![]() ![]() Six-pin to six-pin and six-pin to four-pin Firewire cables of decent length are included. But hey, at least it's got a shuttle wheel, unlike many budget controllers. Cost-cutting rears its head only in a few details: the plastic gain knobs and rotary controllers look cheap, the laptop-style external power supply doesn't inspire confidence, and the shuttle wheel wobbles a bit. There are no dedicated meters, but in most applications the LCD can be used to display channel levels. Some manufacturers of cheap control surfaces save money by not including a display, but the Project Mix's two-line LCD is clear and bright. The motorised faders, perhaps the most important components, are reliably touch-sensitive, acceptably smooth and quiet, and are full-length 100mm devices rather than the 60mm efforts some companies inflict on us. At 20 inches wide by 18 deep, the case is quite large, and feels very substantial, with rigid moulded plastic surrounds and a metal surface that doesn't flex under pressure. Given its low price, you might expect M-Audio to have cut some corners in the construction of the Project Mix, but it's actually very solid. And if it has to be bundled with something, why Live? Pro Tools M-Powered, an M-Audio product, would be much more appropriate for the multitrack recording jobs that are the Project Mix's bread and butter. Some Project Mix buyers will already own Live, and the rest would surely prefer to choose their own recording software - after all, one of the Project Mix's big pluses is that it works with everything. ![]() After that, however, it will only be available as a bundle with the full version of Ableton Live, with the price rising from £760 to £950. The review unit didn't come with any music software at all, and until January 15th, this is how the Project Mix will be sold. M-Audio say that they have no current plans to offer such an expansion for the Project Mix, which is a pity. ![]() The Mackie Control and some similar products can be expanded by the addition of 'sidecar' units that provide extra fader banks. The Project Mix also supports the Mackie Control and Logic Control protocols which are implemented by most of the other major sequencers, and is clearly intended as a universal controller and audio interface. True, its rotary encoders lack the LED 'ring' displays featured on the 002, and it can't be used as a stand-alone mixer - but on balance, the Project Mix is definitely the more feature-rich of the two.Īnother difference is that it uses the Mackie HUI protocol to communicate with Pro Tools, rather than the system Digi themselves developed for the 002 and Command 8. The Project Mix features word clock I/O, it has eight mic preamps rather than four, it has a shuttle wheel and master fader in addition to the eight channel faders, and there are two headphone outputs rather than one. In many ways, in fact, it turns out to be better. However, M-Audio say that the Project Mix has been developed independently of Digidesign, and on closer inspection, it turns out to be quite different from the 002. Like the 002, the new unit combines a multi-channel Firewire audio interface with a control surface based around touch-sensitive, motorised faders, and can be used with Pro Tools or any other major DAW. When the Project Mix I/O arrived at the SOS office, we all thought 'Blimey! It looks just like the Digi 002!' Digidesign and M-Audio are now part of the same empire, so it seemed logical that they might have pooled their resources to create new hardware, and both products are variants on the same basic concept. ![]() M-Audio have packaged a fully featured control surface with motorised faders, an 18-input Firewire interface and eight mic preamps in one box - at a very competitive price. ![]()
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