Allen & Heath Zed-10 mixing console

Main Features

• 10 channel mixer with USB
• 4 mic/line inputs, 2 with Class A FET high impedance
• Responsive 3-band, swept mid EQ with MusiQ
• 2 stereo sources with MP3 player compatibility
• Comes with IK Multimedia's X-Gear software

The Allen & Heath ZED-10 is an amazing little desk for small band mixing. It's ultra portable for carrying to the gig, and can be used for recording live or in the studio. Guitars can be plugged in directly to the mixer using the specially designed high-impedance inputs, while the mixer has two stereo inputs for MP3/CD players or keyboards.


The ZED-10 comes fully equipped with professional XLR main stereo outputs and a flexible monitoring section with headphone and speaker feed outputs. The layout makes it very easy to use and easy to achieve a great sound. It's also perfect for recording either a live show or an audio project at home can be built up track by track using the USB digital audio interface.

The flexibility and quality of this mixer makes it stand out from the crowd. You can plug your guitars or instruments straight into the class A discrete FET high impedance inputs, cater for up to four microphones, two stereo sources with MP3 player compatibility, separate 2-track record outputs and a stereo playback input for 2-track replay or perhaps interval music from a CD player, XLR main stereo outputs with inserts, comprehensive monitoring with headphones and separate monitor speaker outputs, 48V microphone phantom power and DI level switching for sub mixing.

Guitar DI
In place of the DuoPre, the ZED-10 has pre-amps similar in design to the MixWizard range of mixers, but with a twist! Inputs 3 & 4 have a high impedance jack input capable of taking either a normal line level or a low level input from a guitar pickup.

These newly designed inputs have been crafted with the aim of replicating the sound of a classic guitar or instrument tube pre-amp in a combo or head amp. An extremely high input impedance ensures loading on pick-ups is minimal and a Class A FET (field effect transistor) circuit powered from 48V is employed to give the valve-like gain stage. There is a gain 'Boost' switch associated with the guitar inputs which boosts gain by 26dB to cater for instruments with very low level outputs and the overdrive characteristics of the guitar inputs are very similar to a valve (tube) circuit, being asymmetric and soft. All this makes for a wonderfully natural sound to be reproduced from the instrument, full of warmth and character.

EQ section
ZED-10 is equipped with a responsive 3-band EQ with MusiQ, an optimised slope (or Q factor) for equalising individual instruments.

Record Bus
A separately switched stereo bus can be routed to from any channel creating a selective recording bus, monitoring bus or stereo clean feed output. You can even route just the effects processor output to this bus and use the mixer as a high end effects unit.

USB audio flexibility
Getting audio to and from a computer easily is now a common requirement for live sound and music production. The way it's implemented on the ZED-10 is super-flexible and super-easy! No longer do you need to fiddle around the back of your PC to get to the soundcard inputs, only to find that the levels are all wrong and noisy. Just plug in a USB lead to your ZED-10, select the USB routing on the mixer and the device on your computer and that's it! Quality audio to and from your PC or Mac. Three switches provide different send/return configurations for recording, playback and utilising external FX.

Build
The ZED-10 has been designed using individual vertically mounted circuit boards with each rotary control fixed with a metal nut to the front panel - making a much more robust product that will resist damage and give years of reliable use.

AmpliTube X-GEAR Software
Allen & Heath is pleased to announce a partnership with leading music software company, IK Multimedia, to bundle its pioneering AmpliTube X-GEAR software with the ZED-10.