Just bought a Mackie 32X8

  • Thread starter Thread starter umair
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umair

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I'm pretty excited about my purchase of this board.
Its a significant upggrade from my Behringer MX3282A.

However, the talk back mic is pretty bad. It seems to cut in and out. Anyone else have this problem? How'd you go about fixing it? I use the talk back all the time so I really want to get this thing fixed. It may just be the actual button that I push down... or it may be something worse.
Is this a Do-it yourself fix? Worse case scenerio: I can set up a mic and use one the buses that I don't need but I would still like to get it to work.

Anything else to look out for?
How does everyone like this board?
 
I certainly make good use of mine... don't over-do the EQ, use external pres as much as you can, and watch your headroom (ie, don't push the summing busses too hard) and you'll do allright with it.
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
external pres as much as you can,
Click to expand...

I've wondered about this, so if you are using external pres you are not using the board at all, correct? Or am I missing some way in which you use the pre and the mixer in conjunction?
 
If you use external pres during tracking, you're typically sending the pre outputs directly to the recorder, and therefore the mixer simply becomes a monitoring tool.
 
I see, then if you wanted to use the mixer to sum to stereo instead of letting software do it are you negating the outboard pres because you are in a sense degrading the signal down to the mackie's pres? Or are most of the sonic properties that the good outboard pre gave the tracks kept?

Hope that makes sense...
 
Mackie pres are certainly usable, but no one buys a Mackie mixer for the pres!

Given the option of a using a higher quality pre and the on-board pres, one would most likely get better results with the external.

Obviously, if you need 12 pres at a time, you may need to use the on-boards, but it's all about keeping your signal chain as high-quality as possible for any application. For overdubs you're probably better off using a good pre direct to the recorder.
 
lomky said:
I see, then if you wanted to use the mixer to sum to stereo instead of letting software do it are you negating the outboard pres because you are in a sense degrading the signal down to the mackie's pres? Or are most of the sonic properties that the good outboard pre gave the tracks kept?

Hope that makes sense...
Click to expand...

That is incorrect on the bigger mackie boards. When you use the line inputs it bypasses the preamps. I believe on their smaller boards the line inputs still use the preamp.

The biggest issue in the case of an anlog mix is the quality of your DAC's.
 
TexRoadkill said:
That is incorrect on the bigger mackie boards. When you use the line inputs it bypasses the preamps. I believe on their smaller boards the line inputs still use the preamp.
Click to expand...
Missed that one... Tex is absolutely right!
 
TexRoadkill said:
That is incorrect on the bigger mackie boards. When you use the line inputs it bypasses the preamps. I believe on their smaller boards the line inputs still use the preamp.

The biggest issue in the case of an anlog mix is the quality of your DAC's.
Click to expand...

Line in is a padded path to the pre. Unless there's some other version of the board, the only way to get past the pres is the tape returns, which is a normal solution for mixdown anyway.

Hail The Block Diagram.
:D
 
the funny part about the 32x8 mackie console is they don't put their "best" (cough, cough) pre's on their flagship console, they are reserved for their notepad mixers. Also as you engage more channels the sound quality decreases. I give greg a neg!
 
the sound quality of the preamps decreases that is. bad design.
 
For overdubs I use an external pre but I don't know how much better it is at this point. It definitely sounds pretty clean. I use a DMP3 but I'm trying to get an RNP when I come up with more money and hopefully don't get laid off soon.

For the DAC (not sure exactly what that stands for but Digital Audio Console?) I use a computer with Nuendo and 2 RME ADI8 Pro's to give me 16 channels. I think I have a pretty decent setup with the limited funds I've scraped together. I think my next upgrade has to be a pre although I don't think the DMP3 is bad at all.

But still the damn talk back switch doesn't work at all now! Any idea on how to fix that?
 
Even if the line in IS a padded channel through the Mackie's pre... is there a noticeable difference in the quality if the pre is in trim or unity position?

After all... it's certainly not gaining in those positions...

Just curious...
 
Sorry... didn't mean to hijack this thread, either...

(Maybe your switch is going bad?)
 
For your talkback mic issue, have you tried posting over at the Mackie discussion boards? They have a board just for the 8-bus mixers that has provided helpful information to me in my quest to do the ribbon cable upgrade (now done and working great!).

Darryl.....
 
Doug Quance said:
Even if the line in IS a padded channel through the Mackie's pre... is there a noticeable difference in the quality if the pre is in trim or unity position?

After all... it's certainly not gaining in those positions...

Just curious...
Click to expand...
Can a unity setting on a circuit negate it's sound? That's a good one for the High Priests around here.:D
I accept that as you exclude 'stuff' in the chain, things get incrementally better, but never been fond of the endless stream of carefully controlled A/B/x sessions it takes to prove which one is doing what, and how much...
:)
Wayne
 
A signal fed to the line in on a Mackie is tainted. The only way to get a direct input to a Mackie channel strip avoiding the pre is by the inserts. Truly a lame design. As for a signal running through the pre with the gain at minimum there is added distorstion. I wouldn't stress on it much since there are worse things a Mackie can do to your sound after pre circuit.

Kirk
 
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