DAW vs. Analogue vs. External digital mixing

[drshann]

All.

I’m weighing up a possible mixer solution for a home studio. The current setup is as follows:

Vocals: BLUE Kiwi / U87 -> Liquid Channel
Acoustic guitar: KM184 x 2 -> John Hardy M1
Room: BLUE Kiwi -> John Hardy M1

Preamps -> LynxTWO -> PC with Cubase SX 3

I’m currently doing my mixing in the PC (including all FX and processing). But, it’s a bit shitty using a mouse all the time.

Possibilities are:

1) Hardware controller and keep the mixing in the DAW.
2) External analogue mixer.
3) External digital mixer.

Can you offer any advice and / or do you know of any good articles / threads that weigh up the relative pros and cons of these three methods?

Asking for specific model recommendations is a very open ended thing to do, but if anyone has had good comparative experience I’d be very interested – my budget is about £1200 (about $2150). Given the relatively few channels I'll need - I'm hoping this is realistic.

Given the quality of the front end, a primary concern is maintaining the quality of the signal (only applicable to options 2 and 3 where another link is added to the chain).

Thanks.

Dave

[noisedude]

Hi Dave,

My preference is to keep all my mixing in the box. Less conversions = less noise and signal loss, although that shouldn't be an issue anyway with the gear you listed.

If you have 1200 quid, what I would do is to buy one of those Behringer BCF2000 moving fader control things to get a feel. They're only a hundred and summat quid. Then if you like that style, go look at the Tascam, Mackie and Yamaha options. If you don't like the interfacing method, then you can look at one of the Yamaha digital mixers, or even the Behringer DDX3216 which is only £500 at Digital Village now.

Hope that helps,

Nik

[Pro Tools User]

Why not look at a Mackie Universal, works with several programs. Just a thought.

Eddie

[xstatic]

That kind of budget might get you into a little Studer console, maybe a Trident Fleximix, or plenty of Older Soundcrafts or Soundtracs consoles. Just tossing out some other options