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has anyone actually used one?...

is it any good?..

dont need any fx or eqing its just levels and phantom power..

using a tascam dp01 and the preamps are quite noisy and hissy..
im just lookin for a mixer with good pres.. i rarely eq i put the mic somewhere instead!!..

any mixers recomended.. for same budget.. $200 - 300..
thanks

I bought a Compact 4 two years ago when it was first introduced. It seemed like Soundcraft rushed the product to market, at the time their sales literature only showed renderings of the product, no actual photos. Also there are some strange vestigial features (there is a "low batt" light and the board takes no battery).

At the time I used it as a headphone amp to plug in a bass or whatever and practice along with another source on one of the line inputs.

I recorded with it a couple times using two Crown PZM-6s; the pres were very clean up until about the last 10% of the rotation on the gain knob at which point they got noisy real quick. Avoiding that, they performed admirably. I have a couple samples if you are interested.

Currently it sits in the corner of our practice space being used solely for the mic pres; we feed the direct outs to our DAW. It's designed for home recording applications so if you're not interested in having multiple headphone mixes the signal flow can be a bit confusing. It's geared more toward the prosumer market so they rename a couple of things ("monitor" on the Compact would be called "PFL" on a typical Soundcraft board...took me a few passes to figure that one out).

Overall a solid product for the money though. A good problem solver.

yeah could i get some samples..

when you talk about the gain problem?..

this is sort of the same thing as the tascam.. and i found a review on sound on sound(??) that said the same thing..

is that ten percent at the end for really quiet stuff?.. when you have to max out the pre altogether to get any type of input..

I realized I neglected to look at the setup you're using right now when I posted my first reply. Given that your Tascam has unbalanced inputs, the fact that you'd be making the upgrade to a board with balanced mic inputs on an XLR connector would already put the Compact a league above the Tascam. However...this also depends as much on your mics as your pres, and if you're using mics with hardwired 1/4" connectors then the upgrade to the Compact would be lost on low-end mics. You should read up a bit on the difference between balanced & unbalanced connections if you're not familiar. I suspect that you'd do well to look at your entire signal chain; if you're dissatisfied with the sound on the Tascam unit I don't think you can be so specific at this point as to isolate the potential problem to the last 10% of the gain on a mic pre.

Re the Compact specifically, I've used it for applications at some relatively extreme ends of the SPL spectrum: recording a folk quartet with acoustic instruments live in a coffeeshop (this was where gain mattered but I was able to get a clean sound without the noise I mentioned previously), and currently recording 2 guitars/bass/drums in our closet of a practice room, where we have the gain on the pres fully counterclockwise with acceptable levels. For what it is it's a pretty remarkable little board, and probably at the upper end of the performance curve for the price point.

I don't have a terribly well-trained ear when it comes to mic pres, so those wishing to contradict me with facts would do well to jump in here.

oh yeah its the dp01 with the balanced inputs..

the mics are pretty good c1000 and sm57.. im thinking of getting an audio technica large condesner for vocals and then maybe some cheaper pencil condensers.. these mics are pretty much at the same quality level as the board so id say its on the right track..

the coffee shop gig is what id be using it for but in a quiet big room..

thanks again for the help.. ill probably get it so..