I have done a search for a Mixer. Not much came up for a Newbie. Could someone suggest a practical mixer for a Newbie to mixing? Should I go with an inexpensive Behringer, or not?
Chris, for what you're wanting to do, the minimum I'd recommend is the Mackie 14 channel board. The 12 channel ones use rotary pots for levels, and that's just not professional looking enough to impress anybody but your maiden aunt fanny. Also, since you're new at this you haven't tried to change the levels of 4 channels UP while simultaneously LOWERING the levels of two others. This simply isn't possible for one person with rotary pots, but with linear faders it's done all the time. Check it out here
Musician's Friend is an affiliate of Guitar Center, so prices for walk-in purchase at a GC near you would be at least as good, better if you can bargain well.
Read the specs/descriptions on the Mackie site thoroughly - this is one of the best ways to learn what questions to ask, and what to study. Ads only tell you what a product can do, not what it can do ALL AT ONCE - for this, you need to learn to read tech pages and understand them. Otherwise, you'll spend a lot of money on your "education" - in this case, the education is "Don't believe salesmen..." Steve
Chris, I think the Soundcraft sounds like a better deal to me. Is there a website for this Full Compass? I will try to search for it. I am going to take some workshops at: www.miworkshop.com