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It's always good to know who your friends are. Unlimited time and money? Very definitely: friends. Latency? Very clearly not a friend. More like a committed enemy of anyone who is trying to record audio via a computer soundcard. But savvy engineers know that you can get around this problem by using an external mixer to monitor the output from the computer simultaneously with the input source. What they may not know is that the Soundcraft Compact 4 is designed to meet this need. Does it? Well, let's see.
With two mono input channels and two stereo channels, the Compact 4 first appears to be a fairly typical small-format mixer. You get 3- band EQ on every channel with a 60Hz low shelf, 12kHz high shelf and 600Hz peaking midrange controls. While Soundcraft states that they decided on 600Hz for its usefulness when recording vocals, I wish they had picked a bit higher mid-center frequency. That aside, the knobs do have center detents so you can easily set the EQ flat. There's no EQ bypass, but you wouldn't expect that in this type of product anyway. Moreover, the EQ is effective and...