Why are mackies to popular?

[tjohnston]

Seems everyone and their mother has a mackie mixer. Home recordist are often stereotyped as "some guy with an adat and a mackie."
I hear others say mackie mixers are cheap and noisy, your better off by passing it. There are always mackies for sale on ebay. All the studios in my area use mackies. What is it thats is so attractive about them that they dominate the homerecording industry?

 

[TexRoadkill]

Mackies are relatively cheap, quiet and decent sounding for a compact mixer. They really nailed the market back in the late 80's and have developed a good reputation. They designed some cool mixers with the types of features that home recs and bands needed. They also have great marketing and manuals.

I've used dozens of mackies in pretty rough outdoor situations and they rarely gave me any problems. Most recording pros snub their noses at Mackies and compared to a Neve or a Trident they are crap. But they serve the low/midrange end of the market pretty well. They are definately the cheapest mixers I would spend any money on.

They are moving production over to China so we'll have to see what their future is going to be.

 

[chessrock]

What is it thats is so attractive about them that they dominate the homerecording industry?

They have 4 mic pres that, pound for pound, amounts to one of the best deals in consumer-level audio @ less than $100 per channel.

 

[ambi]

Would you say even better than 2 DMP3's?
For approximatly the same price?

 

[Gidge]

I would say the DMP3's pres are as good or better than the Mackies.....very similar sounding......

 

[Recording Engineer]

Seems everyone and their mother has a mackie mixer. Home recordist are often stereotyped as "some guy with an adat and a mackie."

I hear ya! I feel I get put under that label by potential "professional" clients who call and ask about the gear I'm using.

I've TRIED to change that TWICE without success! The first time with a 24-ch. (most of them were the sweep EQ modules) Soundcraft 200B and all but a few channels gave me hell of various kinds, even after spending some decent bucks at a VERY known and popular pro audio repair place in Northern CA!

The second time was when I replaced the 200B with an MTA 924, but that was quickly out of here as a company finally agreed to sell me a console of my dreams! It's now in the works, but I won't see it until late Fall or otherwise early Spring of next year! Until then, I'm on a Mackie 32*4 VLZ PRO. So, I have a bit longer to deal with that label...

By the way, I could have bought a Mackie 8-Buss, Soundcraft Ghost, or another used something or other up to $6k or so, to use temporarily until my FINAL console arrives, but I went with the 32*VLZ PRO for dominating in the best price/audio quality performance ratio category!

 

[eeldip]

no matter what anyone says mackies are kinda cool.

i have a 1202 that has spent years on the road, never in a case, just thrown around and dropped etc. and it is still going.

however, it doesnt sound all that good. nor does it sound bad.

 

[chessrock]

Would you say even better than 2 DMP3's?
For approximatly the same price?

It's apples to oranges. The 1202 is still cheaper (than 2 dmp3s) and comes with a mixer.

 

[Robert D]

You know, there's a bit of a contradiction here. It seems that those who put down Mackie boards for "having no sound, no charachter", are talking out of the other side of their mouth about how such and such peice of gear is no good because it's not "transparant". Isn't a peice of equipment that imparts no sound of it's own on the signal "transparant"? Isn't that, in effect, what a Mackie board is? Yet that's the overwhelming complaint about them.
Speaking of Mackie, I just ordered a DFX12 from Musiciansbuy.com for $239. Almost everyone sells them for $379, so that's a killer deal. I don't think it has the XDR Pre's, so I wouldn't get one with that in mind, but it's a cool little small gig mixer with onboard 32 bit effects.

RD

 

[Jack Hammer]

I am using a Mackie 24/8 to record with MOTU 24 i/o (24/96). Since I record by myself, I do one part at a time and use a Universal Audio 2610 pre. The Mackie is for monitoring and doing basic mixes. Since I have such a good pre I don't necessarily need a better board. Until I can afford an 02R96 or Sony DMX-R100 there is no reason to split hairs between this cheap board or that. The point is that for the money, a Mackie is about as good as you can do. The price difference between Mackie and a truly professional level, good sounding board is fairly steep. The minimum you need to spend, it seems, is about 10k.

By the way, I noticed that the Mackie D8b is now half of its original price. Probably becuase it is an outdated design and does not compete with the new Yamaha digital boards. But that is besides the point.