Drawmer MXPRO60 Channel Strip / See All ZenPro Audio Reviews Here: Review Page

This unit has been around for quite some time, formerly as the “MX60” although the only change is in appearance and name. Drawmer is one of those tried and true audio companies that have been making great gear for decades and have earned a stellar rep for their gates, compressor / limiters, preamps and equalizers. It's even still made in England! The MXPRO60 is a solid state channel strip featuring an all discrete mic pre / DI with +60dB of gain (an additional +/-15dB of gain is available on the output fader pot), a one knob gate with fast and slow release, a De-Esser with male / female select, an auto mode VCA compressor, a 3 band equalizer (100hZ shelving low, 4.25kHZ shelving high, and a fully parametric midrange band ranging from freq 150hZ to 16kHZ, Q width of .3 to 3 full octaves, and +/- 18dB of gain per band) as well as a tube emulation / 3 band equalizer that brings low / mid / hi boosts as well as simulated tube harmonics, and a separate soft / hard limiter stage (always in line) to protect from overload. Wow...that was a long sentence, but it's only because it's got everything but the kitchen sink.

The preamp section is low noise with plenty of punch and smooth clarity, an all discrete design (not an IC based pre!) that delivers a healthy signal on all sources. Phase reverse, hi-pass (100hZ), a DI input with a bright mode (as well as +20dB mode) round off the input section. We simply liked everything we heard through it.

The dynamics section is very simple, the gate is quite smooth and it never chattered on us, a great thing to have to kill background noise for voice (it was not quite as fast as you'd want for most drum use, but was still useful to a degree there). The compressor is an AUTO style except you can choose the ratio (1:1 to infinity:1) and threshold and while it is somewhat hit and miss on its own, seems to couple nicely with the soft / hard limiter circuit which is always in line. At first the compressor seems a bit unruly until you find that balance. Pushing a compressed signal into the limiter using the makeup gain gives you two levels of control to maximize average volume and stop peaks. It worked well with voice and instruments, the compressor is definitely a bit slow for things like drums but the limiter is very fast and can be exploited easily if needed. The limiter is always in line before the output fader, it cannot be disabled or bypassed (not a bad thing when setting it to protect your digital converter input).

The equalizer section actually had us looking at one another a bit stunned, in a good way! That midrange control is simply one of the most versatile and smooth in combination with excellent SOUND one could hope for. Sure it has a fixed low and high band, but the critical midrange is handed to you on a silver platter here with huge control available. It works very fast also, and can do incredible amounts of gutting or cranking, as thin or super wide as you want. We get to hear a ton of gear around here, and we were expecting this EQ to be a bit of an afterthought by Drawmer. Very pleasantly surprised here, it's got what you want for most jobs from voice to instruments to drums.

The “Tube Sound” circuit is an emulation of tube harmonics, as well as 3 boosting eq circuits for low, mid and high. I would definitely consider this something worth using sparsely to make a change, but not push too hard. It's kind of a fuzzy EQ in most ways, used a little at a time and it can bring a little hair to sources. The output gain section seems clean and quiet, allowing another nice boost of volume.

Conclusion: It's been around a long time, pleasing users for many years for voice recording (including you voice artists) with its many features tailored for it. However, the MXPRO60 sports so many incredible features that it makes it useful as a channel strip in general to track pretty much anything. Easy to use, sounds great, and protects your digital recordings from clipping? Winner.