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A small and amateur home-studio setup usually consists of a preamp, a couple monitors, and a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) program.
So, do you absolutely need to add a mixing board into the mix in order to make great music?
Well, not necessarily. However – if you’re recording often enough or live-streaming audio or video regularly, a mixer offers a massive amount of convenience over a small preamp, with unmatched ease, precision and professionalism that shines through in your final product.
A mixer adds to your available editing options exponentially and efficiently, as well as takes the heavy lifting off your DAW too since it does a lot of the A/V processing without even needing the software program. You’ll still need your DAW to piece a track together, but instead of constant clicking and searching for effects and adjustments in the application, all the knobs, sliders, and even effects are physically right there in front of you. A mixer also gives you opportunities to plug in more external instruments and mics, and give them their own designated channels that you can always monitor and adjust with a couple quick flips.
Multiple channels running through a mixer are also a great way to let the band and technician still hear eachother and their instruments between takes without needing the DAW constantly running, and can significantly cut down on latency – which can mess with the recording process and test your patience. Latency is the amount of time it takes for your mixer/DAW to process the audio and send it back to you, creating an annoying and unwanted delay. Not only is it a nuisance, but it can really throw you off when trying to keep an accurate rhythm during recording of vocals and instruments. And while there are shortcuts and hacks around it, they can take constant adjusting and resetting. A mixer is specifically made to let you hear things immediately, without needing to send it through your computer first.
All of this goes way beyond recording and producing music though. In recent years, mixers have become increasingly popular for podcasting and live-streaming, and it’s easy to see why. Using a laptop’s little mic makes for an unlistenable and distracting conversation, with a noticeable difference once everyone has their own mic input – and that’s just for the audio aspect. Add visual, like Twitch streaming or YouTube/Facebook live, into the mix, and you’re gonna need a designated powerful board to process everything going on (especially in HD quality).
A mixer will let you get all the effects and levels set first, before it even hits the computer, doing a big chunk of the work and making sure your streams and songs are smooth every time.
