Yamaha MG10 XU

I bought this mixer for our project studio as the main interface for anything computer based. Having loads of experience from the top end of live audio I never really favored Yamaha in any way but I have to say I am pleasantly surprised about what this little thing can do. It's well built, with proper pre-amps on four of the 10 channels, nice gain structure but most importantly, it sounds very good for such a cheap mixer.

It ended up doubling as the ASIO interface for the main work station and it's doing just fine although we had to download the latest drivers from Yamaha before we got it working. If you experience intermittent noise on the outputs, it's a driver problem on Win 10. Under Ubuntu on the Linux side it works flawlessly out of the box though.

If any critique what so ever, I would say I miss a mix bus. A single mono bus would even blow the competition out. Other than that, the controls are small and can be a tiny bit fiddly but that's the logical price for such a compact unit. The built in FX bus based on the SPX engine is just that. If you are ok with any Yamaha SPX series, you will be ok with this. But it's not a Lexicon for sure! Finally the compressor just about ok for say streamers, but honestly, it's nothing I would ever use.

All in all, fantastic mixer that within the price range, beats an competition provided you ignore the compressor and lack of mixing busses.

Great product from Yamaha. I use to mix DJ deck and 3 karaoke mics. Translates the the sound from deck with no noticeable affect on clarity (always use good quality cables). Mics (Sure SM58s) sound sharp on any level and FX nice to have, but for my work, not absolutely essential. EQs of hi, mid, lo's is fine... If you're looking for a mix deck that you set and forget without too many variables within a gig/session. If you're you are looking for subtle nuances during the set I think you'd need to upgrade to something more sophisticated. Sliders instead of knobs would be nice, but with a convenient small footprint perhaps Yamaha thought that was an unavoidable trade-off. I've used most weekends on the road for past 6 months and it's proved a solid and trustworthy piece of kit. Strongly recommend purchase of Thomann Mix Case 4046A to keep your investment safe.

This is a solid little mixer.
Great sound, lots of features for price range.

I bought it for home studio use primarily for live electronic music jams and secondly for singer songwriter recording.

Sound - Routing drum machines and synths through this straight to monitors I have to say, the sound is phenomenal. Its big and bold and carries all the analogue weight you can give it.
There's not too much white noise or hiss when recording more subtle guitars or vocals either.

Size - Its fits very neatly and discreetly into any setup, as it physically only takes up about 25m x 30cm
There's also the option to buy a bracket allowing you to mount it to a mic stand, which is obviously very useful if you're stuck for table space.

Build - Its a dense little unit, with a steel casing, and feels robust enough that it could take a bit of beating going between live shows (although mine has never left the studio, so I can't testify to that)

Effects - A basic set of digital effects that aren't amazing but certainly add another welcome feature - for the price point, you cannot complain.

Pros
Great value
Strong build
Great sound

Cons
Slightly crowded controls
No faders
No cues/mutes

I bought this as a partial replacement for a Dynacord Powermate 1000 power amp, which somebody helped themselves to and decided they needed it more than I did.
Not really needing all the functionality I had on the powermate (I never used all its channels), what pleased me a lot about this mixer was the fact that it also had a compressor. Using this option I get great sound combining it with a 200 W power amp and two EV SX300 speakers. The compressor does wonders for the voice even though I am not the kind of singer who needs any trickery done in that department.
I think the unit is great, the only downsides for me are the lack of robustness in the design, and the size of the power unit....I don't know why such a unit needs any more than a normal power adapter, but the supplied unit is rather bulky, and since I carry it in my hand luggage flying between the UK and Germany that limits the other things I can take with me.