- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video, I wanna show you the similarities
and the differences between the Yamaha MG10XU audio console
and the Mackie ProFX10v3.
Both of these consoles have effects, USB output,
10 channels, they're analog consoles.
I think they're both great high value audio consoles.
They're both built for small live events,
video streaming, home recording or hybrid events
where you can do a live event and a USB stream out the back
at the same time.
They're both super nice consoles,
but they do have very distinct differences
and we're gonna go through those now.
Now, on both audio consoles,
let's just talk about price really quickly.
The current pricing for both of these
is linked in the description below.
I don't wanna say what the current pricing is
because they change all the time.
So do check out those links,
because that does provide a little bit of context
for why one console has a lot better features
than the other one, I think.
So, they both have XLR outputs here,
they both have balanced quarter inch outputs.
Both consoles you can use all four outputs at the same time.
Those outputs there are controlled by the master volume knob
on both consoles but the reason that I bring this up
is because again, on both audio consoles,
a common complaint to both of them
is that the USB output operates independently
of this volume knob.
Now on the Yamaha, this means that you have to
turn all the channels down when you're done with them
if you wanna kill your online feed
and the big win here for the Mackie is that
you can just press the mute buttons
on anything that you wanna kill.
There is a main mute button on the Mackie,
again, that the Yamaha does not have,
but this just kills the stereo output
that goes to your speakers or your monitors
or whatever you're using out of these main stereo outputs.
A really big difference here between the two consoles
is for this price point that Mackie put
the mute buttons on each channel.
As we're still talking about the stereo outputs here,
I do wanna talk about USB a little bit more.
On both of them, you can bring a copy of the stereo mix
out of the console using a USB output.
Now this means that if you wanna do multi-track recording,
you have to pen each channel left and right
and that will separate the channels in your audio software
to the two channels that this console is sending
and then you can do multi-track recording,
that's the same on both of them.
Now on the Yamaha, there's also two channels
that come into the board.
So how they deal with that is you can choose
to switch away from their line inputs
by toggling this button
and bring that USB input into the board.
Now, if you're doing this at a live event,
you can choose here down at the bottom
to select that you want that input to come out
through the stereo output,
through the main speakers at your event,
or if you're doing a live stream
and you don't wanna create that feedback loop
by sending and receiving the same signal to the computer,
you can break the signal here
and just take that output from the computer into the board
and then it just plays it out of your local studio monitors.
So this would be helpful
if you're doing things like recording
and you just wanna monitor something from the computer.
You can use headphones by using this toggle here
or you can have it coming out to your studio monitors
if you're playing guitar or something like that
and you wanna monitor it well laying down new tracks.
On the Mackie, it works a little bit different.
There's four USB inputs that come into the board
from your computer.
Now, the first pair comes in to this monitoring blend knob.
With this monitoring blend knob,
it's a zero latency blend between the inputs on your mixer
and the monitoring from your computer.
So, if you're laying down a new guitar track, for example,
you can listen to just the input coming from the computer
and play your guitar 'cause you can hear it off
the amp already that's miked and coming into the board,
or if you're doing vocals and you wanna hear a mix
between what you're recording
through your inputs on the board,
and what's coming from the computer,
you can influence that mix here by changing the blend.
So whatever your preference is, you can dial that in
and then you can choose to send this to your headphones
or control room by pressing this button.
Now, while we're talking about headphones
and control room again, the Mackie does have
separate volume control for both.
So that's a nice feature there.
On the Yamaha, both of them are married
as if they want you to choose
whether you're using local monitors or headphones.
There are some situations where you're live streaming
or recording, where it is nice to have a blend of headphones
and monitoring.
So the Mackie gives you that option.
It's just an extra volume knob, it didn't take up much space
and they threw that in there for you.
Now let's talk about the inputs
and the channel strips of each mixer.
So on the inputs of both, we have four XLR inputs.
The first two combi-jacks on the Mackie
and the Yamaha one is all combi-jacks.
So on the Yamaha one, you can put a pad on it,
which is a 26 decibel pad.
On the first two channels of the Mackie,
you have this Hi-Z button,
which is essentially a 20 decibel pad.
It reduces the gain from zero to minus 20
as a starting point on there,
so it is basically a 20 decibel pad.
Now what's distinct on the Mackie is that there's insert.
What it insert does is it allows you to run a cable,
you need a special insert cable there,
plugs into there, but allows you to loop it through
something like a compressor
which is what's really missing on the Yamaha
is the ability for outboard effects.
It is a little old school, it's not super common anymore,
but it is nice that the Mackie threw that in there,
especially there's a lot of live streamers
that love this format of console,
they just want their own compressor
and this is a great way to do it,
so super stoked that Mackie threw that in there.
Now, on both of them,
there is some type of high pass filter.
The Yamaha calls it a 80 Hertz High-Pass Filter,
and the Mackei calls it a 100 Hertz low-cut.
So they are a little bit different frequency range there,
the Mackei is just a little bit higher.
To compensate for the differences between the 80 Hertz here
and the 100 Hertz here, both of them have inverted that
on the low-cut of the EQ.
So on the Mackei, we have an 80 Hertz low-cut there
and on the Yamaha, we have a 100 Hertz low-cut there.
While we're talking about EQ here,
the Mackei has the same three band EQ the whole way across
and the Yamaha does not.
It just has it on the XLR inputs for its stereo pairs here
the missing knob is missing.
So, keep that in mind if tweaking your mids
is really important.
I'll be honest, there have been many times
with the Yamaha console, if I'm at a wedding or something
and there's a really poorly produced video
and I wanna do a low cut or a mid cut or mid boost
just to help whatever is happening in the video
and that option is just not here on this console
so that is a nice feature on the Mackie as well.
Now, before we go any further, I do wanna skip back up
to the built-in one knob compressors on both.
A common complaint with a Yamaha mixer
is that it does operate more like a traditional compressor
and it's funny to say that it's a complaint
that it operates more like a traditional compressor,
but it is a complaint because it operates
like a traditional compressor without giving you
any options to tweak it.
And what I mean by that is this one knob compressor,
not only does it reduce the threshold
and the compression ratio,
so it does reduce the volume of things,
but it adds gain as well, but you don't have
a lot of control over that.
So one complaint with this is
if you're at an event or if you're mixing your live stream
with this one knob compression, chances are pretty good
that your gains already set up and your event's underway
and then you wanna add the compression
so it's surprising sometimes that it adds gain.
The Mackie mixer just has a six to one,
a fixed compression ratio and when you increase that
it's just reducing the threshold.
So it just brings down the highs,
which is a lot more predictable
it's not adding game to supplement or anything like that,
you can always add the gain yourself.
So the Mackie mixer four or one knob compressor
is a lot more predictable.
A lot of users complain about the Yamaha
when they're first use it, 'cause it's surprising
and you can actually create feedback in monitors
if your aux is they're already set up
by adding more gain like that.
So the Mackie is more predictable
and wins a couple of points for me there.
Next, for both consoles that effects send
works the same way.
It comes all the way down, and you can use it as an aux
by using a cable from either effect send on either mixer
or you can run it through, both of them
have a 24-channel effects engine.
On the Yamaha, it is a bit better because
not only do you get your 24 effects,
but you do get a parameter here
so you can adjust and tweak some of the effects
that are built into it and on the Mackie,
you just select your effects and that's it.
You adjust how much of the effect you're getting
by using the effects send here.
Now, another classic difference between Yamaha and Mackie,
on the Yamaha you turn effects on,
but on the Mackie, you would choose to mute it
if you don't want it on.
That is common in bigger consoles as well.
On the bigger consoles,
if a Yamaha does have a mute button it's actually
an on button where Mackei will choose to mute it.
So it's just two different ways of thinking about it,
but both these effects engines work the same way,
where you can increase, Yamaha calls it the return
and Mackei calls it the effects level
, but it operates exactly the same way.
In terms of a couple more differences on the input side,
the Yamaha does have two stereo pairs worth of RCA inputs
and the Mackei has one headphone jack input as well.
It's a little bit old school to have that.
This 9-10 channel from the Mackie
is really all about that USB input.
Very rarely would you choose to use something like
a 3.5 millimeter, eighth-inch Jack instead of
a nice quarter inch stereo pair,
but Mackei did that for one of the channels,
I guess, just to change it up and give that flexibility
if somebody has an aux cord from their car
or something like that.
So there's the two consoles there.
Again, the Mackie is a bit more expensive,
but I think you can see why.
My summary of this whole video would be
the Mackie has two extra USB inputs,
it deals with them better,
it has a no latency blend knob
which is huge for a lot of people,
it has mute buttons
and it has the ability to add an external compressor
or something like that by using the insert.
The Yamaha is a bit more straight forward,
it does have the RCA inputs,
which a lot of people like DJs, especially
like using RCA more than quarter-inch
and the Yamaha has a rock solid reputation as well.
If you have any questions
about either one of these consoles,
please leave a comment in the comment section below,
we do have in-depth videos where we walked through
how to set up each of these consoles
so please check those out as well.
If you do wanna see more videos from us in the future,
please like and subscribe.
Again, if you wanna see pricing for either of these,
we do have that info in the description below.
Thank you for watching.
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