NAMM 2020 – Korg Collaborate with Greg Mackie on their New Hybrid Mixers

The best of analogue and digital technologies in Korg’s new hybrid mixers for their inaugural Soundlink Series.

The freshly announced Soundlink Series MW-2408 and MW-1608 hybrid mixers from Korg aim to solve the complexities of digital and limitations of analogue, combining the ease of analogue and the flexibility of digital into immediately familiar, easy to use consoles. Overseen by Greg Mackie and Peter Watts, these mixers come packed with great features, design and quality you’d come to expect from such well-respected names of the mixer world.

Appropriate for a wide range of applications and users, these two unique hybrid consoles bring some great features to the table, some of which have not been on hybrid mixers until now. Some feature highlights include a 32-band ParaGraphic EQ, a multiband Auto Feedback Canceller, assignable dynamics for main LR and Aux’s 1 + 2, single knob compressor for the first 8 channels, Korg’s coveted 32-bit digital effects (including 30 presets), flexible routing via 8 mono (4 stereo) buses, Mute Groups, Break functions, scene memory and a spectrum analyser.

The physical design is compact and well laid out. Familiar users of analogue boards will feel immediately at home, whilst novices will quickly pick up the workflow making either model ideal for schools, houses of worship, small to medium-sized venues and more. Channel strips are easy to navigate, as is the master section. The back is equally as intuitive in its layout offering a wealth of connectivity and some great extra features such as being able to use Aux’s 3 and 4 as dedicated musicians’ headphones outputs via 1/4” connections, a dedicated XLR talkback mic input, 1/4″ footswitch connection for effects control and USB stereo output for DAW or smart device capture. There’s even a special version of iZotope RX Elements included, a nice little added bonus.

Both the Soundlink Series MW-2408 and MW-1608 look to be a great offering from Korg into the world hybrid mixers. Their intuitive layout, rich feature sets and bringing the best of digital and analogue into a symbiotic system will surely make these two mixers instant hits for those seeking the benefits of a well-designed hybrid mixer. We look forward to getting our hands on them soon. In the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of the key specs.

Key Specs:	MW-2408	MW-1608
Inputs:	24  (8 mono + 8 stereo + 1 Talkback + 3.5mm stereo)	16  (8 mono + 4 stereo + 1 Talkback + 3.5mm stereo)
Outputs:	8 (Main LR, Monitor LR, 4x Aux)	8 (Main LR, Monitor LR, 4x Aux)
Group Outs:	8	8
Headphone Outs:	3	3
Footswitch:	Yes	Yes
Phantom Power:	Yes	Yes
High Pass Filter:	Yes (first 8x channels)	Yes (first 8x channels)
EQ:	3 band (sweepable mid)	3 band (sweepable mid)
Dynamics:	8x single knob compressor	8x single knob compressor

FX:	32-bit processor (30 presets)	32-bit processor (30 presets)
ParaGraphic EQ:	Yes (32 bands)	Yes (32 bands)
Auto Feedback Canceller:	Yes	Yes
Mute Groups:	4	4
USB:	2 track recording	2 track recording