Generally modern digital audio consoles do nothing when the software crashes.
Meaning whatever was up when the crash happened stays as it was.
But most (if not all) of those still have dedicatd control surfaces. This one doesn't.
In the marketing literature on
Mackie's site they say "The DL1608 is loaded with a choice of powerful plug-ins on every
channel, so you won’t need to set up additional racks of outboard gear. With just the touch of a finger, you have total control over 4-band EQ, compression and
gate plug-ins." The use of the term "plug-ins" suggests that it is actually the app and the iPad handling the audio processing and that's a very different situation than the iPad just being a control interface and not actually part of the audio chain.
The marketing also says "With Total Snapshot Recall*, you can now easily save and access
sound check settings for multiple bands, complex song mixes, previous mixes from challenging venues, recall scenes for theater productions and more." So they do seem to be envisioning theatrical applications as an intended market, however they provide no information on how the scene recall actually works or if it is at all appropriate for theatrical applications. I'm not even sure if the scenes are stored on the
mixer or the iPad, although I would guess the latter.
These are examples of aspects I think it is important to understand more about before purchasing. While I think some of the new mixing products coming out are very innovative products for certain applications, I really hate that manufacturers are marketing products with little or no information other than marketing material long before anyone can actually demo or review an at least close to production product. I hope I'm wrong but I foresee too many people purchasing these mixers based on the marketing only to find them to not be all they thought they would be but also not wanting to admit they jumped the gun.
An example of questionable marketing is the "Install Friendly Features" marketing where it says "The
Mackie DL1608 is perfect for installing in venues. With its easy to use Master
Fader iPad application it has never been easier to train up new sound engineers. Plus, forget the bulky racks of outboard gear, the powerfully small, low
profile design lets you install it just about anywhere." They seem to be suggesting that the DL1608 is especially appropriate for installed applications but then go on to not
address anything actually relevant to that. I'm trying to find the "install friendly" aspects but it doesn't appear to be rack mountable, it doesn't have rear panel connectors, it requires a secondary device to operate (not to mention one for which most contractors will not be dealers nor can they warranty). It's not tech
rider friendly and I'm not sure about installing a
mixer for which one of the primary advantages is letting people walk off with the part that makes it all work. So where are the actual "install friendly" features? That doesn't make it a bad product, it does seem to make it questionable marketing of the product.