Since so many artists these days see themselves as content creators rather than simply actors, musicians, filmmakers or broadcasters, manufacturers have begun to create tools that address the end-to-end needs of people who need to work in many forms of digital media. While the best smartphones and webcams have the visual end handled for the most part (and for those who need more, plenty of great cameras are still out there), the audio side of the creation equation hasn’t quite been solved, especially for those who need to work with multiple people in person or streaming.
Enter two giants of the pro audio industry: Roland/Boss and Mackie, with a pair of mixers with some similarity to the small mixers aimed at those looking for dedicated podcasting gear but with so much under the hood they’re really full-fledged content creation stations — and they’re available at surprisingly low prices. We checked out?the Boss Gigcaster 8 and Mackie DLZ to see what they have to offer — and who each mixer is for.
With a streamlined interface and a cornucopia of effects for guitarists and vocalists, the Gigcaster 8 is a small mixer versatile enough to handle livestreams, podcast recording, general audio production or live gigs — it's an ideal tool for modern musicians.
A lot of products promise to grow with you, but the easy-to-use DLZ Creator really can. You can tailor the interface to your needs, whether you're a beginner or a professional who needs tools for complex audio recording sessions, streaming or video production.
What makes a mixer for content creators?
Roland and Mackie have long made mixing consoles for amateur and professional recordists working in all kinds of situations, but the latest models from both manufacturers — the Boss Gigcaster 8 and the Mackie DLZ Creator — are aimed squarely at today’s content creators, who are often playing multiple roles (artist, on-air-personality, producer and more) as they work toward a finished production, videocast or livestream.
These models incorporate everything you need to work on audio or audio-for-video projects start to finish with one to four people. You get an expanded “control room” section, with four headphone sends (critical for those interviews and conversations), a full suite of effects (with the Boss Gigcaster 8 even incorporating dedicated amplifier and stomp box effects for guitarists, bassists and other instrumentalists), friendly mixdown features and even on-board recording.
Both of these units also incorporate features you’d find in a radio station control room, such as dedicated pads to fire off preloaded samples. If you need quick access to a laugh track, sound effects, reported clips or anything else, it’s easy to work those into your production at the touch of a button.
Basically, you can — with just a little work — record your podcasts or soundtrack your livestreams with either one of these boards, without picking up any extra gear aside from the microphones and headphones you need. They both work as multichannel USB-C audio interfaces with your computer, so whatever the software you’re using to stream, track and edit, you’re covered.
Boss Gigcaster 8: The mixer for guitarists and bassists who want to record at home
What we liked about the Boss Gigcaster 8
A perfect small mixer for musicians
The key feature here is obvious from just a glance at the front panel: right on the front panel below the master fader you’ll find a ?-inch input jack labeled with a guitar icon, inviting you to plug right in (there are also a pair of ?-inch jacks for headphones and a smartphone, tablet or other device — super convenient if you’re using this, as Boss no doubt expects, on a desk rather than in a studio setup). The mixer feels solidly built as is typical for Boss, with a heavy, compact frame that fits on a crowded desk
Plugging in you’ll find a very complete set of effects here, with FX and amp modeling sounds taken from Boss’ top-of-the-line GT-1000 and a nifty drag-and-drop interface ported over from the company’s newer GX-100 multi effects unit. There’s even a jack to hook up an expression pedal (or one of Boss’ full-featured multi-footswitch controllers) if you want access to wah-wah and other effects pedal style interaction. Boss (and parent company Roland) effects are the standard for traditional guitar and bass processing, and you get a very friendly to use package here, including very high quality amplifier simulation — there’s enough here that somebody who is mostly playing guitar, bass, synthesizers or other electronic instruments at home might not need an amplifier or outboard pedals or rack effects units (or amp simulator or modeler) at all.
And the second channel offers similar functionality, tailored for vocalists: you get compression, rooms and reverbs, AutoTune-like smart pitch-shifting, virtual harmony and so on. It works well for singers or just to create variety (and of course you can go wild and process whatever you like).
The upshot of all this is that you can very easily record professional-quality guitar and bass and vocal tracks with just the Gigcaster 8 and no outboard gear whatsoever. Or, if your aims are more modest, you can connect another device via a cable or Bluetooth and practice along with your favorite tunes, backing tracks, demos from your bandmates or whatever communications from the muses tickle your fancy.
The Gigcaster 8 is also a nice solution for solo musicians, small ensembles (you’ll have to keep it tight since you’ve only got 4 microphone preamp inputs, after all) or singer-songwriters looking to perform while accompanying themselves with anything from an acoustic guitar, to backing tracks from a phone or tablet, to a full array of synthesizers, computer-based sequenced sources, DJ equipment, or whatever else you’re into. It’s very cool and one of the most versatile little mixers I’ve ever run across.
Tons of functionality for home recordists, podcasters, livestreamers and other content creators
Boss and parent company Roland have several products — the AeroCaster video switcher and a full lineup of streaming A/V mixers — that cover traditional livestreamer needs pretty well. But without extra gear, those don’t play as nicely with people looking to cover live events or to incorporate musical sources. That’s where the Gigcaster 8 really shines — it gives you fantastic bang for the buck.
The Gigcaster 8 has 4 headphone outputs with individual level controls. Interestingly the headphone jacks are all ?-inch rather than ?-inch, which saves space and is something of a concession to the reality of much of what’s out there having been designed for use with phones. Adapters are easy enough to come by for your ?-only studio cans, but it does make it simpler if your collaborators are bringing their own. The master section has a talkback switch, so if you’re livestreaming and need to cue or otherwise talk to somebody you’re working with but don’t want it on the air, you can route the first microphone input just to the headphones while keeping it out of your master mix.
For those more focused on recording than streaming, you can use the Gigcaster 8 as either a USB-C audio interface or record directly to an SD card if you don’t want to take a computer with you. You can even stream over USB-C to a phone or tablet to run audio for your livestream if you’re working in Instagram Live, Twitch or whatever else. The Gigcaster 8 is also a MIDI-over-USB device, so you can use the mixer’s onboard controls or a connected footswitch to control cameras or other MIDI-controllable gear if you are streaming using OBS on a connected computer. Plus, you can use the USB-C connection for power, so you can run the Gigcaster 8 from a portable charger if you’re off on a remote recording session.
Below the faders, the mixer has a sample pad-based soundboard with multiple banks of sound effects — likely more than you’d need for any broadcast or livecast situation beyond a very elaborate radio drama, but they are there if you do need them. This’d even be a great little mixer for live sound design for small, media-heavy theatrical productions. You can reassign these pads to control almost anything on the mixer, so even if you don’t need air horns or rimshots you’ll likely find them useful.
32-bit float multitrack recording — you don’t get a ton of options when recording to an SD card, but with a ton of headroom you can just edit the files to you
What we didn’t like about the Boss Gigcaster 8
This is a Boss product, so it has tons of flexibility…and accessing all of it takes a little menu-diving. Until you’ve figured out your workflow you’re going to be doing a lot of scrolling on the display, which is probably more work than need be. It would have been nice to see a tabbed, all-related-functions-on-a-single-page setup as Mackie’s done with the DLZ.
Admittedly it’s hard to pack so much into a small box, however, so this is by no means a dealbreaker given you have most of a full guitar and bass amp modeler and vocal effects workstation packed in here alongside the mixer functionality.
While you have 4 headphone outputs, they are all served by a single send, so you can’t set up individual mixes for each collaborator — this likely won’t be much of an issue for radio (since you can mute each headphone output easily enough, which is likely all you’ll need to do) but limits it a bit for music recording.
The touchscreen is nice to have, and the drag-and-drop effects chain building is really an improvement over older Boss all-menu interfaces. However, the display itself is small, dim and sluggish compared to a smartphone or tablet, and disappointing once you’ve experienced the lovely display on the Mackie DLZ.
Similarly, the faders, while they have a very long throw for how small the mixer is, feel a bit flimsy compared to those you’d find on analog mixers in this price range. I don’t think you’d want to throw this in a bag without a fitted case to protect the faders and knobs.
These are, however, minor issues in such a complete package, and for such a complex product the Gigcaster 8 manages to be very enjoyable and surprisingly simple to use.
Mackie DLZ Creator: a small mixer with big console features for ambitious podcasters
What we liked about the Mackie DLZ Creator
Stellar user interface design
The Mackie DLZ Creator is laid out much more like a studio console than the Gigcaster. Mackie’s been perfecting their mixer layouts for a long time, and they really got the UI right on the DLZ. The big display uses a tabbed layout that’ll feel familiar to anybody who has ever used a browser, and puts everything you need for each group of settings on a single page. There’s no scrolling or menu diving anywhere — it’s quick and easy to get to any function. It’s a real pleasure to be able to see equalizer curves or compression ratios represented graphically while you tweak settings — very refreshing by comparison with displays that mimic the obscurities of vintage gear or menu-based systems that force you to dig through a bunch of numbers.
Software wizards that can help you learn to mix — really!
Mackie’s marketing for the device makes much of the DLZ’s configurable interface, which lets you expose features in stages — “Easy,” “Enhanced” and “Pro” — as your skills grow, but seriously the entire interface is laid out so clearly and cleanly you may be able to skip ahead even if you haven’t spent a ton of time mixing. The Easy and Pro modes in particular really have a lot to offer; on the one hand holding your hand through the setup process and exposing only the necessary controls, and on the other offering beautiful graphic interfaces to all sorts of channel strip functions that make everyday sound-sculpting tasks a simple, straightforward and downright pleasant experience.
In easy mode, the DLZ walks you through pretty much everything you need to know with well-thought-out and clearly presented graphical guides — these cover everything you’ll run into in a basic session, from plugging in your headphones and microphones to connecting to your computer or other device and getting underway running the console itself, either to mix or record to an SD card. It’s very well done, without a lot of unnecessary detail, and focuses on the essentials that’ll get a novice up and running — and with so many people coming to podcasting from non-audio backgrounds, these wizard-style guides are a very useful extra..
“Pro” mode here means more than just exposing more granular controls and settings (which is what it does, of course. But the interesting thing is that the DLZ actually offers some real professional tools that I haven’t come across on similarly priced devices (and certainly not on something that a novice can start using right away).
Room to grow — even if you go pro
Under the hood, the DLZ supports streaming audio and control over Ethernet using the professional broadcasting Network Device Interface (NDI) protocol. If you know what that is, you don’t need me to tell you about it, but if you don’t it means that you can use the DLZ to stream audio from one computer to another (locally or over the internet), or work with NDI-compatible cameras to set up a full videocasting studio, or broadcast from your gaming PC using OBS running on another machine, or work with collaborators in other places using their own DLZs or compatible devices.
The DLZ is the first small mixer like this to support NDI, and it means that even if you purchase a DLZ as an absolute novice it will be able to grow with you as you advance — even if you hit the big time.
What we didn’t like about the Mackie DLZ Creator
A bigger footprint than the competition
The only real downside of the DLZ is its large size relative to many analog 8-channel mixers, and to competitors like the Gigcaster 8. Unlike the Gigcaster or smaller podcast workstations from R?de and others, the Mackie DLZ doesn’t easily fit on a desk with your everyday office gear. I found it too big to keep on my desk proper and relegated it to a cart — you could fit it in, but I much preferred the Boss Gigcaster’s compactness and found myself wishing for a slimmed-down DLZ.
Also, with a lightweight, mostly plastic housing the DLZ doesn’t feel as robust as you might expect — or as it actually is.I “tested” this by knocking over the cart I had placed the DLZ on, snapping the power cable, and dropping the thing on the floor. I did manage to put a couple of scratches on the front panel but after replacing the power cable everything worked fine. (Nice people at Mackie…I’m sorry!). It’s continued to work just fine following the incident, which probably pushes the boundaries of normal treatment.
Not as many effects for instrumentalists
Beyond that, if you’re primarily an instrumentalist or vocalist you’ll want to keep in mind that the DLZ doesn’t have the cornucopia of effects and amplifier simulations that the Gigcaster 8 offers. Don’t get me wrong — the compressors, eq, and other bread-and-butter processors the DLZ has are super easy to work with and sound quite good — this just isn’t as directed towards musicians.
Bottom line
So many creative people consider themselves multidisciplinary “creators” and not simply musicians, or video video producers or broadcasters, and the tools to serve their needs have been maturing quickly — and despite their similarities the Mackie DLZ Creator and the Boss Gigcaster 8 don’t so much compete as speak to different kinds of creators.
If you’re mostly streaming or recording music or interviewing people who do — whether you’re a gear influencer, indie artist or whatever else — take a serious look at the Gigcaster 8. It’s got a remarkably complete package of effects that’ll let you clean up your desk or take your show on the road.
If you’re dealing with multiple interviewees on a regular basis, want the flexibility to collaborate remotely or want to be able to expand your projects to include video and interface with pro gear (or if work runs more towards old-school radio or TV production styles), the Mackie DLZ should definitely be on your list. It’s also a great mixer for absolute beginners — it’s rare to see a product that can walk you through the basics and has enough under the hood to grow with you as you build your skills.
