good 80's/90's analog consoles/mixers.

S

Simppu

Banned
Finally made an account here..

Anyways back to the topic. Recommend me some good warm and sound coloring analog consoles/mixers from the 80's and 90's that wouldn't be too large and too heavy. Maybe 20-30kg in weight would be where it's at. Oh and 16 to 24 channels would be ideal.

So far i've been looking at mackie consoles that really seem to fit the category and you find plenty of them from eBay but i'm not sure when some of those consoles are manufactured and i've read good and bad reviews about them. Should i maybe get one of those afterall? Do they get the Job done?
 
Welcome to the forum.

You'll get more traction and response if this is in the analog forum.

Anyway, I am unashamedly a tascam m520 user.
When the Mackie 8 bus boards boards came out I lusted after one as an 'upgrade ' but couldn't afford one at the time. Ended up taking a break from music for a while, and am glad I never bought one.

Seems the test of time hasn't fared well for them.
Not so easy to work on, parts are difficult ti get and build quality is lacking.

I'd done some recording on a few and to me the sound is very sterile.

Although not considered high end, I've been very pleased with the tascams.

Currently own and use one. Actually own two.

Check in the analog section of this forum and you'll find lots of info on this desk as well as others.

Just my opinion but I'd stay away from the mackie unless it was super cheap, had the full meter bridge and 100% worked.
 
I'll second that. If you are wanting something with any character at all, and something that can be worked on (i.e. separate boards for each channel and no surface-mount components), then I'd stay away from Mackie. Your requirements are tough...16-24 channels in 20-30kg with character...my go-to for good bang for the buck for features and build quality is any of the Tascam stuff, but it would have to be the 1500, 1600 or 2500 series i believe if you want it that light for that many channels.
 
The mackie 8 bus consoles came out in the mid 90's. They have never been described as 'warm' sounding. If you were going with something from that era, a Soundcraft Ghost would be a definite step up from those Mackies.

I haven't looked in a long time, but Amek boards were higher end and dead cheap a few years ago. But it really depends on your budget. The super awesome boards were tens of thousands of dollars new (the small ones) and now have a mystique about them, which costs more money.
 
I never liked the Mackies much, they were all the rage when they came out and Mackie made some good gear but I found then bland, don't know about the later stuff,

Have a look at the older Sound Craft consoles, nice eq.

Alan.
 
Thank you for moving the thread, i thought that maybe i should have posted it in the analog section. And i see, then in that case i'll steer away from the mackies.

I actually got recommended a tascam m2524 and i think it looked pretty decent, also i've seen a lot of people recommend soundcraft series and ghost consoles too.

About the weight, the problem here is that as i live in Finland, you really can't find that many used analog consoles from here which means i need to buy it from overseas. This brings the problem that some of the sellers won't ship it overseas if the console weights like a tank. Also my mesa boogie amp weights about 20kg which is the reason i'd rather stay in that weight class.

My budget would probably be something around 2000-3000€ at maximum and i think that should land me a pretty decent old school console.

What about old yamaha consoles, like the mc series? And how about allen & heath, toft or even trident?

Amek consoles are god tier, that's for sure, i can't just see many of them being on sale and also the weight of them is unknown to me. Even tascams are hard to come by atleast at the moment.
 
Simppu said:
I actually got recommended a tascam m2524 and i think it looked pretty decent, also i've seen a lot of people recommend soundcraft series and ghost consoles too.
Click to expand...

I actually had a M2524 and it is a pretty decent console, just sold it 6 months ago as I kept it hanging around as a live console and a location recording console. I would not call it warm but it served me well, the MIDI mute scene control is very handy, poor mans automation. I had many albums using the M2524 and I only stopped using it when I got a Tascam M3700.

Alan.
 
A decent console with the inputs you want probably isn't going to be light. If it is light, I'd be suspicious as to the quality of the build
Again, I'd stay away from the Mackie.

Maybe broaden your search of brands and stick to what is available in the EU?

Good news is that analog consoles are dirt cheap nowadays.
 
Well i consider my boogie to be relatively heavy so that's understandable.

Another option would be buying couple smaller consoles and then sync them if that's even possible. The only problem here is that how are you going to find same console twice from the ebay for example.

Are these soundcraft spirit live consoles any good?
 
Well, then not that one.

Should i consider getting for example two 8 channel mixers and then use them together to get 16 channels? Atleast those don't look so huge and i can actually see couple old yamaha 8 channel mixers in sale here in finland.
 
What is the intended purpose? Analog console to track to tape? If you want small there have been many small 16 channel consoles that fit in a 19inch rack. Akthough i would call them more mixers than consoles .
 
RFR said:
What is the intended purpose? Analog console to track to tape? If you want small there have been many small 16 channel consoles that fit in a 19inch rack. Akthough i would call them more mixers than consoles .
Click to expand...

I would like to record on a tape as i'm thinking of getting a tascam msr24s for example.

I'm still really noob in these sort of things but if i'm correct you need a console for tracking and then a console for mixing/summing or finishing the track sort of? Or can you do all this with a one bigger console?
 
Ok, fair enough. I got the idea.
Personally I'd advise against the msr24s. The Dolby Smodels are problematic , ill let others wiser than myself explain that. :)

I have an msr 16 with the dbx noise reduction which has been problem free.

Also 16 tracks is more than enough for most rock anf roll.

If i needed 24 tracks I'd go to a 'real' studio with a 2 inch machine.


As i stated before im using a Tascam m520 mixer. Its 20 channels with its own 16 channel monitor section.

This way i can hear what has already been recorded without disturbing the input channel settings.
On mixdown those 1st 16 channels get switched to tape and i have 4 channels left for effects or whatever else i want.


Now there are plenty of boards that will do that and more. I'm just talking about what I'm familiar with.
:D
 
Some people have stated that the dolby s offers a better noise reduction than the dbx. Also what worries me about the 16 channel version is that will i have enough channels for drums still, as each drum needs 1 or few mics, add ambient mics to that and few mics for cymbals also.

So basically the effects on those 4 channels will affect all of the 16 channels that you want to be affected? Can you achieve this with a 16 channel console or should i go for atleast 20?
 
Simppu said:
Some people have stated that the dolby s offers a better noise reduction than the dbx. Also what worries me about the 16 channel version is that will i have enough channels for drums still, as each drum needs 1 or few mics, add ambient mics to that and few mics for cymbals also.

So basically the effects on those 4 channels will affect all of the 16 channels that you want to be affected? Can you achieve this with a 16 channel console or should i go for atleast 20?
Click to expand...
Ive done whole albums and only used 12 to 14 channels. Usually my drums are 6. 1kick, 1 snare, two for toms, and two overheads.

Lots have liked dolby S better. But there is a problem with the chips. Dbx technology is time proven reliable, and sounds fine to me.

What you should do is study up on all this stuff. There is a wealth of info here on the analog forum as well as other places in the web.

Just for me, my setup has been perfect and I can also dump all my tape into protools should I want do be in the digital domain, or need more tracks.
 
Well, i think i'm going to stick for the 24 channels just in case, i can deal with a heavier console if that's necessary. And yeah i've been reading a lot of threads from here and gearslutz about analog stuff and learned bunch of new things that way.

Back to the topic tho: anyone here got any opinions on Yamaha or peavey consoles?
 
Peavey is junk. Yamaha make good consoles, but they also make cheap junk too. It will depend which model you are looking at.
 
I agree regarding the Yamaha.

And yes the issue with Dolby S is the VCA amplifier chips go bad and they are absolutely unobtanium...nobody has found a solution to the issue. So if you buy a Dolby S machine that works, you can be reasonably assured someday it won't, and there will likely be no solution except buy outboard dbx Type I noise reduction. I would avoid any machine equipped with Dolby S.
 
Is there any specific Yamaha consoles that you could recommend Me? Are the mc series consoles like mc2404 bad for example?

I can consider the msr24 with dbx in that Case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top