Gah! Need help deciding on a cross-platform live mixer and recording board!

Scorge

Scorge

New member
Ok so, here's the deal.

I joined a band and were all chipping in to get a mixer/recording unit for handling instrument and vocal levels, recording guitars, bass, piano, vox, drums blah blah blah etc...
Added effects such as built in compression, EQ and maybe some reverb/delay would be a nice addition, but the most important thing we need from the mixer is audio FIDELITY!!!! I'm talking some darn nice preamps and good AD/DA converters!!!!!

Price range is anything except super-expensive... so like no $5000 board... even $3000 would be a big stretch.

So far I was looking at some 16-channel mixers such as the Mackie Onyx 1640i which I was originally going to go with until I read some not-so-nice reviews and delved into other brands of mixers.

I'm currently looking at the Presonus StudioLive either 16.4.2 or the 16.0.2 but I can't quite follow through with a purchase this large without lots of opinions from experienced people.

Some other models I heard great reviews about:
- Allen & Heath ZED-R16
- Midas XL8

NO APOGEE ENSEMBLE! They're Mac only... and everyone knows that Mac only interfaces are figuratively RACIST, no offence. I already got one of those dinky duets.

All opinions are greatly appreciated, heck if you could recommend a mixer I'll add it to my list as I'll be heading out to a music store in a week or so to hear what the professionals have to say about it.

Cheers!

- Zac
 
Why not start off with an inexpensive Zoom R24 ?
For that way everyone can get their feet wet with recording before moving on to something that is going to cost an arm and a leg only to be divided up upon the ultimate break up of the band.
 
If it were me, I would choose the midas xl8. But I dont have $300,000 so my next choice would be the presonus studio live. Would do pretty good for a live performance and would make it easy to record live concerts. I'm not sure what kind of components they have in it but I'm sure it would hold its own during a recording session as well. There is always gonna be some guy who broke a fader and wrote 50 bad reviews under 50 different usernames. (Ok well, maybe once in a while that happens) & I've never liked the mackie onyx series. My keyboards run through it every week at church and it makes me cry.

moresound is right though, if you are unsure about the future of the band, dont dump 2,000 in a mixer/interface. Find something that will suit your needs in both live and recording.
 
Don't worry about the future of the band :p

I was more or less just interested in what would be the best choice for a mixer around the $1000-2000 mark.

Yeah I'm really digging the StudioLive, but that mixer has been around for several years now so there has to be some more up-to-date mixer technology out there. Midas XL8 I will look into some more as well.

Thanks for the answers guys!
 
Hahahaha my bad, I had no idea that the Midas XL8 retailed at $300,000 :eek:

I just briefly heard about the XL8... I really had no idea what kind of system it actually was :p

Yea, so count the XL8 out haha.
 
I know Behringer is coming out with a digital mixer. The X32. I used a small beheringer compact mixer and couldn't stand it but this might be what you are looking for.
 
The Presonus Live will do just fine, if you can stretch it to the Live 24.4.2 it has been updated and has more features. But then again the reason the live 16 is within reach is that it has been around for a while and the 24 is replacing it, the live 16 is still a good buy.

Cheers
Alan.
 
Yamaha 01V96, probably the VCM variant.

It's a fully professional mixer, unlike the others on your short list, has a wide range of plug in expansion cards which could be used for your recording options, the built in effects are based on the SPX stand alone unit which is good enough to feature on many riders, has dyanmics and gating on every channel, etc. etc.

Thousands of professionals can't all be wrong!

Bob
 
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