Mackie Onyx 1620

[MisterPopo31]

I'm planning on getting the Mackie Onyx 1620 board to use with the firewire i/o option on my laptop. Has anyone else had any experience with this board? Is it worth the $? Quality of preamps? Overall value? All your comments about this board are greatly appreciated.

[Ironklad Audio]

i have a 1640 and would recommend it to anyone. i have some friends who have m-box's and 003 units, and have gone through all kinds of bullshit trying to get them to work properly

with the onyx stuff, you literally just pop the firewire card into the back of the mixer, install the driver, and you're set...takes about 2 minutes total

[Vagodeoz]

That might be my future setup... when I have the money.
Mackie makes good stuff for the price.

[Hi_Flyer]

I just traded a 1220 in on a 1620. Shop around and try to find a deal. If you can score a 1620 mixer for $600 or so, its totally worth it (FW adapter is additional $300 or so on top of that...).

The pres sound good to me, and they get lots of praise.

I use mine with an Otari MX5050 1/2" 8 track and Reaper. The drivers have been pretty solid in Reaper, but everything seems to be a little more stable in that app. check out the mackie support forums, and you will find alot of users that have had problems with the drivers, but it seems you have that with so many interfaces.

I would recommend!

[Sloan]

The new guitarist in my band has a 1640 and we recorded our gig last Friday.
It's super easy to setup since you can use it as a live mixer and just send the audio to the laptop and not worry about it - it just gets the raw tracks and you can set the board eq and stuff for your live sound and not worry about messing up your source tracks. very cool.

I'm no expert on preamps, but these seem to lack a little low end?

Definitely easy to use and setup. Recommended.

[BushmasterM4]

1640 here. Using Tracktion 3. Works out very well in studio and as a live mixer.

[MisterPopo31]

Thanks for all the feedback. I've been trying to decide on a pair of active monitors. I have no specific budget,(preferrable below $1,000), but does anyone have any suggestions? I've been thinking about spending the cash for the Mackie HR824s, but they defintely are overpriced. Is there a similar qulaity monitor for less? Again, all comments are appreciated.

[therage!]

Originally Posted by MisterPopo31

Thanks for all the feedback. I've been trying to decide on a pair of active monitors. I have no specific budget,(preferrable below $1,000), but does anyone have any suggestions? I've been thinking about spending the cash for the Mackie HR824s, but they defintely are overpriced. Is there a similar qulaity monitor for less? Again, all comments are appreciated.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/A7/