Integrating two Mackie mixers

C2tjs

New member
I have an out-building at my home with a room (30' x 24'). It has a 10' ceiling. I have set the room up for live music with a PA and side fills. I also do multi-track recording sessions (separately). I do live broadcasts from this studio in a "Home Concert" format with a live audience of 30 people. I am currently using a Mackie Onyx 1640i, Xsplit Broadcast software and a few cameras for the live broadcasts. I am routing all channels through an Aux for the broadcast audio feed, so I'm mixing the broadcast audio somewhat blind because I can't hear the broadcast feed in the live room well enough to do a dynamic mix. I'm using Sonar Pro and an 8-channel headphone amp for the recording sessions.

I do all this basically on the cheap, and as a philanthropic endeavor, giving artists an avenue to play private shows for profit as well as providing a place to record original music on a shoestring budget. Besides, I'm old now and I just enjoy helping people musically. I don't make any claims of engineering prowess nor do I have polished producer skills. It is what it is.

Switching back and forth between live performances and recording sessions is a chore for me, and with only 16 tracks from the Mackie (via firewire), I would occasionally find myself short. So now I'm adding a Mackie 2404VLZ4 4-Bus which is a 24 channel mixer. I do love those Onyx pre's, but the VLZ4 only records 4 busses, so it looks like with the 1640i and the VLZ4 on the Mothership I can have a total of 20 tracks.

Okay.... there's the background for the purpose of this post, which is to hopefully get some consultation on the best way to integrate these two mixers for my purpose. It looks like there are many ways to do it and I want to choose the best one I can, at least for the first attempt anyway. I'll be able to post some images after I obtain some cred on this site.



The VLZ4 has 2x onboard effects that could come in handy with the live performances. Both mixers have 6 aux sends.

My preferred track/channel list is:
8 drums
4 vocals
3 GTRs
2 KEYS
1 Bass
2 Misc

I have no idea if this is the right way to go about asking this community for advice, but here it is. I, of course, will try to answer any pertinent questions. Thank you for even reading this in the first place.
 
I can only 'look at the numbers' but, the 1640i is a 16 tracks Firewire mixer and you cannot get more than 16 tracks into your PC.
The 24track mixer is NOT FW and so does not help the situation? There is one slight advantage, the 24 ch mixer could be used to pre-mix say a drum kit to a 2 track feed to the 1640i? That would free up a few tracks on the FW mixer depending on how many mics you use on drums now.

But, 24 channels is an overkill. An 8 or at the most 12 channel mixer would be all you need.

Ooo!>
Soundcraft Ui24R Remote-controlled Digital Mixer | Sweetwater
Dave.
 
Last edited:
Thanks dave. The original plan was to use the 24 channel and sell the 16, but now I'm going to have to either use both or return the 24 channel, sell the 16 and buy something that can interface more than 16 channels.
BTW... the 24 channel does interface 4 busses into the computer via USB. They all show up on Sonar.
 
Last edited:
Thanks dave. The original plan was to use the 24 channel and sell the 16, but now I'm going to have to either use both or return the 24 channel, sell the 16 and buy something that can interface more than 16 channels.
BTW... the 24 channel does interface 4 busses into the computer via USB. They all show up on Sonar.

Ah! So you are running a PC (not a mac). AFAIK you cannot run two devices and have ASIO drivers? (the ability to do this has, I understand, been TALKED about ad.n. but never achieved) .

If you want to stay with the Mackie pre amps* then you need a 24 input LINE level A to D converter. These are not common. A&H make a 16 input jobbie and I am sure there is a 24 way device but the name escapes me. But, even that route is fraught. LOT of cables and the mixer really needs to have Direct Outs. You could use inserts but a bit of a kludge for an "upgrade" system that I think you are after.

I am not really the guy to talk to! You are wanting to move past the "Projjy" stage of home recording and perhaps need to be looking at more exotic kit? The new digital mixers from Behringer, A&H and such? RME?

I hope someone else here has a setup similar to the one you aspire to and jumps in to help. In any case, pop over to soundonsound.com and post your question there, gather a lot of information before you make any rash purchases!

*Those aside, do you really need a mixer? Ok if you do but maybe it is a case of "always done it this way, need to expand the same way". Just as a for instance, you could get the Tascam 20-20 and an ADAT unit?

Dave
 
If you want to use both, you'll have to experiment with the ASIO4all driver. It works for some setups.

The latency will be a little bit worse than the device with the highest latency. I've never tried it with USB and firewire, but I've used it to aggregate two USB devices on the Mac in the past.
 
What I know so far is that my Sonar Pro recognizes both the Firewire Inputs (16) from the 1640i, and the USB Inputs (4) from the VLZ4. I will test these today to see that they do indeed record correctly.

My plan as of this moment is to get 16 tracks of audio into Sonar from the 1640i, then send the signal from each of those channels (via the "Direct Out" feature) to 16 channels on the VLZ4 via its Line In jack. This will allow the utilization of all the nice features of the VLZ4 for a live performance while the 1640i handles the bulk of the inputs to Sonar. There could be lots of flexibility if this would work. It allows each input to Sonar from the 1640i to be dry, and then there's still the 4 busses from the VLZ4 that can be inputs to Sonar.

While I do agree that this is overkill to an extent, it also provides redundancy which gives me a warm fuzzy during a live broadcast. The manual for the 1640I doesn't mention the "direct out" feature of each channel. I'll have to test it to see if it works, but it does look promising because it's simply a technique of how a TS plug is inserted into the "insert" jack. I'm hoping that it was simply something they realized worked and thought it worthy of the manual.
 
The VLZ4 manual does not mention Direct Outs because it does no have them!

It does however have 20 inserts. These will serve but you will need to buy or make up special TRS to TS cables where the tip and ring are linked to preserve the signal path through the mixer whilst 'pinching' a signal for other purposes.

I don't really understand your proposed M.O. But all luck with it and, as we used to say in the radio repair trade "Tune for maximum smoke!"

Dave.
 
From the VLZ4 manual.....

Using the Send Only on an Insert Jack:

If you insert a TS (mono) 1/4" plug only partially (to the first click) into the VLZ4 insert jack, the plug will not activate the jack switch and will not open the insert loop in the circuit (thereby allowing the channel signal to continue on its merry way through the mixer).

This allows you to tap out the channel or bus signal without interrupting normal operation.

Am I misinterpreting this?
 
While I do agree that this is overkill to an extent, it also provides redundancy

It doesn't. Suppose the PSU for the 1640i fails, most of the inputs to the VLZ4 drop out. And if the VLZ4 fails, it's all gone.

You could of course, replug everything if one of the mixers fails...

But adding features can be a good reason to do it. I never need many channels, so the RME with it's 18 inputs is already overkill in most cases. Despite that, I added a digital mixer and go out with 8 channels over ADAT from the RME to the mixer and back. I can still use RME's TotalMix and I have added real faders, which comes in handy sometimes.

When it comes to the effects on the Korg mixer, I never use those. Just routing and controlling levels. It's especially handy when someone who isn't used to TotalMix is helping. Real faders (with a label) don't scare them, TotalMix is very alien to somebody who has never used it. And I don't like sticky labels on the laptop's sceeen :D
 
From the VLZ4 manual.....

Using the Send Only on an Insert Jack:

If you insert a TS (mono) 1/4" plug only partially (to the first click) into the VLZ4 insert jack, the plug will not activate the jack switch and will not open the insert loop in the circuit (thereby allowing the channel signal to continue on its merry way through the mixer).

This allows you to tap out the channel or bus signal without interrupting normal operation.

Am I misinterpreting this?

No, that is correct but for someone looking to run with belt, braces AND piece of string I am surprised you contemplate the "half in, half out, half arsed" mode of operation!

Make some proper fekkin' leads!

Dave.
 
I use a 1640i in my midi rig. It does have direct outs for each channel on a DB25 connector on the back of the mixer. Since Mackie decided to not support this product anymore, there are no Mac or PC drivers available for anything past Yosemite or Windows 8.1. At least that’s what the email from Mackie said. It’s my only option to use the direct outs once I upgrade to a new OS.
 
Dave, the Mackie boards I've used have strongly sprung ring contacts. I did it quite a bit on my PA when I was doing that for money. It's neither ideal nor as bad as you suggest. The biggest risk was a "helpful" assistant "correcting" the "mistake" and pushing the plug in. Spacers made of 1/4"id fuel hose solved that. I still keep a handful of them around for odd situations.

In my opinion the best solution is patch bays. Then you can use the inserts as inserts and split them off for recording. If you set them up properly you can even choose pre- or post-insert recording.
 
I would look into the Presonus Studiolive boards of I were you. You can get the 32 channel that is FireWire and call it a day.
 
Back
Top