track Pro & Logic, so I could careless. I never intended to use Cubase anyway.

I wouldn't hawl it around to gigs, but then its really not designed for that. This Board is designed to run audio into a computer, which it does exceptionally well. Personally, I stream an online radio station with it.

musician, streaming radio station owner.

Blues

There's a bit of noise, but not too terrible. The signal routing is great for this price class, with two independent stereo buses plus the USB I/O. The effects, however, aren't really useful. They sound like a hold-over from the first cheap digital effect boxes from 1985. I much prefer the effects in VST.

It does what it says on the tin. Having utility compression on input is useful. And did I mention the great signal routing path? The stereo line ins (9/10 and 11/12) don't have mid Eq, only top and bottom.

Really nothing to complain about. Some of the buttons are a little hard to tell whether they're in or out.

Seems solid. Unfortunately, the default Windows USB audio device driver doesn't work with this device; sound comes out totally garbled.

Get the MW12C. The effects are not worth the $30 extra.

I tried getting a fix for the USB audio device problem on the web site, but they only have an update for ASIO/KS.

It's OK.

Current Hobbyist; AES member

Speech, Background

The effects are noisy and not that useful. The reverb is flat out bad. The mixing path will let you squeak out 96 dB signal-to-noise if everything aligns perfectly -- which it never does in real life, so expect some noise at the bottom of your mix. The compression is super useful, though, as are the Mic pres. The USB sound has lots of staticky glitches in it -- I wouldn't trust it.

Mic pres, compression, dual busses all speak highly of the design.

It's a mixer. It does what it says on the sliders. The bus assign buttons ("rec" and "st") have no indicators for whether they are in or out, though, which really detracts from usability. Don't use this where it's dark!

Did I mention the noise floor, and the crappy effects? I guess I did. However, what's worse: 6 months out of warranty, the "monitor" stage flat-out died on me. This means the meters are dead, and the headphones are dead, and they're not coming back. This is after being used perhaps 10-20 hours per week on a single desk, so it's not been mistreated. With only a single signal path working, and USB not working well, and no monitoring, the board suddenly is borderline useless.

I guess 18 months for $360 is only $20/month. But I've had Mackies before that lasted a lot longer.

Try getting help from Yamaha. Just try! I wish you luck. Their web site is not set up for inbound communications, and the output bit is kind-of light on helpful patches and information.

At this point, the negatives outweigh the positives. I won't be buying this again.

hobbyist, AES voting member

Misc

The sound quality is great. The USB part of it is not easy to get to work. And is not great quality. But I am using other cables for that. But sound is good.

Effects are ok. I was not really buying it for the effects. More for podcast and stuff like that. But it has nice features. Many different outputs and inputs.

I would not say it is "Easy" to use. There was some getting used to from my old mixer. The manual was a little hard to understand. But I mostly learned by playing around with it.

When I got it the box had a large hole in the side of it. That did not make me happy but the product was in perfect condition. And it looks nice.

I think the price should have been lower. It is a good mixer but you can get others just as nice cheaper

Haven't had to use it yet. But knowing Yamaha it probably is really good.

It is a nice looking mixer. I would rate it as sexy

recording

Talk/Techno