A & H ZED 420 Mixer

[BrandRecordingCo]

I'm just looking around at some gear and have seen this mixer around and wonder how it is? Anyone have any experience with this thing? How is it for recording/mixing? I am mainly talking about the pre's and eq's.

Buy Allen & Heath ZED-420 Mixer online at Musician's Friend

[warhead]

The feature set is cool for inexpensive stuff, and I think House of Worship could find great use for it as well as some home studio stuff. I do plan on testing one out soon, but beware the first units shipped with an issue where the preamps had a squeal so be sure you get the second release / updated version. There is no info out there about this from the company, I'm telling you from experience though.

War

[triple vision]

the mixer is great. the pre's are wonderful.

my only complaint is that I can't seem to get the aux sends to work with Logic.

they work fine with Ableton so it's likely a Logic issue and not with Allen & Heath.

[awediohead]

Just ordered one of these - A&H Zed 420 that is - after doing a lot of reading here and elsewhere.

Anybody anything to add about them?

cheers

[Aperus]

Hi everyone,

The AH Zed 420 looks like a killer mixer. I can live without MIDI control, I'd rather get the best sound quality for the money possible. So with that in mind, here's what's posted on the AH website about the 420:

The 4 band, 2 sweep EQ, along with the low noise summing amps, is borrowed from the acclaimed GL2400, while the bus architecture is a simplified, but equally comprehensive, version of that employed in the successful GL series.

I have the GL2400 and can attest to its excellent sound quality. The Zed 420 kind of looks like the GL2400 without the Matrix mixer. The only negative about the GL2400 is that it has an internal fan and it is audible. I'm working on ambient music with plenty of quiet spots and am trying to keep the studio noise as low as possible. That's the only reason I'm considering trading the GL2400 for the Zed 420.

My questions are this:
1. Is the sound quality of the Zed 420 as good as the GL2400?
2. Does the Zed 420 have an internal fan? If so, can you hear it?

Thanks! I hope someone can answer my questions.

Brian

[TurboJets]

The pre's are nice and solid. Very transparent, very fast. Dead quiet, lots of headroom, solid bottom, no mud in the lower mids. Tracks stack with no probs mixing. The eq is also very transparent and extremely usable. You can't go wrong with the ZED, been working with one for 4 months now and love it.

[krazylain]

Im thinking about purchasing the 420, primarily for an ITB/OTB hybrid mixing setup.
Ill also probably use the pres via direct outs for tracking.
Pres are not a must, but id love the option to using the EQs on mixdown.
Did u ever use this mixer for OTB mixdown of your DAW sessions?
If yes, what's your opinion on this mixer?

Thanks,


Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Gearslutz.com App

[RickSample]

krazylain:

Are you sure the direct outs on the ZED 420 go through the eq section? I'm doing some research as well, and I found that the eqs and fader are bypassed on the direct outs. Can someone confirm this?