- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video, we're going to compare,
the Yamaha AGO6 audio mixer,
to the Mackie ProFX6v3 audio mixer.
Both of these audio mixers are really great,
but we're gonna compare them,
and show you which is best for live streaming,
home recording and studio use and live events.
If you're looking for current pricing or specs,
for either one of these devices,
we do have links down in the description below,
on where you can find either audio mixer,
at a variety of online retailers,
so you can find the best price possible,
if you're looking to buy one of these.
Now, before we get started,
into comparing and walking through either device,
let's quickly go through the specs.
On the Yamaha AGO6,
one of the XLR inputs can have phantom power,
while on the Mackie ProFX6v3,
both XLR inputs can get phantom power.
So you can have two condenser microphones on the Mackie,
but you can only have up to one condenser microphone,
on the Yamaha AGO6.
In terms of the USB connectivity on both of these devices,
they're both 24-bit and kHz.
So very comparable USB specs there.
Now the Yamaha AGO6 does not publish the gain specs,
for the two XLR inputs on this audio mixer,
but comparing it to the Yamaha MG10XU that we have here,
I can confidently say that,
it's somewhere in the neighborhood,
of between 60 dB and 64 dB.
On the Mackie ProFX here, there is 60 dB of gain,
for both of those XLR inputs.
Now, when we're talking about noise,
the Yamaha AGO6 has an EIN rating of -128.
And the Mackie ProFX has -126.
So the Yamaha is just a little bit quieter.
I don't think most people would ever notice the difference,
between the noise level of either one of these preamps,
but the Yamaha is just a little bit quieter on the inputs.
So less background noise in your recording.
Now, both of these audio mixers do have a power switch.
On the Yamaha it's just on the top here,
and on the Mackie it's on the back of the device.
With the Yamaha,
there is integrated software with this audio mixer.
So if you do turn it off,
you do have to count to ten or something like that,
before you turn it back on,
if you want all the features of the audio mixer,
to work properly.
In terms of powering these devices,
the Yamaha AGO6 is bus powered.
The USB cable that connects it to the laptop,
is more than sufficient to power this device on its own.
The Mackie ProFX6v3 does have an external power supply.
So you do need a wall outlet.
Now, if you are trying to bus power this from an iPad,
an iPad will not power the Yamaha AGO6.
So it does have a second USB power input here,
if you do wanna record with an external power supply,
for the purposes of recording with your iPad.
On the Mackie, you don't have that problem at all,
because you already require the external power supply,
to make it work.
So you're not relying on that power from the iPad.
In terms of built in EQ and effects,
the Yamaha AGO6 does have digital effects.
On one channel there's compression and EQ,
with the reverb effect.
And on the second channel there's built-in amp sim,
with another bank of the same reverb effect.
On the Mackie ProFX6v3, you do get a two band EQ,
with the high at 12 kHz and the low at 80 Hertz.
You do get a low cut button here as well at 100 Hertz,
for your XLR and quarter inch inputs.
And then there is this 24-channel effects here.
So you can select whatever effect that you want,
and apply it to either one of your XLR,
or quarter-inch inputs on this mixer.
In terms of compression, the Yamaha AG06,
has it only available on the first XLR input.
And there is no compression available,
on the Mackie ProFX6v3.
Okay, so that's the specs of either one of these devices.
Now, let's just show you a quick run through.
We do have more in-depth walkthroughs,
on either one of these audio mixers,
but we're gonna quickly walk through them,
just for the sake of being able to compare them at the end,
with our recommendation of which we prefer,
for live streaming, home recording or live events.
So in the Yamaha AG06 here,
you do have 48 volts of phantom power,
only available on the first XLR input like we said.
There is a pad here,
if you are plugging in a line level source,
so you can bring that down to a more manageable input level.
You can set your gain.
You do have these buttons here,
with built-in compression and EQ.
For both of those,
you can control them with a partner software,
available from Yamaha.
So you do need the software,
if you wanna manipulate the default settings,
of either one of those compression,
or EQ or effect settings that are available.
Then you can set your level for the channel.
On the next input, instead of 48 volts of phantom power,
we do have this guitar mode here,
which lowers the impedance,
of an electric guitar or electric bass.
And then you can set your gain.
It does have an amp sim.
It's not that good but if you don't have anything better,
it will get you started with electric guitar recording,
with a built-in ant module that comes with this audio mixer.
Again, you can control those settings of that amp module,
with the built-in software that you can get from Yamaha.
Then you can also set the same reverb effects,
and set your level for that second input.
For inputs three and four, you do get the stereo input here.
So if you're plugging a keyboard or a laptop,
or anything like that,
I'd use these stereo quarter-inch inputs here.
You do have a toggle,
whether you're using a high or low input device here,
and you can set that,
and then you control the level with the level knob here.
The next input here, we do have a stereo RCA input,
and you can set again, gain, high or low.
Then you can control that with the level knob here,
to control that RCA input.
Now, if you are using a headset,
you can plug your microphone and headphones in here,
and that will override the first XLR input.
So any gain, compression, effects or volume that you set,
for your first XLR input,
will apply to this headphone input of your headset input.
Again, if you do plug in headphones here,
it will disable this quarter-inch headphone jack.
So this does have priority,
but it does work well for a lot of video streamers or gamers
that have a headset mic,
and they do wanna use an audio mixer with that.
It's a really nice feature there.
You do get another input here for an aux input.
So if you have an eight inch headphone jack cable,
and you're connecting your phone to your audio mixer here,
you can use that.
This input does not have a level knob.
So you do need to set the input level,
from your phone or your iPad,
or whatever device that you're plugging into there.
This two PC section here is really interesting.
You do get three different modes,
on how your USB cable can interact with your computer.
The first input mode is what I'm using right now.
It's called DRY 1-2.
This mode will ignore any compression or EQ,
that you're using on your microphone,
and just send the gain level, the volume,
from your input source straight through to your computer.
And it will send it separately,
between the first two channels of this audio mixer.
So it'll ignore everything else.
This is really great for singer, songwriters,
who are trying to multi-track record.
You plug your microphone in the first input.
You plug your guitar into the second input,
then you can multi-track record on your computer software.
Works really well for doing something like that.
The next input USB mode here,
will send a stereo mix to your computer,
of everything that's coming in.
So if you have two microphones, a couple of stereo inputs,
your aux input, all of that will get mixed,
and that final mix will get sent to your computer,
for recording.
You won't be able to multi-track record using this method,
but you will be able to capture the mix of a live set,
or something like that if you're a musician.
The last option that you have here is this loop back mode.
What this will do is if you're playing something,
off of YouTube or something like that from your computer,
or you have game noise for your game live stream,
this'll bring it into the audio mixer.
You can mix that USB input device,
the volume from that into your mix.
And then it will send that whole mix back to your computer,
into OBS or something like that.
If you put it into this loop back mode,
you just have to be careful that you don't get feedback.
You wanna be using a piece of software like OBS,
that it won't send it back through to the USB input,
that's coming in.
So you don't wanna send this mixer to the computer,
and have the computer send that same stereo mix,
back to the computer.
So just make sure that your routing is all set up correctly.
But that is a very helpful tool there.
If you're into live streaming, a lot of people,
like using that loop back mode there.
Other than that there's pretty basic output volume options.
You can connect it to studio monitors,
or balanced stereo outputs if you're doing live sounds,
or you're doing a wedding or something like that,
you can do that with this audio mixer as well.
Next, we have the Mackie ProFX6v3.
There's two sets of combi jack inputs,
just like what we have with the Yamaha AG06,
you can plug into an XLR or quarter inch device.
There's this High-Z button here,
if you do have a line level input source,
or if you're plugging it instruments.
So you can plug an instrument in to either one of these.
As I mentioned before too,
you can turn on phantom power for the whole mixer here.
So when he turned 48 volts of phantom power on,
it'll apply to both XLR inputs,
compared to the Yamaha's with only one.
And then you can set your low cut if you wish.
That's something that's not readily available,
in the Yamaha AG06.
You have to do that on the software effects.
You can tweak the EQ here.
You can add your effects as we mentioned before.
You can select your effect from one of these 24 presets.
There is this cool stereo pan button.
This is very similar to the DRY CH 1-2 option,
that's available on the Yamaha AG06.
What this does,
is it will basically pan channel one to the left,
and channel two to the right so you can multi-track record.
If the Yamaha AG06 is a DRY CH 1-2,
this would be a WET CH 1-2,
meaning whatever you do to your EQ,
would get baked in and sent to the computer,
with your recording.
On the Yamaha that DRY channel,
will not send any EQ or effect settings,
to your recording on the computer.
So there's one distinct difference there.
Other than that there are very comparable line level inputs.
You get stereo quarter-inch level inputs.
You get an aux level input that you can adjust accordingly.
You do have the option of replacing,
this aux level input here,
with a USB level input from your computer,
in the same way that you can mix the USB level input,
on the Yamaha.
So you can do that as well.
But another cool feature that does come within Mackie,
that's not on the Yamaha is this blend knob.
What this blend knob allows you to do,
is you can monitor your audio software,
while you're recording.
So you can listen and blend,
between what you're recording with your audio mixer,
with what you wanna listen to from your audio software.
So if you're doing a vocal overdub or something like that,
this makes it really easy to set that balance,
perhaps even on the fly.
Sometimes you're mid recording.
You just want to tweak,
the way your headphones sound while you're recording.
You can easily do that.
There's no monitoring options like that,
with the Yamaha AG06.
With the Mackie as well,
you do get this nice big led meter here.
This makes it really easy for you to set your gain.
You don't need anything else.
You can get a really good idea of where your gain is sitting
just by looking at this meter.
In terms of outputs, you do have a headphone jack,
and you do have a quarter inch main outs,
and balanced XLR outputs as well.
Okay, so which one of these audio mixers do I recommend,
for live streaming, home recording and live events?
Let's start with live streaming.
I prefer the Yamaha AG06 for live streaming.
I think it has a lot of features that live streamers prefer.
You can plug in your headset,
with your eighth inch inputs here.
If you wanna switch between your headset,
and your XLR microphone for various components,
of your live stream.
Maybe you only have a headset,
and you just wanna add it to a mixer,
it's a lot easier to do with the Yamaha AG06.
With the compression, EQ and effects settings on the Yamaha,
you can save it into the mixer itself.
So most of the time, once you're live streaming,
and you get all your settings figured out,
you just wanna save it,
and then call up those same settings every time,
you can do that with this audio mixer.
A lot of people do prefer those types of features.
Plus you have the loop back mode here,
which is really popular for live streamers.
Now, the counterpoint to that is with the Mackie.
Even though you don't get compression with this audio mixer,
I know myself personally,
I like the ability to make quick EQ changes,
just by grabbing the knob.
You can't quite do that with the Yamaha.
On the Yamaha, if you did wanna make changes,
you'd have the alt + tab in your software,
open up the window and quickly make that change.
But the good news is you can save it.
So once your settings are all dialed,
then you really shouldn't have to do that anyway.
So my vote here goes with the Yamaha.
Okay, next, what makes her do I recommend,
for home studio recording?
For home studio recording,
I recommend the Mackie over the Yamaha.
On the Mackie,
you can use phantom power on both of your XLR inputs.
So you can connect up to two condenser microphones,
while on the Yamaha you only have phantom power on one.
That's a very major limiting factor,
in a lot of home studios.
If you're recording a stereo source like a piano,
sometimes you'll stereo mic an acoustic guitar,
or something like that.
If you have two condenser mics,
you can do that with the Mackie,
but you can't with the Yamaha.
There's also High-Z pad on both of the inputs as well.
It does have the EQ built into it.
It has a stereo pan button,
which is very comparable to the DRY CH 1-2.
A lot of people would count on that stereo pan button,
or DRY CH 1-2 a lot if you're home recording,
because you do wanna multi-track two inputs at once,
with your computer so you can edit them after the effect.
Plus the big kicker here is on the Mackie.
You get this blend knob.
This blend knob is super important,
for monitoring while you're recording.
A lot of people like setting the balance,
or tweaking the balance of their headphones,
between the zero latency inputs coming from your audio mixer
and what's coming from your computer in your headphones,
so you can do your recording.
This is a really helpful tool there.
Plus the led meter here is a lot easier to set up your gain,
than it is with the Yamaha.
The Yamaha, you have to use the software,
if you want that detailed monitor.
And it's just not quite as practical,
for the home studio environment.
So I do think that the Mackie is better for home recording,
just based on those features alone.
Next, which mixer would I prefer for a live event?
I'm gonna give this one to Mackie as well,
for a lot of the same reasons as the home recording.
With a live event,
you won't really need the blend knob at all,
but you do like flexibility and the ability,
to connect two condenser microphones at once,
compared to the one on the Yamaha.
You do have a lot more.
You can do High-Z on both.
You do have EQ which is a lot faster than what the Yamaha.
I know if I'm at a live event,
I don't wanna be managing software on my laptop,
for EQ changes.
I just wanna quickly make changes here.
Plus the effects engine here is again, super easy,
and you can click it on and off really fast.
I would say overall,
just based on the phantom power on both inputs here,
that does give you a lot more flexibility.
Plus you get to balanced XLR outputs,
which anything live event related now,
you're just connecting to powered speakers.
So XLR cable that you don't have to convert,
from quarter-inch like you would with the Yamaha,
is a lot more flexible for live events.
So overall, to sum this up,
I'd say the Yamaha AG06 is a better audio mixer.
I'd prefer it for live streaming.
But if you're home recording or doing a live event,
I think the Mackie ProFX is a better choice for you,
with the phantom power,
and the XLR outputs on this audio mixer.
If you have any questions about anything,
that I covered in this video,
please leave a comment down in the comment section below.
Again, if you do want pricing or specs,
we do have some links down in the description below,
to help you.
And if you wanna see more videos like this in the future,
please like and subscribe.
Thank you for watching.
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