FP Logistics, production equipment sales and rental house in Orange County, recently added their 30th QSC TouchMix compact digital mixer to its extensive rental inventory, which also includes a wide variety of QSC K.2, KLA, KW and WideLine line array loudspeakers, KS112 powered and KS212C cardioid powered subwoofers and PLD Series amplifiers for their clients in the corporate, professional music and event markets.
“TouchMix has been phenomenal for our clients,” says FP Logistics owner Steven Lu. “And it changes the lives of its users.” Case in point, he says, is a customer who supplies PA systems for sunset cruises on a river boat based out of Long Beach, CA. “This client has to bring the entire PA system onboard the boat by and carry it up two decks. He tells me all the time that the combination of TouchMix and K.2 Series loudspeakers has made his life better because the hardest part of the gig — the cost in sweat of bringing the gear in and setting it up — has been mitigated so much that all that’s left is the fun part.”
Underlying TouchMix’s success, Lu believes, is QSC’s innovative design philosophy. “So many other manufacturers are still trying to capture an analog console feature set that was relevant 10 years ago. QSC instead thought about what end-users want, what they need, what their goals are, and built a modern mixer with that in mind. TouchMix is the best representative of that.”
The demand for both the TouchMix-16, which launched the new product line, and the more recently introduced TouchMix-30 Pro, has exceeded his expectations. “When we first brought on the product, I thought maybe we’d have a half-dozen TouchMix mixers in rental. Now every few months we need to add more,” he reports, “Now we have more than 30 units.”
User friendliness has been key to its popularity, Lu says. “I think TouchMix is a mixer that works well for everyone. It has all the power available in larger format mixers — within its channel count, obviously, but works equally well for a novice. But we will have a customer who has been on analog consoles since the dawn of mixers come into our will-call center, play with a TouchMix for maybe 10 minutes, and leave feeling confident about getting it up and running and sounding good for his 24-channel band performance. Our customers tell us all the time that this is a great mixer and they’re going to rent it again and again.”
But it’s not just ease of use that has customers returning time and again, he says. “When you start factoring in some of the features, you’re seeing a level of sophistication now available to, for example, a band that performs for a wedding. They can take on the podium mic reinforcement as well, because TouchMix has automatic feedback suppression and presets and features that, previously, you would have needed a tour sound engineer with ten years’ experience to operate. Now, they say, ‘I took the seven-minute YouTube training and I’m feeling good. And, hey — it sounds awesome.’”
TouchMix is not just compact, it’s virtually invisible, says Lu, since it can be easily operated remotely from a tablet. “We have so many customers who are working in luxury hotels, running meetings and social events, where a front of house position and a mixer with a bunch of wires is just not acceptable. TouchMix is ideal for events in the hospitality industry, as it is tucked away discretely while the tech is in a suit in the corner mixing on an iPad,” says Lu. “But it’s so powerful and feature-packed that I also have a significant number of customers using it in traditional music settings.”
FP Logistics also maintains a significant rental inventory of QSC loudspeakers. Here, too, TouchMix has had an impact, giving customers the confidence to tackle more ambitious equipment set-ups, according to Lu. “TouchMix has inspired many of our clients to take on more ambitious audio projects, both from the mixing perspective as well as PA scale perspective. Now they say, ‘I can pull that project off.’ You don’t need a degree anymore. QSC has made everything so easy.”
