Allen Heath ZED-14 14-Channel USB Mixing Console

The ZED-14 is a small-format, USB-equipped stereo mixer for live performance and recording. One of the most important features on the ZED-14 mixer is a USB send and return link, so Allen & Heath teamed up with Cakewalk to bundle its Sonar LE music creation and audio production software with ZED, giving you a fantastic, high-spec digital audio workstation. What about the sound quality? Allen & Heath got a designer, Mike Griffin, who learned his trade from one of the legendary designers of audio circuitry of the last 30 years. Mike produced the "Griffin PreTM," a mic preamplifier, which sounds as sweet as a nut and as pure as the driven snow. Well, maybe that's a bit too much -but it will not color or distort your sound, will give you lots of headroom, and gives you a truly professional feel. Feature-wise, ZED-14 is so packed full that you'd think it would cost many times its actual price. It's so well-specified that it can be used for many different tasks, whether in live performance (maybe using plug-in effects), live recording using Cakewalk, studio recording, or mixing down to produce your own 2-track recordings.