Anyone used a Yamaha MG10XU usb class 2 compliant mixer?

Discuss your workplace, instruments, amps, and any other gear.

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

Post Reply
gauger
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2020 9:50 am

Anyone used a Yamaha MG10XU usb class 2 compliant mixer?

Post by gauger »

I'm thinking about getting one of these, but haven't found anything positive about using with linux, which doesn't bode well. It is however apparently USB Audio Class 2.0 compliant, so what are my chances of it working ?

https://usa.yamaha.com/products/proaudi ... specs.html

Thanks in advance for any experiences shared.
User avatar
thumbknuckle
Established Member
Posts: 51
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 6:16 pm
Location: Western Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Anyone used a Yamaha MG10XU usb class 2 compliant mixer?

Post by thumbknuckle »

Hey man,

This is an older thread, so it's likely you have already made a decision, but just in case you or someone else could use some input:

If it's class compliant it should work, I can't speak to that as I've never tried, but:

I am a live audio engineer and I sometimes find myself mixing on MG series mixers and my experiences have not been positive. I kinda hate the things and I'm pretty good about rolling with whatever is on hand. I don't know how much of it is the EQ and how much of it is just the basic sonics of the micamp and the bus summing, but it's harder to get stuff sounding right with those things than with comparable products from Soundcraft or Allen and Heath or even Mackie. Come to think of it the things I don't like about it are similar to the things I don't like about a Mackie VLZ, except maybe worse.

I like Yamaha stuff in general. The LS9 and M7CL are both industry standard workhorses. Really don't like the MG series stuff.

Just throwing that out there as a totally unscientific impression.
Faster than a laser bullet.
Louder than an atom bomb.
WforWoollyMammoth
Established Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:32 pm
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 16 times

Re: Anyone used a Yamaha MG10XU usb class 2 compliant mixer?

Post by WforWoollyMammoth »

I have this mixer. I mainly bought it for small live performances. It has built in compressors on two channels and an FX processor that's very good for the price (if you happen to like the Yamaha reverbs - I do!). The mic preamps also seem to be good enough to drive quiet mics like the Shure SM7B, which is not the case with every unit out there.

I've used the unit also as an audio interface for a few months when I wanted to keep my PC setup simple.

What exactly do you need to know about the unit? Maybe I can provide some answers.

It runs on Linux without any real problems. However, it doesn't support more than two channels of audio (in x2 / out x 2). The switches you need to activate for the USB I/O for recording purposes can be a bit confusing and feedback may occur until you learn the right configuration for your needs :)

I had a small problem with the MG10XU when I was running JACK together with Pulseadio, as audio would cut off on streams associated with unfocused windows after a few seconds. The solution would be to either modify the "idle" settings in the Pulseaudio configuration files or just keep the Pavucontrol window open at all times. This problem might have been simply due to my choice of DE (LXDE / Openbox).

The latencies aren't that good, but in my opinion they aren't that good on any USB class compliant device on Linux that's used with the generic ALSA USB audio driver (opinions on this differ, but I'll leave that for another discussion). If I remember correctly, the MG10XU has a few ms of additional latency compared to my RME Babyface Pro when using Jack (I've used 128 frames / 3 buffers, or 256 frames / 2 buffers).

With a mixer like the MG10XU I wouldn't worry about summing. It's not really intended for such use. Get the audio in and mix your projects in a DAW.

It's a nice little thing to have, but for recording I would recommend a proper audio interface with more than just 2 channels I/O over it. It's kind of silly that an interface that is primarily a mixer supports only 2 channels of I/O digitally. Most interfaces support at least 4.
pipebomb
Established Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2021 9:38 am

Re: Anyone used a Yamaha MG10XU usb class 2 compliant mixer?

Post by pipebomb »

I was wondering the same about the Yamaha.

Can it be used as an audio interface (sound card basically)? I already have an audio interface (Audient iD4) for this but looking at Yamaha for more inputs and effects (eq, comp, reverb).
So I'd have a USB device for sound out (music, Discord, etc), and a USB device for sound in from the XLR microphone (Skype Discord).

I'm concerned about any possible issues while using the Yamaha in Skype calls so that people don't hear themselves or any playback from the PC - just the microphone out. Or if there are any other nuances I should know about before
WforWoollyMammoth
Established Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:32 pm
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 16 times

Re: Anyone used a Yamaha MG10XU usb class 2 compliant mixer?

Post by WforWoollyMammoth »

It can be used as an audio interface.

Your Audient is probably of better quality as an interface though. For example, I find the Yamaha as an audio interface to be very quiet (it's also the case on Windows).

You should be able to do what you've described in your post. The MG10XU is a small mixer and the routing options are a bit limited compared to the bigger models though.

Sometimes the online meeting / calling apps do not work well with the Linux audio system. You might want to disable JACK and use just Pulseaudio during meetings, at the very least. I think what most of those apps assume is just that you're using a Windows laptop with a rather basic configuration - I've encountered a lot of problems also on Windows when using "pro" or "semi-pro" gear during online meetings (glitchiness, wrong pitch etc.).
Post Reply