S
sjjohnston
New member
The information above is good, so far as I can tell.
The "big names" (big in the sense of selling a lot of product in this particular niche) in the new compact home-recordist mixer game are pretty much the ones identified above. Yamaha is another name. I don't know a ton about their product line. In lower-end / lower-priced stuff there is also Nady, Phonic (as mentioned) and Carvin.
I myself have an A&H 20:8:2 and like it. A&H sometimes gets overlooked. Their "home recording" products seem to be in a sort of narrow range price-wise: sort of in the vicinity of the higher Mackies (say Mackie 1604 and up).
Tascam is a big name in used mixers that now run in the same price range. Ramsa is another one. Generally, these would have been originally aimed at the small "pro" (or "project") studios. There are definitely some good deals to be had here, particularly if you want something that looks bigger and more impressive than a 19" rack-sized mixer.
Alesis is sort of an odd case. I don't have one -- so take this with a grain of salt -- but my impression is that the Studio 24 and 32 are pretty good value for the money.
The Alesis name has suffered a bit; particularly in mixers. Historically, they brought out a few very bad mixer products (the 1622 is one I'm slightly familar with; I understand there was an earlier one, which had the particularly disadvantage of being crummy and not cheap). This gave them a bad name in mixers in particular, even though their current products may well be fine.
Also, I think the Alesis name gets a somewhat unfair bad mark because of the ADAT. The problem isn't that the ADAT was a bad product. In a sense, the problem is that it was a good product, or at least a very successful one. They were all over the place, and people started thinking (or even saying) things like, "Hey, my three ADATs are just as good as America's finest 2" 24-track studio ... shoot, on second thought they're better!" This led to an "Alesis sucks!" backlash. Sure, if you compare Alesis to Studer, they do suck. But if you compare them to low-end (or middle-end) products aimed at a lower part of the market, they're okay for what they are. If you take the "Alesis sucks" contingent literally, you might start to think Alesis is worse than, say, Phonic. The only reason the "Alesis sucks" contingent doesn't say worse things about Phonic is they've never even heard of it.
Well, that's my impression. And I don't have (and have never had) an ADAT either.
The "big names" (big in the sense of selling a lot of product in this particular niche) in the new compact home-recordist mixer game are pretty much the ones identified above. Yamaha is another name. I don't know a ton about their product line. In lower-end / lower-priced stuff there is also Nady, Phonic (as mentioned) and Carvin.
I myself have an A&H 20:8:2 and like it. A&H sometimes gets overlooked. Their "home recording" products seem to be in a sort of narrow range price-wise: sort of in the vicinity of the higher Mackies (say Mackie 1604 and up).
Tascam is a big name in used mixers that now run in the same price range. Ramsa is another one. Generally, these would have been originally aimed at the small "pro" (or "project") studios. There are definitely some good deals to be had here, particularly if you want something that looks bigger and more impressive than a 19" rack-sized mixer.
Alesis is sort of an odd case. I don't have one -- so take this with a grain of salt -- but my impression is that the Studio 24 and 32 are pretty good value for the money.
The Alesis name has suffered a bit; particularly in mixers. Historically, they brought out a few very bad mixer products (the 1622 is one I'm slightly familar with; I understand there was an earlier one, which had the particularly disadvantage of being crummy and not cheap). This gave them a bad name in mixers in particular, even though their current products may well be fine.
Also, I think the Alesis name gets a somewhat unfair bad mark because of the ADAT. The problem isn't that the ADAT was a bad product. In a sense, the problem is that it was a good product, or at least a very successful one. They were all over the place, and people started thinking (or even saying) things like, "Hey, my three ADATs are just as good as America's finest 2" 24-track studio ... shoot, on second thought they're better!" This led to an "Alesis sucks!" backlash. Sure, if you compare Alesis to Studer, they do suck. But if you compare them to low-end (or middle-end) products aimed at a lower part of the market, they're okay for what they are. If you take the "Alesis sucks" contingent literally, you might start to think Alesis is worse than, say, Phonic. The only reason the "Alesis sucks" contingent doesn't say worse things about Phonic is they've never even heard of it.
Well, that's my impression. And I don't have (and have never had) an ADAT either.
