So, IF you had 2 grand to piss away, is this what you would get?
Meh. I have the money, but it's an intellectual exercise right now until the kids buy a bigger home.
I've been struggling with interfaces for some time, dithering between buying
a PreSonus StudioLive digital mixer, or a RME Fireface UFX and a control surface. I'm not all that enamored with the pres on the PreSonus and it has some shitty reviews but I liked the DAW integration. I like the pres on the RME and the user reviews but I hate the cost of the interface (which only gives you four XLR inputs with pres) along with the cost of a control surface. So I've kept looking.
B&H markets devices that I personally would consider to be a 'mixer' as 'Digital Recorders & Players', 'Groove Production Sampling Workstations', 'Analog Recording Mixers', 'Digital Mixers', 'Sound Reinforcement Mixers', and 'Field Mixers'. And I have high level of confidence that I've missed a category. To say that the lines blur is an understatement. I have a Sound Devices USBPre 2 which isn't marketed as a 'mixer', but it has nearly all of the same functionality as the Sound Devices MixPre-D field mixer, and... in fact... can operate in 'stand-alone' mode AS a field mixer. Which is one of the reasons I bought it. So go figure. Incidentally Sound Devices has figured out the USBPre 2 is cannibalizing their 'low end' field mixers and have DRAMATICALLY raised the price. Lol.
B&H markets this particular bad boy as a 'sound reinforcement mixer' so in my journey through the dark morass of home recording gear I never saw it, spending most of my time in the cess pit of 'Computer Audio Hardware/Audio Interfaces & Systems' but yesterday as I was bumping around the internet I decided to see just what B&H considered worthy of inclusion in that category.
Turns out they've got 173 different mixers packed in there of which this is one of.
I won't pretend that this beast brings all the bells and whistles of the StudioLive (I mean... seriously... who gives a damn about controlling a mixer from an iPad for Heaven's sake!?) but it does pack in a lot of quality and functionality. The pres are excellent, the DAW integration is exactly what I've been looking for, and
the reviews are great. Apparently the thing is built like a tank. And for $2K I can't see how I can go too far wrong.
