Do I need a mixer or micpreams?

Z

Zorlee

New member
Hi!
I've been thinking... I'm going to buy home recording equipment. And I was wondering, will I get more gear for the money if I only buy micpreams, instead of a analog mixer?
I was thinking about getting a Yamaha MG 16/4 mixer, but could you guys recommend me some good preamps (I want about 8 preamps, give or take)? Will I get a better deal?

Thank you guys! :)
 
Well, it all depends on where you want to do your mix- either in the analouge domain or in the digital one- considering your choice of mixer I suppose that if you do choose digital, you'll be mixing ITB, so maybe a pre with firewire out could help you.

If you're mixing analouge, or intend to do monitoring whilst tracking, I'd advise you to get a small mixer- that way you can set up a monitoring chain and have a couple of preamps, even if you are mixing ITB.
 
Then go with the Yamaha board.

You may need to sum (premix) some things but it's probably a good way to practice getting a good mix.

If everyone involved understands that the first shot out of the box is not going to be perfect and are willing to play the material half a dozen times so you can try different submixes and levels then you'll probably catch on and be an experienced submixer in no time.

The alternative is something like the Presonus Firepod which has eight mic preamps but gets complicated when you are trying to do overdubs --- both instruments and vocals.

IMHO a mixer is the way to go, and the Yamaha MG series are a good choice.
 
If you get a Mixer that has seperate Outputs for each Pre amp then that would be a Big help because you can use the Pre amps on the Mixer Bypassing the Mix all together, That way you can Mic the Drums and Mix them on the Mixer and also Mic the Guitars and Bass and Vocals going into the Mixer"s Pre-amps and Directly out into your DAW with there own seperate Tracks ,This way you get the advantages of haveing a Mixer and the advantages of haveing seperate Pre amps at the same time in the Same Unit.....

Cheers
 
I agree with the mixer - it just makes life much simpler as you add gear or when others visit to join on a project. Just plug them in, set 'em up and go!

Bob
 
Minion said:
If you get a Mixer that has seperate Outputs for each Pre amp then that would be a Big help because you can use the Pre amps on the Mixer Bypassing the Mix all together, That way you can Mic the Drums and Mix them on the Mixer and also Mic the Guitars and Bass and Vocals going into the Mixer"s Pre-amps and Directly out into your DAW with there own seperate Tracks ,This way you get the advantages of haveing a Mixer and the advantages of haveing seperate Pre amps at the same time in the Same Unit.....
Click to expand...

I can't remember the last time I saw a mixer (except maybe some cheap Radio Shack toy) that didn't have channel inserts for each preamped channel. It's probably safe to take it for granted, at least for modern mixers.
 
Well My Mixer doesn"t have any seperate outputs for the Pre-amps so thats why I mentioned it.... It has several busses but no seperate outputs for each Channel....Maybe I should Upgrade to a behringer??LOL...Just Kidding...


Cheers
 
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