A digital audio mixer is a device that can help you in your quest for music, but can also help you in other various ways. This sort of equipment is mostly used at a large scale in recording studios, that kind of facility where songs or other audio elements are recorded in certain conditions, like sound diffusion or other desired acoustic properties. You can also find digital mixers in broadcasting and television where they have a quite large range. In broadcasting system, digital audio mixers are used with success for that new age thing called internet radio. Post-production in film industry is again one of the domains where audio mixers are marking their important presence. The digital format is preferred these days because of its easily versatile feature. That is why audio mixers are very common this days and that is the explanation for the fact that you could find them even in the public address system.

The digital audio mixer is the perfect tool that can be used in professional studios but can be easily used in home made studios as well. A great instrument that can create deep reverbs that will envelope any listener, a mixer can help you to store preset automation tasks for an easy and quick handling. It also bring various software that can ease your work from pressing a simple button to combine two separate audio signals into a single one. You also have the ability to have automatic mixes that can be easily stored into your personal computer, to add effects to your own music or your voice recordings. Compression and mastering can be made without many efforts and all you need for these operations is under a single unit: the digital audio mixer. Its complexity however can limit you to a certain number of commands in case you are not so well trained in the audio business. You should know what a reverb is, how can you control delay or pitch function, or how much can you modify digital effects otherwise an investment in this domain does not have any base.

If you want to have a completely digitally controlled audio mixer for your on, try in the beginning to understand the importance of knowing how a thing like this work, how can it help you on your studies or, in case you are a person who know something about this kind of digital instrument, how can improve the audio stuff you are working at. The digital audio mixer can interface via universal serial buss to any personal computer and the audio signal control can be easily made just using the software which is provided by the manufacturer of the hardware. With this feature you can also use M-LAN to record an audio signal.

There are advantages and disadvantage in the matter of using a digital audio mixer instead of a classic analog one and those differences are visible especially when you are put under the pressure of making the things work. To begin with the advantages, a digital mixer have the property that the sound is clear, without the existence of any distortion. When the audio signal is in the digital domain, the transfer from that format to the analog one can easily be made without any risks concerning the sound alteration with noise or other signal degradations (that isn't valid when you want to add noise intentional, like a phat bass or something alike). The same thing happens when the conversion is made from the analog format into digital audio signal.

The flexibility that a digital audio mixer can offer you is another advantage. The audio signal can be easily manipulated without any risks because of the saving and loading possibility. The setup for various settings can be made in advantage and can be rapidly loaded when needed in situations like a live concert where each band that participate may have her own presets that can be lightly changed. For this kind of events, a knowledgeable person can adjust all of the microphones or other settings like monitors etc. After several minutes, when everything is properly adjusted, the created setup is labeled under an assigned name and stored in the personal computer memory or in the CPU of the machine. Afterward, as easy as it gets, a less knowledgeable operator or sound editor can simply look on the computer screen or touch screen to recall that previous setting by pushing a simple button. Then the system operates himself and the controls are moving to their proper positions. Beside that, the presets and the setups for any other events can be saved and instantly recalled by opening a folder and loading the settings.

Beside all this advantage, when you chose a digital audio mixer you benefit of many typical on board effects that can help you to adjust a signal the way you like until is perfect for your needs. There are also many virtual signal processors available, gadget that you can use to eliminate the need for any additional hardware modules that can complicate the assemblage (all the hard work involving cabling, signal quality issues, weight, transport, size or cost) and compromise the good working of a live act for example.

As regarding the disadvantages that you can encounter using a digital audio mixer, there are some issues that can make you think about your choice concerning your choice for digital. The complexity of the software is a thing that can make angry any patient sound editor. There are multitudes of channels and other buttons, effects and layers that are usually hidden in banks, thing that can make the audio processing difficult. Another issue for digital audio mixer is the quality of the audio signal when processing from the analog to digital format and vice versa, but because the quality degradation is not always noticeable some audio editors are not embracing this idea.

In comparison, the two audio mixers, the digital and the analog one have their good and bad parts but because of many features and gadgets, the digital mixer is preferred these days.