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Original message:605 days 23 hours 45 minutes ago

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Member: Zombre

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OK, I'm looking at a Mackie Onyx 16 channel... Any thoughts? Pros, cons? Any alternatives sort of within the same price range?
Thanks in advance, dudes!

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Reply:605 days 13 hours 48 minutes ago
Member: thefunkyone

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Hello,

Mackie makes decent quality consoles for recording purposes. They are not the best suited to live sound reinforcement but recording shouldn\'t be a big problem. You may also want to check out Allen & Heath. Perhaps the A&H Mixwizard series they are a little higher quality board and the eq section is a little nicer.

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Reply:605 days 3 hours 31 minutes ago
Member: Xarkzila

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I like Mackie stuff. The Onyx would be a nice small recording board. Output meters, (LED,) for each channel are a big plus. Haven't heard anything bad about it.

Personally, I don't care for Allen and Heath, but that's why there are choices!

Just make sure that what you get has the features you want. The Firewire interface offered on this Mackie series sounds great, (I'm assuming you're looking at the 1620,) and considering what a 16 channel computer interface, that doesn't have faders, EQ, aux sends, talkback, etc., costs, it's a deal for certain!

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Reply:601 days 15 hours 46 minutes ago
Member: Zombre

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Yes, Xark I'm definitely looking at the 1620. I'm at the level of "hobbyist" and I want to take my recordings to the next level. I'm not going to just rush out and buy whatever (Like I usually do) because I want something that can grow with me, and I need time to research and think about the weaknesses of my current setup before purchasing.

I remember being at a gig 5-6 years ago, it was a warmup thing where they were having people just come up and jam, and the guys running the board (Big Mackie 64 or so channel thingamabob) had all of the amps miced and the drums miced, etc. Well, the thing was that there was this weird phase thing happening on, like EVERYTHING, lol and on my guitar there was this wierd sort of hiss (NOT my amp, it was the strip). I put up with it, and while it sounded not bad (Stage sound was WAY better than what was coming out of the PA, but oh well) it certainly didn't sound as good as it could have. The "engineer" running the board and most of the show was NOT an easy fella to talk to, so instead of getting into an argument, I just played and let him engineer. (I did say that the Soundcraft board they usually used seemed a little friendlier to my sound, but he just laughed at me, lol) I'm sure there were other factors (mic placement, EQ, etc) , but jeez... y'all shoulda heard the drums, heh We're talkin' about an audible phase thing, it was wierd

Anyways, the point is that I've done countless gigs with all kinds of boards being used, and the Mackies seem to have this... "flavour"... so, I'm reluctant to bring one home and put that flavour on all of my stuff. Bad enough I'm going the PC Controlled route...

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Reply:601 days 13 hours 12 minutes ago
Member: thefunkyone

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Zombre- I understand fully what you are saying about Mackie. Thats why in a recording situation I say they can be "ok" but for live sound they are not so great. Soundcraft, Neve, Midas, Allen & Heath and the high end Yamaha boards are pretty much the mainstays for that arena.

Another isssue with Mackie is that many of their boards, including some of the high end models use a single pcb construction technique. Basically all the faders and knobs are on a single pcb board. This makes it cheaper to manufacture and assemble but you are also more prone to break a solder joint if you transport the board often due to the pcb board flexing in the chassis.

With Soundcraft or many other brands they use multiple boards all wired together. This also means if you were to lose a solder joint you will most likley only blow a "bank" of faders and not the whole board. The bank can be detached from the rest of the board and worked on while you are still using it. I used to work frequently on an old Soundcraft K1 it was a very nice sounding board with quiet preamps and a very usable parametric eq. Also gave lots of options for routing the sound through aux outputs, matrix or buss. It may be something to look into....

You may want to post this question on a newsgroup such as rec.audio.pro

-Regards

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