Soundcraft Signature Plus

British mixer veterans Soundcraft prove there’s still a place for analogue in our modern world.

It wasn’t until I started researching for this review that I noticed how quiet things have been at Soundcraft, and for how long. In terms of new releases, things have been remarkably subdued for a really long time.

But this has changed with the release of an entirely new design that succeeds Soundcraft’s discontinued Signature series of compact analogue mixers. The original Signature was a solid, simple compact mixer, but this all‑new model adds significantly more features and flexibility, making it more comparable to Soundcraft’s K1 of the mid‑’90s. I remember doing lots of corporate and theatre work on the K1, and the Signature Plus, I think, achieves much of the same flexibility at a lower price and in a much smaller footprint.

In a market that has been transformed by the introduction of compact digital mixers, in 2026 an all‑analogue mixer has to offer more than it used to. This review has been interesting because it underlines the value of products which manage to offer immediacy and simplicity along with enough flexibility to get the job done. The Signature Plus is one such product.

Channel Hopping

The Signature Plus is a compact but solidly built series of analogue mixers suitable for live sound and studio use. Available in 12‑, 16‑, 22‑ and 32‑channel sizes, they all share the same features, differing only in channel count. I opted for the smallest of the range, the 12‑channel model, which weighs a little over 6kg (13lbs) and measures a mere 35cm (14 inches) wide. The depth of 54cm (21 inches) and a maximum height of 10cm (four inches) is common to all the models.

All models in the Signature Plus range have two stereo groups (which can alternatively be used as four mono groups), one stereo mix bus, four auxiliary sends and a dedicated effects send, a well‑appointed control room and headphone section, flexible internal effects courtesy of Lexicon, comprehensive talkback features and a 4x4 USB interface.

The L‑shaped profile angles the controls towards the user, while rubber padding along the back edge functions as a handle for transport.

The wedge‑like tilt of the top panel is created by an approximately L‑shaped profile, with the back panel angling downwards to generate a triangular void below the mixer, which is useful for passing cables through. A rubber grip along the bottom of the back edge allows the mixer to be carried by the fingertips of one hand, a feature I really like.

The top and bottom panels are all‑metal construction, with connectors all nutted or bolted onto the top panel, giving reassuring solidity. The side cheeks are plastic, and the power supply is built in, with a single IEC and power switch on the rear panel.

All buttons offer a pleasing tactile click — no squashy rubber buttons here. Non‑illuminated buttons have a coloured collar on their lower half, allowing an easy visual check on whether or not they’re depressed. And as they are all proper buttons, it’s very easy to assess the status of any row by dragging a fingertip across the top. Exactly what I like to see (or feel).

The ‘squircle’ knobs are ergonomically designed, and also offer improved visibility of panel markings compared with a traditional round knob.The knobs are interesting in that they are a squashed circle shape, which Soundcraft refers to as a ‘squircle’. However amusing the word is, the thinking behind it is sensible. Their research identified two techniques for turning a knob: gripping and twisting with the wrist, or rolling the control between the fingers. A pointed knob offers more tactile feedback to people who twist, but is unhelpful for people who prefer to roll between the fingers. A squircle offers the best of both worlds. In use, although I’m more of a roller than a twister, I can confirm that it is an effective arrangement.

Also, mercifully, the spacing between controls has been well considered. I can think of more than one mixer I’ve reviewed which has failed badly on this, so well done Soundcraft on squeezing so much into a small space and keeping it usable.

The faders are 60mm long, and while I initially wondered whether I might find these a poor relation to a proper 100mm fader, in use they’re a good choice, particularly in a compact design. For a product like this, I’d rather keep the mixer compact than gain that extra 40mm.

Use of colour gives plenty of visual feedback, with coloured rings on the knobs, or entire knobs and buttons being visually linked by colour. Areas of the top panel are shaded too, with outputs identified in pale grey, and blue identifying the effects section. Mute and Listen buttons are unmissably illuminated when pressed, and rather than relying on hijacking the main output’s LED ladder meters, individual tri‑colour LEDs on each channel communicate signal level or gain reduction.

Input Channels

The mono input channels are all identical other than the inclusion or omission of a Hi‑Z input switch, which on the 12‑channel model is available on inputs 3 to 6, with the corresponding space on inputs 1 and 2 occupied by a global 48V phantom power switch with status LED.

Looking down a channel, we first have a combi TRS/XLR input connector. Initially, I was disappointed by this because underneath it is a quarter‑inch socket, which rather than being an input is actually an insert point. On reflection, I would happily swap the compromise of not being able to leave TRS and XLR inputs simultaneously connected for the added flexibility of an insert point. It seems a fair exchange to me.

The mic preamp design is from the Soundcraft Ghost, a medium‑format recording console that I know well, one having been installed in a studio I worked in 20 years ago. This preamp offers a healthy 65dB of clean gain with a 100Hz high‑pass filter and switchable pad.

There’s a one‑knob compressor available on mono channels, based on the dbx OverEasy design, with an accompanying gain‑reduction LED meter and a dedicated switch to engage it. This makes it far more usable than a one‑knob compressor with no visual feedback or way to A/B between processed and unprocessed.

All models in the Signature Plus range have exactly the same features, differing only in their mono channel count.The EQ is based on that of the Soundcraft Sapphyre, but the implementation on the Signature Plus offers three bands. The high and low shelves are at 12kHz and 60Hz respectively, and the swept mid band has a well‑chosen range from 150Hz to 3kHz, meaning that the ever‑troublesome low‑mid area is always accessible. There’s a helpful Q/gain behaviour in this design, in that the Q is wide for boosts and narrow for cuts, which is exactly what you’d want in most applications.

There are four mono auxiliaries available per channel, as well as a fifth dedicated post‑fade effects send feeding the built‑in Lexicon effects. Having four sends available for monitor mixes on a compact mixer like this is one of its principal strengths; many comparable mixers offer just two.

Following the pan control we have proper routing facilities to the mix bus, or busses 1+2 or 3+4. There’s also a dedicated listen bus available via an illuminated button. This isn’t a solo, in the sense that it won’t interrupt the front‑of‑house mix. Finally, we have a red illuminated mute button and the aforementioned 60mm fader.

The stereo channels duplicate most of the facilities of the mono channels, the key differences being that the quarter‑inch TRS below the combi connector, which is an insert point on mono channels, is a right channel input for when the channel is used with stereo sources. This difference is denoted by a red surround. A second difference is that the pan pot is replaced by a balance control.

Channel 11+12 replaces the XLR/TRS inputs with a pair of phonos. The last two stereo channels also add dedicated controls for the four channels of USB return, with trim pots and routing buttons below the panel‑mounted USB‑C socket.

On this 12‑channel example, stereo channel 7+8 uses the space occupied by the USB return controls on the other stereo channels for a QR code, which takes you to online resources from Soundcraft specific to the Signature Plus.

Centre Section

So far we’ve described a nicely specified compact mixer, but the thing that has made this mixer interesting for me is the centre section. In the pre‑digital days I found it frustrating that it was so often necessary to specify a big mixer to access certain output features. Back in the early 2000s, when I was doing sound at corporate events, I often needed only a handful of input channels, but had to use large‑format simply to access features such as a large output matrix. While there’s no matrix on this mixer, even on the smallest model in the range you get exactly the same centre section as you would on the 32‑channel model. The centre section being identical across all frame sizes for me is possibly the most significant feature of this new range.

Starting with the groups, these can be routed either to dedicated group outputs or on to the mix bus. The Sum button above each pair of group faders allows the two stereo groups to be used individually as four mono groups feeding inputs into a DAW, with routing between odd and even groups achieved using the pan control. With the Sum button engaged, the input signal is monitored in mono and remains in the centre of the stereo image, avoiding the extreme panning which would otherwise occur when using the groups in this way.

The four auxiliaries each have an individual master level control and are individually assignable pre‑ or post‑fade. Each also has a talkback assign button, a listen button and a mute. A useful addition is the Mix to Aux control, a dedicated pot that can mix some of the main left‑right mix into the auxiliary, where it can be supplemented by additional level from any source track via the auxiliary sends. My only minor gripe with the auxes is that they are strictly mono and there isn’t a way to link a pair together for use with in‑ear monitors. However, I found a useful workaround using the phones section — see box.

Moving on to the control room and headphones sections, these are particularly flexible, with proper monitoring facilities laid on in both. The control room output feeds a pair of XLRs next to the main mix outputs. A set of buttons allows you to monitor any combination of the mix, group outputs, USB outputs and auxiliaries. Along with the listen bus, mute, dim and sum buttons and assignable talkback, this is a very flexible arrangement. The headphones section duplicates exactly the same facilities.

Built-in Lexicon Effects

The built‑in Lexicon effects are actually pretty good. I’ve had some very mixed opinions of the built‑in effects in smaller notepad mixers I’ve used in the past, and while the Signature Plus effects are not going to challenge a top‑drawer reverb plug‑in, when set up with care these onboard effects sound fine.

A detented rotary encoder allows you to select between 32 different effects: a variety of reverbs, some delays, some modulation and some combination effects. Three control pots deliver quick adjustment of important parameters. For example, on reverbs you have direct control over pre‑delay and decay, plus ‘variation’, which on reverbs typically controls HF damping. For delays, it’s time, feedback and filtering. Using this system, I found I could quickly dial in the reverbs and delays that I wanted.

Having only a single effect available does inevitably limit the usefulness in a live situation, and I can see a few of these programs being auditioned once and never visited again by many users. I don’t know when I last needed vibrato as an aux effect available across a mix. But as the effects can be routed to a DAW and printed, the more specialised effects could see use when recording.

The effects return to the mix on a dedicated channel, with routing controls identical to those on the input channels. So it is possible to give your vocalist an inappropriately heavy confidence reverb in their monitor whilst leaving the front‑of‑house mix with more tasteful settings.

A personal bugbear of mine is effects not being muted between songs, and there is an effects mute footswitch socket available for this purpose. Unfortunately, neither of my two available footswitches was the right polarity, so this went untested. The illuminated mute button on the effects return achieves exactly the same thing, though, and is very accessible.

There’s also a tap tempo button in the effects section and, if you prefer, a footswitch can also be used to set delay time. Effects are recalled at their default setting but if you set up a configuration you want to use again, you can save it as a user default. Press and hold the Store button to save it.

Talkback & Routing

Lastly, we have the talkback section, with a dedicated mic input and preamp. Talkback can be assigned to any of the four auxiliaries, the effects send, the main mix, the headphone output or the control room output. There’s a large Talkback button above the mix output with a status LED. Press and release and it’s momentary; double‑press and it latches, and is released by pressing again.

The centre section is unusually well specified for a compact mixer, with comprehensive monitoring options and the ability to send any of the mixes to the control room and headphone outs.As you can probably see, the centre section of this mixer packs in a lot of features not usually found on compact mixers. And if we’re being pedantic, it’s not in the centre!

In my initial recording experiments, I patched the Signature Plus into my interface using analogue cables fed from the group outputs. This gave the mixer‑plus‑tape‑machine workflow that will be familiar to many, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the long‑neglected experience of routing tracks ‘to tape’ using the group buttons and pan pots (see box). However, the Signature Plus can also be used as a 4‑in/4‑out USB interface courtesy of the USB‑C connection on the top panel. The interface is class compliant and showed up as a Core Audio device on my Mac with no driver to install.

Routing is slightly different in this arrangement. The USB DAW inputs 1+2 are fed from the main mix, while USB DAW inputs 3+4 are taken from the output of groups 3+4. This isn’t what I’d do in analogue, where I’d use groups 1 to 4. I suspect the choice of assigning USB inputs 1+2 to the mix output is intended to provide a simple default stereo record feed. To monitor the USB output returns, the dedicated controls on the last two stereo channels are used, and these are then routed to your desired monitoring outputs.

In Use

I deliberately chose to review the 12‑channel version of the Signature Plus, because I wanted the smallest, most portable model, but also because you buy a mixer, or any equipment, for an intended purpose. While it’s tempting to specify gear for the most that you might ever do and accommodate that, a more pragmatic approach is to get gear for the work you actually do. Twelve channels were enough for the uses I anticipated.

I definitely have a use for a mixer with enough channels to accommodate my band for small self‑op gigs. Mixers with enough inputs are easy to find, but when dealing with small analogue mixers, the choice decreases rapidly when you’re looking for a reasonable number of outputs, particularly for monitor mixes.

Also, playing live in small venues, a three‑band EQ with fixed frequencies is never flexible enough to address the problems you actually experience live, which usually means dealing with low‑mid build‑up on individual channels. Some usable effects and compression are also desirable. While EQ across the main mix and monitor outputs would be nice to have, it’s not a showstopper. Nor is the lack of access to more detailed dynamics processing.

My questions when looking at this mixer were: is this enough to get the job done? And, if so, is this better than using a small digital mixer? What advantages does it have over a small digital mixer, which will definitely have enough flexibility to address those finer points? I grew up using analogue mixers, but have become unused to them over the last decade. Is the immediacy and user‑friendliness of an analogue mixer enough of a benefit to outweigh the compromises introduced by the fixed architecture?

Having used the Signature Plus at gigs, for hosting an open mic and for some basic recording tasks, I have to conclude that the immediacy and ease with which basic tasks can be set up is even more significant than I already knew it to be. I regularly use a rackmount, iPad‑driven digital mixer with a similar I/O complement to this mixer, coincidentally also made by Soundcraft. While I enjoy its flexibility and the mobility afforded by mixing over Wi‑Fi, and even though I know my way around the control app well, it can’t compete with the reach‑out‑and‑press‑a‑button, one‑knob‑per‑function benefits of this little analogue mixer. And I’m prepared to compromise a little on features to have that.

A nice illustration of this came while mixing from on stage. I was able to tweak a singer’s monitor mix while continuing to play keyboards with one hand, with just a glance over at the mixer to locate the correct pot. This would be impossible mixing from an iPad, and wouldn’t be straightforward using a better‑specified compact mixer with faders.

What Does The Signature Plus Sound Like?

I haven’t yet said anything about how the Signature Plus sounds. This is not boutique high‑end audio equipment, and although I did mix some stems from Pro Tools through it in the analogue domain, I wouldn’t suggest there’s a sonic advantage in doing this. However, it did feel nice, and the limited number of options I had when mixing this way was quite liberating.

The compression was effective and very hard to get wrong. The EQ is very decent. The low shelf is gentle enough to achieve more than its 60Hz corner frequency might suggest and the 12kHz high shelf is sweet enough to avoid harshness. The asymmetric Q of the midrange was helpful in cleaning up low‑midrange or gently lifting the edge in a vocal.

The effects section hits the right balance between control and simplicity. Reverbs could be quickly shaped to sound good, my preferred setting for general use being the plate with some pre‑delay and HF damping. Getting more hands‑on with the effects, for example tapping in dotted delays using the tape delay setting, sounded suitably expansive.

Keeping things clean was easy even under less than ideal conditions — like from on stage — with clear metering and a good listen bus implementation so I could check things via my IEMs even when playing.

I’m fast in Pro Tools, but this is faster. Just having a simple interface which is flexible enough to get work done is a pleasure.

For recording, particularly in overdubbing workflows, this could be a very nice way to work. Monitoring is easy, and blending tracks together and printing them over USB or via the analogue group outputs is straightforward. I’m fast in Pro Tools, but this is faster. Just having a simple interface which is flexible enough to get work done is a pleasure.

Signature Plus Limitations?

What negatives are there about this mixer? Most are limitations which are apparent just by looking at it. Does this mixer offer the facilities you need to do the work you do? If the answer’s no, then it’s not for you. But if the answer’s yes, there’s a lot to commend it if you like working this way.

There’s nothing this mixer does that you can’t do with a digital mixer or using a computer, but that would be missing the point. If you like mixers, you’ll probably like this one. It’s flexible enough to meet most needs, and the different frame sizes mean there’s probably a model for you.

The biggest drawback for me is that in‑ear monitors are now ubiquitous, even at the lower end of the market, and the Signature Plus lacks the facility to deliver stereo monitor mixes.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this review, did I expect to like the Signature Plus as much as I do? My honest answer would be no. But it’s approachable and friendly to your average musician. And, being analogue (aside from the USB interfacing), it completely sidesteps the latency issues which always accompany computer‑based workflows at least to some degree. For potentially technophobic musicians, there’s nothing frightening here, but for people who dig deeper and are used to bigger, more capable mixers, there’s enough to get a lot of work done. And that’s quite an achievement for something of this size and price.