FIFINE AmpliGame SC3 Overview
Being a device you will potentially need to be interacting with on a regular basis, the SC3 is designed to sit on your desk. If you are anything like me, despite having a fairly large table top, desk space is at a premium. Thankfully, the SC3 doesn’t take up too much space, measuring in at 6.5in x 4.5in x 1.75in. It also doesn’t weigh much, coming in at just 10.5 ounces. The AmpliGame SC3 features a black plastic body with gray writing for the branding and labeling. There is also a bit of colored lighting as well, but we will touch on that a bit later on.
The overall feel of the SC3 left me a bit concerned, as it is quite lightweight, and nothing about it really promotes a high-quality product. That being said, it doesn’t flex under use, and seems to be built sturdily.
Taking a look from the top down, the SC3 looks like a fairly standard desktop audio mixer. Eight buttons flank the four audio sliders, four on each side, while four additional buttons below the sliders are there to allow for some quick muting of the inputs and outputs. These buttons have your standard rubber design, with black coatings on them, and cutouts for illumination passthrough on the legends. Starting at the top portion of the SC3 there is a bit of branding and two LED indicator bars to show the active levels of your inputs and outputs. These indicator bars also illuminate when you make adjustments to the sliders themselves.
The left section of buttons start at the top with a “48V” button that controls the phantom power option for the XLR microphone connection.
The next button down labeled “Electric” is surrounded by 12 LED indicators that will illuminate to show which option is active. This button enables and cycles through 12 available tones to make pitch adjustments to the microphone input.
The next two buttons on the left side are labeled “Custom A” and “Custom C”, and can be used to playback a recorded audio file, up to 15 seconds in length. Pressing and holding these buttons will enable the record feature, and then a quick press will playback the recorded audio sample. These recordings can take advantage of all of the input options on the SC3, so you aren’t just limited to recordings via the microphone, which really expands your options for some quick playback of audio drops.
Moving to the right side buttons, up top is the lighting control button. This button lets you cycle through the five lighting modes, that include your standard rainbow effect, breathing, marquee, color changing, and single static color. You can also long press the button to turn the lighting off and on. One color option that wasn’t available, and was a surprise to me, was just plain white. While the other options are great for showing off, I think a plain white option would be a nice option for practical use.
Next up on the right side is a button labeled “Change Voice”, which is surrounded by six LED indicators. This button transforms your voice to one of the six mutations, including Male, Female, Robot, Monster, Baby, and Elder. I think this option is a holdout from days of past when everyone was just impressed by being able to change your voice, but in reality, this is entertaining for a few minutes, and then becomes a function you never use again, at least in my experience.
The final two buttons on the right side are “Custom B” and “Custom D”, and they offer the same recording options as the custom buttons on the left side.
Centered on the top of the SC3 are the four sliders that correspond from left to right to the Mic In, Line In, Headphone Monitor, and Line Out. Each slider top is concaved and features a set of grip lines, with the center line being red, and indicating the true position of the slider. Flanking the sliders on each side are level indicators so that you know if you are making positive or negative adjustments, though actual adjustment measurements are not to be found.
The bottom portion of the SC3’s top panel is home to four additional buttons, three of which offer quick-access mute for the two inputs and output. The other button is used to mute the audio going to the microphone monitor output, and is labeled as such.
Taking a look at the back edge of the AmpliGame SC3 brings us to the multiple connection offerings.
Starting on the left we have a USB Type-C interface labeled OTG/PC for connecting the SC3 to a PC or Mac, or even an Android device, which not only provides audio input and output options, but is also responsible for providing power to the mixer. Next up is the Line Out which can be provided to an input on another device, or even connected to external speakers. The Headphone jack is available for live monitoring of the input audio, and is a great way to get easy access to side-tone audio. The Line In input is available for adding an external audio source to the mixer, like a phone, tablet, or other audio device.
The right portion on the rear of the SC3 is where you will connect a microphone or headset. The 3.5mm jack on the left offers the option of using a headset-based or small microphone, while the XLR option allows for both XLR and 1/4″ microphone connections. There is also a switch here that adjusts between Dynamic and Condenser-style microphones.
From the left and right sides, you can see that there is a slight tilt to the top surface of the SC3. This positions it to face the user better than just having a flat top. Aside from that, there are no other features on the sides of the SC3.
Flipping the mixer over shows a pretty basic design, with four rubber feet in the corners to keep the SC3 in place on your desk surface. There is a wide channel that runs from front to back, and I’m not sure if it was intentional, but this could be used to guide microphone or headphone cables from the back of the mixer to the front, which could help out with cable management, depending on your install layout.
There is also a thin window on the bottom of the SC3 that covers an additional LED for a bit of under glow lighting.
