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The MX300's front panel is a breeze to use

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• Review
• Manufacturer's Description

Lexicon's excellent signal-processing units range far and wide in high-end studios and sound-support systems. Of late, the company has been addressing the needs of project-studio developers with the MX200 and MX400 effectors, offering classic reverb sounds (plus other treatments), in a box that can be controlled from a DAW.

Whether on Mac or PC, the devices can be automated from within the sequencing environment either by VST or Audio Units protocols. This is a good idea because it means reverb handling (which is typically pretty aggressive with system resources) can be handled by dedicated external hardware - freeing up your processor power for other tasks - whilst still retaining all the benefits of real-time adjustments to your effects settings.

This is now another option in the Lexicon range in the shape of the MX300, a 19-inch rackmount multi-effects device packing a good proportion of the MX400's functionality, but retailing at just below £300.

Construction and features

Lifting it out of the box, it's clear that Lexicon's reputation for build quality is wholly intact. Solid, metal construction with positive-feeling knobs and buttons inspire confidence, as do the balanced XLR/TRS analogue audio I/Os for hum-negating cable runs. Mains is via a C14 inlet (kettle lead), so there's no wall-wart or trailing adaptor to contend with, and there's a USB port for computer connection. There's also a footswitch jack socket, so performers might want to consider the MX300 a quality ambient insert, and MIDI In/Thru further enhance control possibilities.

Surprisingly, digital I/O is via RCA phono S/PDIF - no optical option - so, as you'd expect, this makes for a maximum digital sampling rate of 48kHz at 24- bit, which is quite adequate for most tracking applications. The widest (quoted) frequency response is from 10Hz to 22kHz, so whales and bats beware.

In use

What really matters, though, is how the MX300 sounds and how easy it is to use. There are no concerns to report on either criteria. You can run the unit as a stand-alone device, relying on the front panel's well-laid-out buttons and rotaries. The info from the main LCD screen, and its underlying paging system, is simple to grasp and you've multiple parameter knobs with which to edit settings - a whole lot more intuitive than some manufacturers' 'one-knob-and-button-controls-everything' approach. There are 99 presets, with room for another 99 user-devised settings, and creating them is a breeze. From Plate Reverb to Arena, there's an avalanche of ambience to be had, plus distinct delays (a tap-tempo button features), chorus, phase, rotary, vibrato and pitch-shift. The MX300 can even be applied to dynamics processing thanks to DBX compressor and de-esser facilities.