Arpangel wrote: ↑Tue May 06, 2025 10:02 am
That DM3 looks very interesting, notice it only has eight faders, are layers involved? I know nothing about digital mixers. So, it’s a mixer, an interface, and a control surface, plus FX etc?
Yes, there are two layers, for the main inputs, and the faders will all jump to the settings as appropriate when you press either input 1-8 or input 9-16 buttons.
Plus two more custom layers which let you put anything on the faders (there's a custom1 and custom2 button for these). Those custom layers let you remap all 9 faders to anything you want so the master fader doesn't have to be an output, as it would be in the main fader view.
And because you can gang faders together so they track for stereo sources, you need only put one of these in the custom view and it'll then control the track pair, you don't need both faders in there. So with all stereo sources you can in fact put all 16 channels in one custom view and treat the mixer as an 8 stereo track device. [actually it has 22 logical signal paths, not 16, because the playback L/R and both FX returns are remappable. This means that you can therefore mix a total of 16 analogue inputs PLUS six more USB inputs back from the DAW at any one time, (and note that, as I mention below, the ability to split the single audio interface into several separate ones, means that the audio inputs through USB do not have to be constrained to just a single source, you could have the DAW plus OBS Studio plus some other piece of software all running connected to what they see as their own audio device, and bring them back to the desk).
Of course there are lots more 'layers' if you like, since you can switch views to all your busses (and even put the graphic EQ on all the faders as well).
And yes, you are correct. It is a mixer, interface and control surface all in one little box, with a touch screen about the size of a smaller iPad (and very good quality). All the inputs show what they are connected to as the 'scribble strips' - with per-track metering - align at the bottom of the screen with the fader strips.
[there is also a dedicated metering view but the screen resolution is so high that even the scribble strip meters are more than adequate, much much better than the half-dozen LEDs you were lucky to get in old-school mixers]
Then every channel has two dynamic processors, one with sidechaining, plus four band parametric EQ and there are two global FX processors with a fairly wide range of the standard reverb, delay, chorus etc. bread and butter effects.
Unlike older analogue mixers, the preamps and processing are pretty much pristine, and while you are probably a few dB short of a mastering grade convertor, I would say the quality is comparable to most good quality audio interfaces.
You switch into DAW controller mode by pressing the custom1 and custom2 buttons together. Then a special screen comes up with the DAW timeline, automation buttons and various other things, and if you have an appropriate HUI-compatible control surface plugin in the DAW, then you now have full duplex control of most major DAW params. Cubase, because Yamaha own it, has probably the best support, but Reaper works well with the free DrivenByMoss plugin. Other DAWs might require some work though and Ableton I definitely haven't had any luck with currently.
Of course, you can also route anything to anything pretty much, giving you enormous flexibility. It supports group busses as well, where you can effectively 'disconnect' inputs from going to the main stereo bus, route them through a bus for a submix and/or processing, then route the whole thing back to the main stereo out. It'll definitely take you a few hours to get your head around the whole thing but that's because it's a proper professional digital mixer - it now has automix as well so it makes a great podcasting tool, and as well as this you can reconfigure the 18:18 USB interface to be several separate interfaces, for people doing video editing and whatnot where each piece of software wants to have control of its own audio device, but this means that you don't have the problem of the DAW necessarily taking exclusive control, since you can give it one of the interfaces (I think things split into 2 separate 2:2 stereo devices plus one 12:12 interface in this mode). Then mix it all together inside the mixer.
I do get that you can kind of have this flexibility with stuff like RME and TotalMix but not in a package with actual knobs and buttons and faders that'll work with or without a DAW connected. This is where the DM3 shines. It lets you focus on interacting with stuff without faffing around with the computer at all, unless you need to.
A feature I've never even heard of!
