Keith McMillen K-Mix: any users?

Has anybody tried this thing? There are no written or video reviews to be found, as far as I can tell…which seems a bit odd.

https://www.keithmcmillen.com/products/k-mix/


@cuckoo ??

I’ve seen user comments in MW and one user review in the AB forums.


Sounds like a solid product except for the IOS issues. I’m waiting for fixes for the IOS stuff and/or a sale :wink:

I’ve been looking at this but also can’t find much user experience.

Form factor and functionality looks perfect for what I need but it’d be great to hear from someone that has actually touched one.

Hello, I’ve got one. Trying to learn everything in preparation for a few extensive video reviews. It’s more comprehensive than one would first think. I wanna make sure I don’t screw up, he he. I actually had some audio issues that neither me or KM could get our head around. So it’s being sent back for inspection. I hope it’ll be back shortly. I got really really used to having all those 8 in 8 out!


Mini review just for you:
- I think the preamps should be great. I could gain an SM7B no problem (which is known to demand serious gain).
- The compressor seems useful.
- The EQ nothing to brag about, but handy for killing unwanted frequencies. Not that great for boosting frequencies in my early testing.
- The reverb I didn’t particularly like.
- Latency seems to be very low.
- MIDI controller mode is very straight forward.
- The slider sensors are MUCH IMPROVED over QuoNeo. They’re nice and pretty nigh resolution.
- The in-out can take a little bit of learning, but is flexible and highly useful.
- The Pre- Post- USB also had me puzled at first. When a channel is set to Post- USB you’re tapping and recording the OUTPUTS rather than the inputs. Once I finally got this, it became clear how to set it up.

- Note that the lack of physical input makes is less suitable for mixer heavy performances in my opinion. But you could probably use an external MIDI controller if you really need hands on control. I will try this too.

- I’ve got this feeling that if things go wrong, there’s no panic safe way of lowering the master. In different modes, the master level means different things. And if there’s suddenly a heavy feedback, you need to know your shit, and keep your head cool, and navigate to the right place. :wink:

- Also there are some features that you can only manipulate, or set up from the computer. This is not immediately apparent if you’re mixing without a computer. This can potentially cause questionmarks. Once you’re connected to a computer though it should be easy to see which mode or features are on or off etc.

- I had a feeling the firmware is in its early days, but certainly useful. I wish the EQ was improved to sound a little better, and that the Reverb got a complete overhaul. Also since you go in and out of modes, you need to look at what buttons are lit up before you start fidling around. This can potentially be difficult in a brightly lit situation. On a typical brightly lit NAMM show floor, the lights were visible, but appeared a bit washed out. Also the output is pretty low. Since it’s all powered over USB, I guess it can’t go bonkers in terms of output power. But I found that I had to crank it up to maximum, to reach the same level that my analog Mackie mixer reaches just half way. This was a bit problematic, because my active speakers actually benefit from a stronger signal.

- Perhaps this is related to the low output. But I found the headroom to be pretty low. I’m used to my analog mixer, with plenty of headroom, that almost never distorts. Since the output is a bit on the low side, I was probably mixing to high, hitting distorted levels to easily. This wasn’t an issue with synthesisers, but with dynamic microphones. It might have been a bad unit… this is part of why I had to send it back for inspection. There was some strange distortion that shouldn’t have been there. It might have been a bad unit.

Other than that, this is definitely a great product.

If you don’t need the 8 outputs, you could probably just as well use another mixer.But the 8 outputs, 8 inputs, audio interface, powered over USB, and the compact form factor is making it really stand out.

Thanks Cuckoo! Really appreciate the mini-review! Thanks a lot for taking the time. I’m mostly interested in the form factor, but I struggle to work with low output/headroom. I look forward to a video review from you.

@ian_cc You’re welcome! I’ll make sure to make a proper cuckoo video, or two. The K-mix is really useful. The form factor is boss! The headroom might be totally fine when mixing at lower volumes. I don’t know… And if you have a speaker set that has more powerful amps than mine has. I found myself having to go through my old mixer just to amp the signal a bit… which is kinda backwards :-/

@ian_cc here’s a first video introduction on how to use the k-mix without a computer.
https://youtu.be/CmyNbO5AAHY

Thanks man! Looking forward to watching later today!

If they update it with group (or just stereo track pair) edit of EQ/Comp, I’ll grab one.

Honestly,


I don’t like the aesthetic he goes for,

It might be ggood stuff, but it just looks like lame junk, so I steer clear

Also, I have GAS just as bad as the next guy and have never wanted any of his stuff, I don’t think a good job is being done to convince people why these products are special and therefore desireable.

Im going to pick one up after holidays. It will be perfect as a standalone mixer for my MPC 60 (the DSP effects on indiv channels would be great, plus finally having track mutes) plus its now IOS friendly so tracking out 8 channels at once into the ipad will be sweet. Its size is incredibly small.

If they update it with group (or just stereo track pair) edit of EQ/Comp, I'll grab one.

It has stereo pairing now.

I had to exchange mine because one of the rotaries wasn’t touch sensitive. The replacement I got looked like it was someone else’s return (missing manual, opened box), but at least it’s working. In all fairness, I did the purchase/exchange through Amazon, but it did leave me a little salty.

That said, it’s exactly what I needed with so many aux send options. Nothing else quite like it out there right now.

Oh, and I agree with @cuckoo about the reverb. It’s usable in a pinch, but it’s fairly limited and pretty unnatural sounding.

Hey @Zzach, what do you mean “so many aux send options” ?

@LyingDalai, with six outputs (aside from the main out), you have 6 mono or 3 stereo aux sends. Most small mixers I’ve seen have one aux send, typically mono.

For example, I’ve got a Biscuit and a Flashback delay set up as stereo sends, and I’ve still got room to add something else.

They don’t have to be used for aux sends either. You could even run an 8-channel surround setup with it if you wanted to (and it has spatial controls for that too).

Think Cuckoo mentioned something about them letting users create DSP effects…There is enough memory to do this. Would be killer with some nice delay and reverb presets

Wow indeed :slight_smile:
Thx for the precisions !

For what it’s worth, here’s a second video I made a few weeks ago. It’s a bit messy, but I’m trying to go through a lot of ways of using this. Since there are so many ways of approaching things, it got a bit messy. This is with the release OS. they have since released one or two updates introducing a few things. And I’ve been told an adjusted headphones output levels setting is being worked on.

I’m now using this as my main mixer and audio interface. I think the quality is good.

Personally what I’d like to see most is that user patches should also remember USB post pre settings, and surround modes. Right now these settings are global, and not saved in the patch slots.

Also I’d like simple ways of resetting the settings of a channel so that I know I’m always starting from scratch. And perhaps copy paste settings from channel to channel. These things, and more, is feedback I’m definitely giving them. So perhaps in future iterations of the firmware, stuff like this will come to fruition.

Another thing that is however not as simple to address is that the frosted rubber strips are blocking a lot of light, and picking up a lot of ambient light. This is making it hard to operate in a bright room since the LED’s are sort of difficult to see. If the strips were made of more clear rubber, or if the LED’s were placed next to the strips it’d be much easier. The LED’s are in fact quite strong.

Anyhow. I like it.

https://youtu.be/NWVE17axpD0