Help chosing a mixer

[ChadP56]

I'm trying to do a little home recording and running in to some problems. I'm looking at recording two vocals and two acoustic guitars. I'd like to be able to maybe do more later. Anyhow, I'm not liking the quality of the Mackie DFX12 mixer for recording, too much noise (now that I've read the colum about chosing a mixer I understand this was a boad choice). I have an M-Audio Firewire 410 which seems to be very quiet that I will hook the mixer to. I am thinking of selling the Mackie and either getting a Peavey PV14 or a Yamaha MV12/6. I'm still open to other ideas though too.

Does anyone have feedback on which one would be better? I want to do live sound down the road, but right now I'm trying to get good recordings of some songs I've wrote.

Thanks for the help!

[ssscientist]

The noise problem you're having with the Mackie is probably coming from the built in effects. The two you are considering replacing it with both have effects built in too and therefore would be not much quieter than the Mackie.

I would recommend that you look at this or this if your budget stretches that far.

Either one would be an improvement as far as the noise floor goes and neither one has effects. You can find lots and lots of free plugin effects to take the place of the ones you don't have in your mixer here.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by ChadP56

I'm trying to do a little home recording and running in to some problems. I'm looking at recording two vocals and two acoustic guitars. I'd like to be able to maybe do more later. Anyhow, I'm not liking the quality of the Mackie DFX12 mixer for recording, too much noise (now that I've read the colum about chosing a mixer I understand this was a boad choice). I have an M-Audio Firewire 410 which seems to be very quiet that I will hook the mixer to. I am thinking of selling the Mackie and either getting a Peavey PV14 or a Yamaha MV12/6. I'm still open to other ideas though too.

Does anyone have feedback on which one would be better? I want to do live sound down the road, but right now I'm trying to get good recordings of some songs I've wrote.

I'd say Peavey DP14. I doubt you'll hear a huge difference, though. The Mackie specs out rather well. Makes me wonder if there's something else wrong---user error or wiring mistake. I definitely wouldn't characterize a 90db+ SNR as noisy....

[ChadP56]

I haven't ruled out user mistake! I have read some negative opinions on the noise floor and on the lack of outputs for recording. If you are familiar with the mackie, how would you go about running it to a deveice like the M-Audio firewiare 410? Balanced XLR vs. 1/4 inch vs. something else like RCA to 1/4 adapter?

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by ChadP56

I haven't ruled out user mistake! I have read some negative opinions on the noise floor and on the lack of outputs for recording. If you are familiar with the mackie, how would you go about running it to a deveice like the M-Audio firewiare 410? Balanced XLR vs. 1/4 inch vs. something else like RCA to 1/4 adapter?

I've never used that Mackie. I just skimmed the specs.... The way I'd wire it is probably the way I patched into my old CR1604. Put a stereo 1/4" to dual RCA adapter into the channel insert so you can tap each channel's signal right off the back of the preamp. I forget which one is which, but one channel ends up being a send to go out to your interface and the other acts like a return from the interface back into the channel.

[Edit: the left channel, at least on my CR1604, is the mixer's send (output), and the right channel is the return (input).]