Added 1 day ago
Having bought this item, at the pre-promotion price, a few weeks back - all i can say is it's exactly what it claims to be and does all that well. You've got to ask yourself what you really need to decide which way to jump when it comes to buying 'live' mixers with or without integrated recorders (with, are rare beasts outside of multitrack recorders). So if what you need is basic simply live mixing from multiple channels in a compact transportable form (with internal recorder/player), and have no immediate need for effects/compressors or other insert chain products, and want to simply do a direct record to mp3, or use as a live mixer to feed a final (external compressor/eq & distribution chain) such as for basic internet broadcasting or voice tracking, this is one OK item for that.
But given that it will direct mp3 encode/record - why not use it in (the mp3 broadcasting context) as a cheap but effective ENG tool or load sound effects onto a memory stick, and use it to reroute and dub good grade audio to a video?
All you need to do, if required, is add the parametric eq/compressor to inputs required (in my case, i use an RP100A guitar modeller and have the mono out to the mic line on the 702, and it's stereo line-level parallel out into a stereo line pair input on the 702 - just dialled in the noise gate/compressor/eq on my RP100 and tweak to suit - you could easily do the same combining the Digitech Vocal Processor (available from Maplins) to do the same thing and a fair bit more with the spoken/quirky vocals.
And remember, for recording to mp3 for say voice tracking or podcasting, you only need lay down the voice/vocal to mp3 as a live take as suits comfortably. Then take the recorded mp3 file and split/chop non-destructively using mpgsplt (this tool also allows for adding fades too) or similar to create the individual voice seqments in mp3 (discard the inbetween pauses, silence) and say apply replaygain levelling to the seqments and the mp3 music tracks (copies of course in both cases) to level them out and use say mp3wrap (free tool) to non-destructively link the component mp3 files to one build appened new file - then you have one instant radio show to upload to a shoutcast server's content directory, or post to your podcast host if it's a podcast.
At £99 (the promo price), it's almost worth buying two to have duplicate parts and two mixers you can use as a patched pair or simply keep one mixer as a spare.
V. nice item, and I totally agree with the already positive comments others have posted - it didn't take a lot to decide this was a decent add to the collection of audio kit here at the shack.
