Rack Mount Mixers: ART MX225 & MX622
Two new rack mount mixers ranging from between £159 – £189. The MX225 and the slightly more complicated MX622. Designed for relatively small venues like a church hall or a conference speech hall environment. Both are designed to be permanent in the wings members of what would be your backstage equipment.
The MX225 makes it possible for the user to mix two line-level stereo inputs into five stereo output zones (so the microphone can be heard in the speakers of into your effects pedal or wherever). Also, its front panel can allow for control over each level of each output individually, As well as 5-step LEDS for each output along with a mono switch. Its slightly bigger cousin, the MX622 has inputs for three stereo line-level signals, of mics with the capabilities to combine them (for extra £30 which seems reasonable). The mics are on balanced XLR’s (which is handy for everyone) with phantom power that can be changed over nice and simply with A DIP switch. The Phantom power supply has specifications of 15v which does mean you may have to hunt around and make sure you have a microphone that is safe to use with it.
The mixers outputs are normal jack cables and its stereo-line input are RCA phonos. The front panel displays, on both models, have level knobs in the relevant places accompanied by their clip LED’s for all mics, the three line inputs and the master out, as well as any effects you might want.
The ART mixers are a pair of nice straight forward no-nonsense and user friendly mixers that do their simple job. Some will argue thought that the decision to make them rack mounted will put some people off though. They do one job, making things loader over the mic. Although they do this superbly, should you decide you need a more versatile mixer, an its quite likely you will because it only does one job, it will take a lot of work to take it out and replace it, it just seems too much like hard work. Or maybe that’s just me.