Am I doing something wrong with some of the presets?
Yes, you're using them.
Ok I get that they may be not be very useful or not very creative but it seems odd that Mackie would bother creating EQ presets that you can’t even detect if they are off or on.
They are marketing BS on all digital mixers - unfortunately to sell into the newbee market they have to have them as the uniformed look for them. That said I do recommend the "no clip" preset for the outputs. If you're newbee it's worth looking through the dynamics presets and getting an understanding as to what each is trying to do. EQ presets tend to be more harmful than useful but I suppose it might be worth a look at the kick drum one(s).
Yes I’m a newbee:
Thanks for the info, I will look into it. Do you think it’s a good idea to start with a HPF on everything except the kick, bass and keys?
Yes, absolutely. I set mine at 150 hz but that number is dependent of how much sub I'm using.
As for hearing the EQ's, you might not have proper gain structure on those channels. You need plenty of signal, and the gain needs to be high enough to hear the effect of the EQ. One thing I learned with the DL, EQ changes seem to need more drastic action than the older analog EQ's I was using. I don't typically use the presets, so I'll have to look at them to see what they're doing.
