Analog Mixer

[Louie Lou]

Ok...I've researched like a damn detective on X...and I've been narrowing it down. I would like to know from any of you veterans out there; if you know which analog mixer kicks ass?

I want to spend between 500 - 1000 ducks and I want a minimum of 12 channels/ 4 bus / 2 stereo out / with SPDIF if available.

What do you recommend?


Holla

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

I have two Mackie mixers, the 1202 and 1402. Technically they only have 2 busses, but with some clever routing you can get 4 out of it.

What I like about the Mackies:

1. They have mic preamps. People say that they sound pretty good for integrated preamps, I've never played with a dedicated one so I cannot say that they sound any better or worse.

2. The Alt 3/4 button. This is actually a mute button, but instead of routing the signal to nothing, it routes it to a set of outputs in the back of the mixer. This is the buss; I plug the Alt 3/4 outputs into the inputs of my soundcard, that way whenever I want to send a signal from the mixer's input to the soundcard, I hit the Alt 3/4 button and the signal is there.

3. It is SOLID. A big metal casing, nice faders and knobs, and an internal power supply which means I don't have to worry about getting some expensive proprietary wall wart power supply if I lose the cable.

The 1202 I think is about $400, the 1402 about $500. If you are willing to spend up to $1000, you shouldn't have any problem getting a mixer with the features you mentioned.

If you want SPDIF, you'll have to look into getting a digital mixer, I haven't seen any analogue mixers with digital outputs on it. Although I could be wrong...

A friend has two Tascam TM-D1000's and LOVES them, he picked them up for about $300 a piece when Guitar Center blew them out.

Take care,

Nick

 

[Cold Truth]

what is a bus, exactly, and what is its function? i never really understood that....

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

A buss is used for 'submixing', or putting a series of channels under the control of one fader.

Imagine this:

You have a mixer with 16 inputs, all of them are being used. Let's say that on channels 1-4 you have a snare, kick, hats and other percussion; channels 5-11 you have an assortment of sounds like your main sample riff, strings, guitars, other sounds, etc., and channels 12-16 you have a bass and some vocals. Everything is panned, leveled and eq'd the way you like it.

However, after listening to your mix you think that the drums are good, but the strings (channels 5-11) are too loud and the bass/vocals (channels 12-16) aren't loud enough. You COULD grab faders 5-11 and pull them down and faders 12-16 to pull them up, but it gets a little funky if the faders aren't all level because you have to make sure that your fingers are steady...

However, you could assign channels 5-11 to buss 1/2 and channels 12-16 to buss 3/4...you would then simply move the buss 1/2 faders down and the buss 3/4 faders up, and all the volume, pan and eq settings would follow properly. And you're only having to use 4 fingers instead of 12! Sometimes a buss will be a stereo pair under the control of a single fader, this will mean that you would only need 2 fingers to control them.


That's just one of many uses for busses, I'm sure that there are many more...

The amount of busses available on a mixer is a selling point because it gives the user more control over the mix. When buying a mixer, it will usually tell you how many channels and busses it has in the model number...my 1402 has 14 channels and 2 busses, a 1202 has 12 channels and 2 busses....a 1604 has 16 channels and 4 busses etc..

Take care,

Nick

 

[Louie Lou]

Good info peeps....I've been learning that info too. Ok this is the one I really want to get..it gets awesome reviews, but this joint is gonna cost me a bucket to ship to alaska. They only do ground shipping on this joint. I heard it was big.

So I must get a smaller unit and these are my choices:

Alesis Studio 32 16/32 Channel 4 Bus in line mixer

Behringer Eurodesk MX2442A Mixer

Behringer Eurorack MX3242X 32/16 Channel with Digital Effects

Mackie CFX12 Compact Mixer with Effects 12x4x1

Yamaha MG16/6FX 16 Input 4 Bus Mixer w/Dual EFX

Spirit RW5632US M8 8 Mono 4 Stereo Ch Mixer (this one has no bus, but it has SPDIF)

Which one? Has anyone tried any of these mixers. My setup includes a triton le with 4 outputs, and zoom drum machine with L/R output, and roland CDX-1 Sampling Digital recorder with a pair of RCA out and SPDIF, Coaxial. I want to be able to connect to my laptop with an Maudio USB unit that has 2 simultaneous channels at a minimum.

 

[inrctyhoodmusic]

Originally posted by Louie Lou


Behringer Eurodesk MX2442A Mixer

^^^I have this one ..I'm not good with the terms or mixer words I know that we have a soundblaster pc hooked up to it a esw88 box
and we use the mpc2000xl triton rack mount and asrx..we also use cubase to record ...after reading vitiminman explaing what a bus is it has 4 busses 1-2 and 3-4 on the bottom right conner with the set of six slides 4 are white and 2 are black the white ones are the buses and the 2 black ones are the are the main sound controls

What's an spdif?

 

[Fade]

Taken from techtarget.com:

S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a standard audio transfer file format. It is usually found on digital audio equipment such as a DAT machine or audio processing device. It allows the transfer of audio from one file to another without the conversion to and from an analog format, which could degrade the signal quality.
The most common connector used with an S/PDIF interface is the RCA connector, the same one used for consumer audio products. An optical connector is also sometimes used.

 

[Louie Lou]

Well I went and cop'd a Behringer DDX3216 Digital Mixer. I'll give reviews on it once I've learned my way around it.

 

[Billy Bathgate]

I like the digital mixers better then the analog mixers personally. they souns cleaner to me.

 

[Louie Lou]

Well, I just snatched it out the box and plugged in sum 1/4 TRS to my keyboard, connected my near fields and tape out/in to my digital recorder and dat shit rocked straight out da box. Can't wait to play with dat joint sum mo. I need to invest in cables now ...I figure with the equipment I have so far, it will be 150. to 200. in cables. (good quality cables).