About
In the past we’ve had live sound mixers to go out with our PA speakers, and they’ve served that purpose well. Recently we decided to make our offering in this field a little more flexible. The L-8 still acts as a live mixer and has basic EQ and digital effects available. It has 6 Line/Mic inputs that use combination TRS/XLR connecters. The first two of those can take Hi-Z inputs from powered instruments, and all 6 can provide Phantom Power to condenser mics. Inputs 7 and 8 have multiple options. With a Tip Ring Sleeve connecter they can take stereo Line level sources or, since the L-8 also acts as a multichannel computer interface over USB, channels 7 & 8 can each receive stereo digital audio from a computer. We provide a USB-C to TRRS cable that allows Input 8 to interface with a modern cell phone. One especially nice feature this phone interface provides leads us into the second usage case for this mixer: a podcast interface.
Using the TRRS cable allows one to send the mix to the cell phone and receive audio back from the cell phone, but crucially the mixer has a built-in mix/minus feature that filters the audio coming from the cell phone out of the mix sent back to the phone so that it avoids a feedback loop. In other words, the person calling in with the remote cell phone doesn’t hear their own voice (and the distracting echo) coming back in the mix they hear. Another Podcasting feature is the as mentioned 12-output / 4-input USB computer interface at up to 24-bit / 48 kHz. This lets you combine your audio with video within a livestreaming program such as OBS. If you have guests in your studio for the Podcast, the LiveTrak provides four headphone outputs with independent level controls. The main headphone output is sourced from the master output while the three other headphone outs can be assigned to that same master mix or an independent cue mix. The mixer also has three to six “playback pads” to lend a professional polish to your Podcast. Want to have a snippet of stinger audio to re-introduce the show coming out of sponsorship clip? Simply load it into memory and hit one button to play it back. Or, do you need to play back the actual commercial break from your sponsor? Again, hit one button and re-group while the ad plays.
The third use scenario for the mixer is “simply” as a recorder. Have a round table discussion that you need to capture? Just plug in six mics and record them to the provided SD card.
Normally the mixer takes power in over its USB connection, and it has a USB power supply with it for that reason. If you have a USB battery bank you can use that to power it when you are not near a plug, or it can power off of four AA batteries. We provide a “dummy” AA battery solution to AC power the mixer when it is being used as a computer multitrack interface.
What Comes with it?
- ZOOM LiveTrack L-8 Mixer / Recorder
- USB-A Power Supply and Micro Cable
- USB-C to Micro Cable
- 64GB SDXC Card and USB-C Reader
- TRRS to USB-C Phone Interface Cable
Price
| Day | $50 |
| Weekend | $50 |
| Week | $150 |