I think I am sick of the firewire mixer, may be ready to go to just interface,

R

rockironwebb

senior newbie caveman
I have been using an alesis multimix 16 firewire since I got into home recording. At first I enjoyed having the physical mixer and felt like it gave me more control. Now I am starting to feel like it is just extra steps in the whole process. Seems like anytime I need to adjust something, it involves too much. I mainly use it for band jamming and capturing ideas, but I still want to have as good a quality recording as possible. I am interested in possibly going with just an interface, but I need inputs. Would love one of those presonus studio live mixers, (seems to be intuitive?) I play the drums and I currently use 8 mics and sometimes a homeade sub-kick, so there is 9 xlr's, would then need room for 2 guitars, bass, and vocals down the road. Before anyone rips me a new one for having so many mics, I know, maybe overkill, but my gear, my drums, my preference. So I have been reading all day to the point of confusion, and I know that the topic gets beat to death here, but I figure I would ask advice directly before I sell the alesis, and then spend $700-$1000 on some new shit.
 
i've used the alesis multi mix 16 USB at work a lot and kinda agree that it can feel a bit of a faff at times, especially when setting headphones/playback but i'm not exactly sure what you mean by "extra steps" when adjusting stuff?

i'm honestly in two minds whether to suggest getting rid of it or not. for the money, I've found it to be very good. With some external preamps I've recorded whole band setups (vocals, 2 guitar's mic'd, bass with mic & DI, close mic'd drums with 6 channels) and although it's not as good in quality as some pricier gear, it's still excellent for the features IMO. for $700 - $1000 you could happily buy 6 very good external preamps to utilise all of the channels on the alesis.

Saying that, the studio live is outstanding and, as you said, way more intuitive in function, but i don't think it'd be any less steps for setup than the alesis.

if you really want to just go down the interface route, it may be worth looking at some nice 8 channel interfaces (focusrite, motu, presonus all come to mind) and the behringer ADA8000 to connect to the interface via an optical cable for an extra 8 channels
 
Nice advice. I just gone done reading about something like what you said towards the end, 8 channel interface along with preamp converter thingy. By extra steps I meant that any time I make any kind of an adjustment on the alesis, I have a strong compulsion to do some kind of adjustment in my DAW (ableton), I guess that being so new to this world I am not yet comfortable with my gear. Is it complicated at all to get an interface and something like the ADA80009 (or similar product) to jive together? When hooked up properly does it just show up in the daw as channels 1-16 coming from the interface?
 
The force is strong with this one hmmmmm.
We knew you would come over to the dark side. Feel the dark side flow through you.

If you want to wait a little bit longer that would give you time enough to save some more money and get THIS - as much as 32 channels of recording and a whole lot more.
 
wow

I thought maybe I could save and get the presonus 16.2 (12 preamp inputs i think) $1400? If I were to do that I might as well wait another month or two for the X32. I think I am leaning towards saving up and more than the bare minimum. I was hesitant in my early recording days to drop any big $$$$ not knowing how involved I would get. Now that I know I am in it for life I am no longer reluctant. Shit, if I get that X32, I'll mic top and bottom of every drum and cymbal I got and then make my band mates share a channel!! JK Thanx for the tips.
 
rockironwebb said:
By extra steps I meant that any time I make any kind of an adjustment on the alesis
Click to expand...

what kind of adjustment are you talking about? I use the same interface but I set it up once and never really had to do anything to it again outside the occasional gain or fader adjustment. All interfaces have gain adjustments. What are these extra steps?
 
rockironwebb said:
By extra steps I meant that any time I make any kind of an adjustment on the alesis, I have a strong compulsion to do some kind of adjustment in my DAW (ableton), I guess that being so new to this world I am not yet comfortable with my gear. Is it complicated at all to get an interface and something like the ADA80009 (or similar product) to jive together? When hooked up properly does it just show up in the daw as channels 1-16 coming from the interface?
Click to expand...

ah, i know what you mean, and it is just a case of fighting that compulsion. as arcadeko said, all interfaces will have at least some sort of gain stage and many other knobs so it's just getting used to being in the mind set that for setting levels/making adjustments when recording that try and ignore your DAW and just focus on your interface/mixer.

We set up an ADA8000 with a motu 8 pre at work and it saw it pretty much straight away. i can't remember if there were many extra steps other than plugging it in (i didn't do the full install) but if there are any problems i'm sure the internet has the answers and it must have been quite straight forward as some of our students helped and they're pretty n00bish

the X32 does look awesome! a friend showed me the link a while back, i'm a little sad that it's not out yet.

As i said, i've not had any problems using the Alesis so my advice would be to stick with it for a while and try and get in the mind set of almost "set and forget" if you can, and only reach for it to adjust the levels going into your DAW
 
If you like the Presonus stuff, the Firestudio tube is pretty sweet. It's discontinued, but they show up on ebay for $300-400 now. It gives you 10 preamps and 6 line ins. So that would leave you $600-700 in your budget for some pres to add. Maybe a Sytek, or a cheaper option would be one of the assorted 8 preamp rack units. Or, just get 2 Firestudio Tubes for a total of 16 solid state and 4 "tube" pres (they're really solid state pres with a tube circuit that you can dial in).

I know that people will just recommend whatever they have (which I am currently guilty of), but this might fit the bill of what you're looking for.
 
To senior newby caveman
I must 1stly point out that the Alises is not a fire wire output but a USB, the differnce here is that, and i have used this mixer, USB only adresses 2 channels to a computor, where as Fire wire handles as many channels as any mixer holds a to a pc as a proper studio would have. and for you using 8 microphones is not an overkill, having worked in studios as well as live recording, having the special drumkit mikes and special mikes for the kick drum to get that sound your looking for, also all the cymbals where miked so you get the true sound of each indivitual cymbal,the 16 channels is a bit limited for your use by the time you add the vocals 2 guitars, and vocals you may be pressed when you include keyboards and synthersisers. i just read a independed review on the presonus mixer which comes in variet of channels set up, and it looks very impressive and something i personally might get, and this is after i reviewed the Yamaha N12 analoque digital mixer, even though the the n 12 is smaller then the 16 the only diffrence for me was for video work is 5 point suround sound and most like didn't needed a bigger one , but comparing both i would lean towards the presonus which has a greater capabilities, and having 16, 4. 2 or 24. 4. 2 configuration i still could use it for suround sound mix down and have more build in processors and reverbs anything that stop me lugging extra gear with me and have it all abourd the mixer that can adress all channels, for the live show and record it at the same time
hope this might help
regards jack
 
Artvisual said:
To senior newby caveman
I must 1stly point out that the Alises is not a fire wire output but a USB, the differnce here is that, and i have used this mixer, USB only adresses 2 channels to a computor, where as Fire wire handles as many channels as any mixer holds a to a pc as a proper studio would have
Click to expand...

i don't mean to argue but Alesis made both firewire and usb versions of the Alesis Multimix 16 (as their website confirms). when we bought one for work we ordered the firewire one only to be told it was no longer available so got the usb version instead. Also, and this is main reason we were more than happy to get the usb version, both offer 16 (maybe 18; i can't remember if you can just record the main outs as well or not) individual inputs to the attached computer that can be recorded simultaneously. I do agree that one of the downfalls of some of the smaller alesis multimix boards was that they could only record a stereo out to the computer via usb and so this was the reason we opted for the bigger, multi-out multimix 16.

As a happy accident i recently had the opportunity to compare the two desks for recording the same band live. the first recording was setup as a live recording (not a live show, just the three guys playing in the same space) using the multimix 16 and some external pre's. the second recording was from a live show via the presonus studio live 24.4.2. In terms of sound quality the studiolive pre's sounded much much better than the built in one's on the alesis board imo; much cleaner, more headroom, much more top end. Also, the built in effects on the studiolive meant that running in as a FoH mixer was much more versatile than the multimix, and the routing options on the studiolive meant we grabbed all the audio post preamp but before EQ and effects which meant we had a completely clean mix to work with. Also, when recording 12 tracks simultaneously on the multimix 16 i had to set the buffer size very high and the latency was awful, whereas the studiolive had no latency and was still running a whole live show, effects and all.

As a little mixer setup to record a band in a rehearsal space, or as a live desk for small/acoustic gigs the multimix is fine, especially for the price. however, the presonus studiolive is much more versatile, stacked full of great built in effects, very intuitive to use, and is an outstanding live or studio desk
 
Re Alises

To Justsomeguy,

My appologies for misquoting re 16 channel alises firewire, the time i was in europe they where working on the firewire system , but dropped for a while but they did continued with the USB versions, however when i did my research earlier on today it never showed up wit firewire, till now some hours later i found on their webside they did bring it out again, i haven't of late looked into their reviews there other parts of my interest has kept me busy, but was looking again on some digital mixers

Regards
Jack
 
No worries man, as i said alot of the smaller alesis multimix boards are only stereo out via usb and have caught a lot of people out :)

it does seem like an odd one as, like i said, when we ordered one about 3 years ago the company we ordered from said that alesis weren't making/shipping the firewire version anymore, hence why we went for the usb one instead. however, over the last year or so there are now some stores that sell them again and, although i've only used the firewire version once very briefly, it did seem better in terms of latency when recording 8 channels simultaneously. although, apart from that it's exactly the same board; below average EQ, ropey inbuilt effects, and a lot to be desired in terms of build quality, but for a small rehearsal room setup it gets the job done
 
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