BRUCE RICHARDSON - MIXER MIXER

[caveman]

Hi Bruce

Love your advice. although everyone elses is very welcome.

I do not do too much live recording and would like a new Mixer for Christmas. I have a Wamirack 192(seperate system)

I also have to mention that I have the Roland SRv 3030 outboard reverb rack unit.

Anyone recommend a mixer that would give me good results with the above gear I mentioned?

The Behringers Eurodesks look promising.(anyone used this series? I am looking at the 16 channel with 4 busses.

Bruce anyone?

Caveman

[caveman]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by caveman:
[qb]Hi Bruce

[caveman]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by thesoundsmith:
[QB]Not Bruce, but I definitely have an opinion (and that\'s all it is, feel free to ignore it...)

Go analog.

Hey Soundsmith, thanks for the ideas any spesific models you can think of?, especially for sampling? So that I can check them out?

Thanks

Caveman

[thesoundsmith]

Not Bruce, but I definitely have an opinion (and that\'s all it is, feel free to ignore it...)

Go analog. You state that don\'t do much live recording, so the additional learning curve is just added frustration. Mackie makes a nice line of reasonable analog boards, as do companies like Allen Heath, Soundcraft, even Tascam. But IMHO, Behringer is not the quality you want for creating samples. Not a BAD board, but they tend to add bells and whistles at the expense of signal to noise ratio. For your needs, it seems like a relatively straight-wire board (less features, better sound) will do nicely.

Dasher

[pmuse]

I concur with Ernstinen on the \"older Soundcraft\" versus a new cheap Mackie. However, I would like to qualify some opinions about mixers in general. If you are only using the mixing console as a means to monitor a variety of sources, I think a Mackie or Behringer will do fine. I\'m using a tiny little MidiMan sub-mixer to monitor my sources.

The critical path for me is input and tracking. I\'ll use the best pre-amps and convertors I can con, rent, or borrow. Once my tracks are captured, I\'ll be in the digital domain all the way to the final mix stage so as long as I can get a transparent and acceptable signal-to-noise monitoring situation, I\'m happy.

See, the final mixes don\'t ever go through the console anyway as it is only used as a relative reference for my old school analog ears. They go to my mastering engineer in digital format straight from the two-mix bus out of Vegas.

After one or two mastering spankings you\'ll have a whole new understanding of how to proceed with your next gig. You might even find that you need a better monitoring system in order to achieve a
better final mix.

That\'s my opinion anyway. For what it\'s worth.

Kevin

[caveman]

Ok Guys

Thanks for the advice.

So if I am going to choose the Analog mixer, I am looking at the following.

Please comment, or if you have experience with these boards or which will serve me well?

What mixer would you recommend? (Remember I can use my 4 mic inputs if I wanted to record with a Mic) Mixing will be more digital(samples, Midi Sound Modules. etc)

Behringer MX2004A
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=1280&Category=Mixers (\"http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=1280&Category=Mixers\")

Behringer MX1804X
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=3421&Category=Mixers (\"http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=3421&Category=Mixers\")

Behringer MX2442A Eurodesk
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=3423&Category=Mixers (\"http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=3423&Category=Mixers\")

Soundcraft Spirit SX
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=8663&Category=Mixers (\"http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?ProductCode=8663&Category=Mixers\")

(
If someone could look at the specs on the above mixers and look at its strengths and weaknesses keeping my needs in mind I might just buy you one too!!(only kidding)

I would be forever gratefull!!

Please help me decide between these.

Caveman

[ellle]

look for a (nearnew) mackie on ebay!

[caveman]

Which ones would you suggest?

Caveman

[Simon Ravn]

Everything but Behringer, please... images/icons/smile.gif

[ellle]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=925865845 (\"http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=925865845\")

you have 3 hours :-)

[clueless]

Just curious -- what is the problem with Behringer mixers?

clueless

[caveman]

Originally posted by thesoundsmith:
Not Bruce, but I definitely have an opinion (and that\'s all it is, feel free to ignore it...)

Go analog. For your needs, it seems like a relatively straight-wire board (less features, better sound) will do nicely.

Dasher<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Thanks for more info, this is exactly what I need, can you give me some decent mixers models etc. that will fit my needs as you stated straight wired(less feautures/better sound).

Caveman

[thesoundsmith]

As Dasher says,
\"Signal-To-Noise Ratio\". Keep noise to a minimum. Very Important!
Or is it \"Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Ratio\"?
<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Sigh: I keep telling youse - All I know about reindeer is that Comet\'s in the sink! (Or is that in sync? \'N Sick? Oh, forget it... BTW, with Rudolph, that\'s signal to nose... images/icons/tongue.gif

Caveman, what you haven\'t given us is a budget. Without one, it\'s hard to recommend, but here goes:

Soundcraft Spirit Folio FX16 - we use one of these live and it sounds great.
Soundcraft Spirit SX 12, around $600
Mackie - 1642VLZ PRO, around $849
Mackie 24-8, their smaller analog pro studio mixer, I don\'t have a price handy.
Allen&Heath WZ16:2dx, a hot compact pro mixer, around $1100
Alesis Studio 32, around $600 (don\'t crucify me, guys, I have a friend who loves his!)

Anybody else? These units are new, a Soundcraft 200B would be a great sound at a bargain.

Dasher

[caveman]

I wish not to spend more than $600

Bruce, have you been following this at all?

Please shed some light its dark in here!!

[caveman]

Bruce

Any good mixers that you would recommend for my needs here or comment on the first ones/

Thanks

Caveman

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Hi Caveman,

For what you want to do, I think a bargain Mackie or even a Behringer will be fine. Their line level mixing capabilities will get you what you need.

Kevin Phelan\'s advice is dead-on. If you\'re just looking to route analog gear into your system, a bargain mixer is ideal. Case in point, I have a Behringer MX8000 that I use just for that purpose (and Chuck Rainey gave it to me, so it also has some sentimental value). But I don\'t mix or do critical microphone tracking through it--for that I use a dedicated preamp, as Kevin mentions.

There is no more economical route to maximum quality results. If money is a factor (and where ISN\'T money a factor), your best route to top quality is investing in your computer\'s internal mixing capability, meaning good processor speed, plenty of RAM, and good quality mix applications and plugins. You can set that up as cheaply as you can buy just one or two good pieces of analog gear, and your results will be 100% as good in almost any application.

Per the SRV-330, congratulations. You have one of the finest reverb units a person could own at any price! I think it is probably the best piece of rack gear Roland ever made, and it sold for around $800 street price when it was new. Learn to program it, because that is the super power of this unit. It is also as automatable as the fanciest plugin systems on the market. You can assign CC information to just about any aspect of the reverb design, so that you\'re set up to do adjustments to the sound right from your sequencer.

I wouldn\'t use the 330 in realtime. I think your best bet is to use it on individual tracks or submixes as you see fit, and simply route the outputs at 100% wet back into your machine and record the reverb as a track. Repeat as necessary. Also, if you use mostly plugins, but want to use the 330 as a full-mix reverb to stick everything together, you can follow the same trick, only with the full mix, and then just use the rendered \"reverb track\" to route into your mix.

That\'s my personal take on things. You really have to spend BUCKS for analog gear that is quiet and responsive enough for scoring and other high-bandwidth audio work. But that quality comes very reasonably as long as you are content and able to keep your mixes in the digital domain. That doesn\'t preclude using analog gear like the 330--in fact, it really gives us a far more productive way to use it.

Hope that helps. Per the mixer, for your application, just buy the most reasonable deal that allows you to route your lines as you require, then add dedicated mic preamps in whatever number you require (and price you can afford) for the times when you want critical quality in your live mic\'ed tracks. There are good ones at all price points that you\'ll continue to use as your practice grows and you get new toys.

Good luck.

Oops, I should also just say this as a general comment. In the biggest picture, we\'re working in a time where an analog mixer\'s value is more in controlling the MONITORING of our work than the actual mixing of the final product. With the number of inputs on your Aardvark (four), if you find a four-bus mixer (Mackie\'s 16/4 model, for instance, or equivalent) you are set up. You have full routing of synth inputs to the card, which means no unplugging and plugging, plus you have full monitoring for all the gear you mention.

For instance, my Behringer has eight group busses. I have two Layla 24s and a Delta 1010 wired into it full-time, so that means I can route signal into any of three different machines instantly, with no stops. They come in through the monitor-side inputs, so any machine can be monitored from any channel. That is the value of a mixer in the digital domain, as I mentioned. All other issues of quality are simple to control. On a cheaper mixer, just stay away from EQ, mic-preamps, and any other place where quality is likely to suffer. Use digital transfers from machine to machine, in the form of spdif or lightpipe. In the analog domain, as long as you stay in the line-level system for input, and as long as you\'re doing final mixes in the digital domain, the quality will hold up and you\'ll have a lot more convenience in all your operations.