Soundcraft Notepad-12FX

Look nice, small and lightweight. Maybe not the most robust but no problem for homestudio/rehearsal
Simple and minimalist (no power switch, no power indicator, no 48v switch, ..) But not a problem for me
Preamp clear, Neutral, Good gain, no breath, pop's or other
All linds of Mic / Inst are well supported (Sure S58, RodeNt1, Bass guitar, Digital Piano, ..)
Simple and effective effects
Real 2/2 USB (Directly recognizable by Ableton after Installation of PC drivers)
You can record two tracks simultaneously in your favorite DAW
Different routing options in order to assign Mixer Inputs to the two USB tracks
Also two separate output tracks from the DAW to the mixer

The only "weak" point i see, but you can deal with it:
You always have to play with two
Knobs "FX / AUX (blue)" and "Input Level (big red)" in order to adjust the good balance between level and effect on a channel.
Also in order to completely silent a channel, your have to turn both knobs to zero

But first impression is Simple and Efficient

Update to come

Pros:
- It's compact and cute with nice colors (hey thats important to some people).
- The controls are smooth and of good quality.
- All controls and inputs/outputs are on the top.
- 2-1 (mixer and audio interface) will save you some studio space and money.
- The signal routing for is good when used as an interface for input recording IMO. Signal to PC goes after trim but before EQ and volume knob, wheras signal to XLR stereo out goes after EQ and volume knob. As such you can have direct monitoring on the XLR stereo out separately from what goes into PC, per channel.
- The option to set the interface to either 4 separate channels, or 2 channels plus the whole mix is nice (channels 1-2 are always the two of possible four though, but thats fine).
- It sounds good and clean (but more on sound on the cons too).

Cons:
- The built in effects are not good. The reverb especially is unusable and a let down, at least for me. Thankfully there is an AUX to add your own send, but doing so will sacrifice 2 inputs of course.
- There are only XLR outputs (and a headphones one). I really wish there were also a pair of jack outputs too for the stereo mix (so that I could hook it up simoultaenously with a recorder without coming up with more complicated setups to do this).
- As an audio interface, it has 4 outs. 2 of them are the XRL outputs and the other 2 are the headphone outputs. Once again wish there were a pair of jacks for the 3/4 output (to use outboard gear for example). You can probably use the headphone out for this and my previous con though, but a pair of jacks would have made all this much simpler.
- Phantom power is always ON.

Bottom line:
It's a good quality piece of gear that apparently I only find it lacks a pair of jacks for output and a decent reverb. Maybe a firmware can fix the kinda bad effects since they are digital anyways, and as for the pair of jacks output it is what it is.

Excellent sound. It seems just right for my setup: currently a Volca Bass, Microfreak and Medusa plugged into mono channels, and Blofeld and Model:Samples in two stereo channels. It has one mono channel and one stereo (but RCA version) still available. I use the secondary headphone output as send effect (Ocean Machine effect pedal) which returns a stereo signal.

I just wish the onboard effects could be effective even when receiving an effect return. Also it would have been nice if all channels would be recorded separately over USB (it can do two mono channels, or the stereo mix).

Also, for a beginner without experience in mixing, I found it a bit obscure to fiddle with synth volume, input gain and the proper channel levels for my effect send pedal, which can crackle if the input is too loud. Most of the time I can resolve any issue quickly, though.

I suspect isolated brief drop-outs in the recorded audio were produced in my laptop (i7, 16 GB, Windows 10, Audacity) by background processes.

I have been using this mixer now for 6 month, mainly for electronic music producing. For the first impression it is a solid unit with nice bulit quality. I have recorded manly synthesizers and other line level inputs, therefore I have not much experience with recording vocals with it. However I believe in this price range this mixer provides a really clean sound and the FX processor is just giving that extra touch for your mix that melt sounds together.

The user experience of it is really nice. Everithing is under hand and quiet straight forward. It does what you would expect from this level of mixer.
I found it relyable, it connects easily with my DAW.

I can recomend it into home studios and even I believe it can serve good for small bands on live performances.

I got this one for using in live performances. For a large part this is experimental music and having many inputs with a small portable formfactor, Lexicon effect and usb streaming capabilities made it the perfect candidate.

Sound is pretty for sure but the low frequencies of my synths make it crack and pop easily and way before the red signal starts flashing.
There is no way to meter/view your signal flow. Live I feel like skating on thin ice. You have 3 lights metering on the master but it gives no sense of your balance or anything for that matter. To be safe I now can not let the master get higher then one light flashing.

To have the send pre fader to use the send as a possible monitor send sounds nice for monitor users but for any other user like me it is absolute stupid and it makes the build in effects unusable for me. Or I have to fade out channels and the reverb out at the same out and so on... so I cant use the effect processor in a live situation.

Then I already read a lot of complaints about the usb/computer recording but it is a drama. I can get my daw to recognize the Soundcraft but recording one channel gives dropouts in the recording and it is not able to handle the sound out without dropouts either. This is without any demanding settings no vst.. plain audio recording and playback.

So I should be giving some compliments too but I am too disappointed. I found out about the issues in due time and I can not send it back anymore. I am now working with nice sounding but hugely flawed mixer.

i use this is a small live situation and in recording sometimes, its a really complex piece of kit, all under a easy to use interface. with an extremely high build quality and a easy to navigate layout, it makes for a brilliant mixer for every venue.
I run a stage piano, and 2 wireless saxophone systems, plus sometimes a Bass drum, snare and Overhead mics. It handles condenser mics perfectly without fault, and when using headphone it provides a nice splitting technique which allows you to play different mixes through the Main LR and headphones. Which in a live environment is great because you can check your inputs etc. before sending it live through the Main LR.

Overall it is definitely the best analogue mixer of this size out of all of the Behriger's etc.