Working with Mackie CR-1604

[Rich Smith]

Anyone here worked with a Mackie CR-1604?
Good mixer? Bad?

Rich Smith

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Which 1604? The original, the VLZ, the VLZ Pro, or later?

I worked for many years with the 1604VLZ as a live mixer, in the studio, and as a broadcast/movie production sound mixer. It was a solid middle-of-the-road mixer for it's time, though these days it is a bit obsoleted in sound quality compared to many of the newer units out there.

My only complaint is that the sealed trim pots on them are semi-notorius for getting noisy over time, and being fixable only through replacement of the pots (they cannot be cleaned). Other than that it had served me well for many years on the road and in the studio.

G.

 

[moresound]

Yes a very good board for it's time as stated by southside. In fact (for me that is) Better than the Mackie 24 channel for reliability.

 

[Bob Ross]

It's a workhorse, like the venerable Swiss Army Knife. Also like those knives, it suffers from the same shortcomings that face any jack-of-all-trades: It does a lot of things pretty well, and no one thing really well. But it's ubiquitous for a reason.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

It's a workhorse, like the venerable Swiss Army Knife. Also like those knives, it suffers from the same shortcomings that face any jack-of-all-trades: It does a lot of things pretty well, and no one thing really well. But it's ubiquitous for a reason.

Very well put. And in much the same way, a 1604 with both the phillips and flathead screwdrivers *and* the saw in one package is very hard to find (!)

G.