By Steve Cunningham
There are good reasons to use a standalone digital mixer instead of mixing with a mouse. The obvious benefits are real faders and knobs, easy monitoring with near-zero latency, and the ability to control your editor with hardware. Most digital mixers also give you powerful parametric EQ and compression on every channel, without loading down your CPU or increasing latency and memory consumption the way plug-ins do.
Tascam’s DM-24 digital mixer provides all the above goodies in a relatively small and inexpensive package. The DM-24 is a 32 x 8 x 2 digital mixer that features a potential 36 analog and 24 digital inputs, TDIF and ADAT Lightpipe I/O, up to 96 kHz operation, surround mixing, onboard effects by TC Works and Antares, extensive machine-control capabilities, and sophisticated automation using touch-sensitive motorized faders. The DM-24 is a mature and reliable product, and it carries a retail price of under three kilobucks, with a street price substantially below that.
