Glad you can relate. Aesthetics are important as we do indeed live with and interact with this stuff A LOT. This is why I could never get into any of the ugly and cheap looking Roland Aira line or the ugly and terribly named Moog Grandmother / Matriarch. It’s among the reasons I sold my MoPho keyboard (the yellow was a tad jarring but more jarring was the name and font it was written in). I felt the same with the aesthetics of the Deluge and never considered it. Yes I literally judge books by the cover lol. Overall I like the look of this Tascam mixer except for the gold and wood trimming. Still undecided…
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My best/worst example: I had the 20 voice Microwave XT, you know the orange monster. Loved the synth but I just couldn’t stand the orange and blue after about 5 minutes. Today I use it’s descendant as plugin, which I program through my Novation SL MKIII, which is very nice looking indeed.
I used to have the MicrowaveXT too and to be honest I love the way it looks lol. I sold it because it was just too damn big and heavy. I also felt uncomfortable having something so old and expensive around that could stop working and I’m not the type with patience to get things fixed.
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Picked up one of these a few weeks back; sold my celesonic soundcard and couldn’t be happier. Great to have a dedicated mixer again so i don’t have to open a laptop to play with my stuff.
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I pulled the trigger and ordered this mixer tonight! I’m warming up to it’s unique look but most of all it checked all the boxes which the Zoom L-12 didn’t (especially MIDI and master EQ). I’m excited to receive it in 3 days! That being said, which SD cards are optimal for this?
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my grandmother read this and dissaproved
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That’s the exact one I bought but for $10 cheaper! 
My mixer will arrive in 2 days! 
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Nice. I think I bought mine for around $28 as well. Been using them since last November with no issues.
I am in need of a quality mixer and have a question. The Tascam Model 12 looks amazing, undoubtedly. But to me it seems overkill, because a) I don’t need bluetooth, and b) I already have an audio interface.
If yo would need a future-proof mixer for e.g. 3 Elektron boxes, two analog synths, and two guitars, but you already had an audio interface, would you still go with this? Or if you would choose another, what would that be?
Thanks,
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Well, I mean, do you need a mixer is the question.
If you are planning on finalizing everything in a DAW like Ableton, this could still be helpful as a controller and let you do some simple mix down work — volumes and pans, etc.
But if you anticipate spending a lot of time making surgical tweaks to, say, reverb tails in complex projects, or if you plan on a lot of surgical editing period, you might be better off simply expanding your audio interface and just doing all the mixing ITB.
Mixers are fun and tactile. But for my particular case, I actually think something like the VLZ series might be better for hardware gear because of the way the cue routing works AND since I usually track everything to a DAW anyway.
It helps that my audio interface runs in standalone mode though. I can get sound in and out without touching the DAW, and if I didn’t have that I’d get a mixer.
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excellent points, but with the VLZ series do you get multiple tracks in the DAW?
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Actually one of the biggest strength of the Tascam is multitrack recording without computer. Perfect to capture a live performance and making it better afterwards.
There aren’t that many mixers that can do this…
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True. Hence my comment about finalizing things in a DAW.
I don’t DAW, but record through an SSL SiX to a Zoom H1n and then I’m done.
I’d go for this since I wouldn’t mind the final multi-track control before I wrapped up a track, but I’m afraid I’d miss the quality of the SiX too much to make the switch.
I’d do this if I was good or satisfied enough with the stereo mixdown. I like jamming but never get 100% correct and always end up enhancing everything in the DAW. I have many stereo jams I’ve recorded straight to cassette from years ago and wish I had multi-tracked as I’d have an amazing synth part but a clap that ruins everything, for example.
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Yeah, I do a lot of cross checking before I commit to a recording. With various results, tho. But knowing that it’s done, no matter, does give headspace to new stuff. A mixer like this would be something in between.
Right now, it wouldn’t be all that relevant anyway tho. Only work with the Digitakt right now as the final output anyway.
Hello. Perhaps you can help me. I’m unable to get any sound out of the Model 12. I’m getting audio from my computer via USB and in the Model 12 mixer pane, I see the signal going into input 1. When I turn off the app playing the audio (YouTube in this case), the signal also disappears so audio is definitely coming in but only into input 1 (but only when PC USB is selected. I have the fader turned up to unity, it’s not muted, channel MAIN switch is selected, headphone plugged into headphone jack 1, MAIN selected for headphone input, computer audio routed to Model 12 on inputs and outputs. I’ve tried every configuration in Mac AUDIO MIDI app to no avail. What could I be doing wrong? Why am I unable to change the volume in AUDIO MIDI? Why are they greyed out?! 
It definitely takes a bit of tweaking out of the box. It’s probably a monitoring setting on the mixer itself. Check all of your routing on the model 12 and make sure you’ve got the “main” buttons clicked on/down on channel 1 and 2 with the switch at the top of the channel strips set to PC (center position).
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