Reccomend Me A Small Character Mixer

JG96

JG96

Active member
Hi everyone. I have just purchased a motu 828 and I am planning to get a behringer ADA8000. I would like to get a small analog mixer with 4-8 channels. I would go bigger but I am a college student confided to a small apartment for the time being.
The two must haves are transformer driven pres and a somewhat decent eq. It doesn't have to be technically great but just something to take the sheen off my tracks and introduce a wee bit of transformer grit.
If it had spring reverb and/or compression that would be nice too but it is not a necessity.
Any suggestions?
 
Toft makes some great stuff. My band tracked an EP on an ATB 16 a couple years ago. Unfortunately my budges is also more along the lines of Yamaha, Teac, and Ramsa type gear. Any suggestions for cheap stuff with some lo-fi mojo?
 
Do you want to use at as a preamp, a summing mixer or both?

If mostly for preamp use the Yamaha EM300 and EM150 is great as it has a great character to it. Wouldn't call it lo-fi as it has a rich, defined but somehow dirty sound to it. However it's an ancient live desk with no mute buttons so for mixing completely out of the box it's a pain in the ass.

If you want character stay away from Mackie. The Fostex desks are dirt cheap and kindda acceptable and has a certain colour to it. You can do better though depending on budget.
 
The top priority is as a preamp. Maybe I will sum the drum bus or something to the mixer.
Ill check the yamaha and fostex stuff out. Any specific fostex model. I wont be mixing completely out of the box for a while. I just don't have the space for all the gear necessary yet. I'm looking to spend very little.
Gotta save up for my own space so I can start getting big toys.
 
I recommend the Tascam 106 AKA M106. This a 6-channel 4-buss mixer that is super versatile. It has no transformers, but not sure why you want them. You may have good reasons. This mixer is unbalanced, but I highly recommend it especially as an analog front-end for a DAW. It's very easy to get around on and just plain sounds good. I'll always have one around no matter what other mixers I have. EQ is basic 10 kHz shelving for high and 100 Hz shelving for low. This is not a limitation. The EQ is clean and simply allows you to add sparkle at the top end or put more boom in the bottom.

When it comes to ins and outs it is more versatile than many more expensive mixers.

- Mic in, Line in, Direct out and Insert on each channel.
- 4-buss with Insert on each buss (very important for adding things like pre-fader analog compression and other processing on the stereo mix)
- Sub ins for each buss so you can stack these mixers or add another model in the future as you expand
- One Effect send
- One AUX send (can be used as a second Effect send)
- Small footprint
- Even has Phono in for turntables
-Analog Meters with Overload indicator LEDs on each cahnnel
- And did I mention it sounds great?

M106.jpg
 
Those look mighty fine. I have a friend who recently upgraded from a teac to a soundcraft board. I gotta see if he would be willing to part with the old one. From what i've heard transformers sound the best when hit hard but maybe those teac and tascam boards do too?
 
The Teac Model 3 and Model 5 both have transformer inputs on the mic inputs. The line inputs are tranformerless. While these boards definitely have "character", the TASCAM M106 would be a cleaner choice in terms of self noise, as Beck mentioned.

Cheers! :)
 
The Ghost of FM said:
The Teac Model 3 and Model 5 both have transformer inputs on the mic inputs. The line inputs are tranformerless. While these boards definitely have "character", the TASCAM M106 would be a cleaner choice in terms of self noise, as Beck mentioned.

Cheers! :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up. I might go with the model 5 if my friend is parting with his.
It seems a lot of these mixers cost so much to ship that it only makes sense to buy them locally which can take some time. Theres a tascam M-106 a state over from me for cheap. So that is a possibility too.
 
The Ghost of FM said:
True. But it can be added via accessory without too much fanfare or expense.

Cheers! :)
Click to expand...

I was mainly pointing this out so that if there was a chose between one with phantom and one without they may go with the phantom. But yes it;s not too much to put on external phantom.

Alan.
 
Shoot me down if I'm wrong, but since the size of the mixer is a concern I assume you aren't tracking the band live. If you are going to do tracks mostly individually, I might suggest getting a mixer with low noise and good EQ (maybe a MixWizard 20:8:2), then splurge on a Focusrite ISA One or similar.

Does anybody have an issue with the Behringer AD/DA box? I do pure analog to tape so I'm not savvy on AD/DA, but unless I hear otherwise, Behringer is a red flag.
 
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The Beringer ADA8000 is one of their few products that people seem to be happy with. I am going to be tracking mostly live but I will be doing that in either my drummer or guitarists house rather than my own.
 
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