mixing board

[Jasco]

What are some of the best used mixing board options for recording for under $2500?

[JIM683]

I've had good luick using my Presonus Studiolive 16.4.2 for recording. It is the only mixer I have used so far. Used they are way under the price listed.

 

I recently bought a Soundcraft Expression 2 but have not bought the card to allow recording yet. I think it will be a good board for recording also.

[WRGKMC]

I've heard some recording done on the newer 16 channel digital Mixers that blew my socks off.

If you're into recording live and doing sound, its the best way to go.

 

If you're doing analog recording to tape then a mixer is needed and there are many that will do the job well.

Your bigger studios used to have them custom built. Most of those are gone now that digital has taken front seat.

EBay is loaded with console channel Modules. They are trying to sell them off for big money, because they know

most of that junk is quickly becoming obsolete now.

 

When it comes to recording digital, you don't even need a hardware mixer. DAW programs have a virtual mixer

to do all your work. You use a Controller for than hands on if you don't like using a mouse. The controller integrates with the

DAW program and when you move a slider on the controller it operates the sliders in the daw program.

 

Then all you need is an interface that has enough preamp/channels to track as many mics as you plan on using at one time.

If you have a 4 piece band, you could get by with 8. 16 is better because you can use up to 8 mics oon the drums and have

8 left over for everything else.

 

Once the music is converted to digital it stays that way until everything is mixed, mastered burned to a CD or uploaded

to some site. You could play the channels back through the interface, through an analog mixer, then mix the tracks, send it back through the

interface and convert it back to digital fro CD burning or whatever. The problem with that is all those analog to digital conversions rob

the music of a good deal of its sound quality. Plus any gains you get from using an analog mixer to mix probably wont come close

to just keeping the song in the DAW program and using the virtual mixer.

 

The fact is DAW programs have come a long way since they first came out and there isn't anything they cant do to mimic your highest

end studios of the past. Many who get into recording don't know this and think they still need to have some high end mixer to record.

Unless its needed to run live sound as well, most mixers are just boat anchors that rom the mics of their sound quality.

Its OK if you already have one and want to use it to provide phantom power to mics or just use the mic preamp.

The rest of the board is pretty much useless otherwise.

 

A big mixer may look cool in a studio for your customers and may be useful if you don't have many channels

in your interface and have to combine mics. But if you're just getting into recording, its an unnecessary expense.

I'd say save your money if you're going digital, focus on a good multichannel interface with good preamps.

Then focus on your studio monitors. I have at least 6 mixers of various types and quality.

The only one that's in use if for the PA. The rest just collect dust. I don't need them for the recording rig.

 

I used to use an 8 channel mixer in my setup. I use PCI cards that only have two mic

preamps on each card. The rest of the channels are all line level inputs.

I'd mic the drums up with the mixer, then tap the mic inserts out from the preamp to the interface cards.

The mixer provided phantom power for the condenser mics and acted as preamps.

 

Later I bought a 8 channel rack preamp for the drums and just used it. The sound quality is actually better than the

mixer because the signal doesn't have to pass through as much cable. It doesn't take up anywhere near the space either.

 

In analog you'd need a mixer because you'd have to EQ the frequencies before it hits the tape.

An example might be to roll the bass off a guitar so you don't oversaturate the tape.

When you track digital that issue does not exist. You simply record all the frequencies a mic hears then deal with EQing it when you mix.

The rule is, you may not need it but its going to be there if you do need it. If you remove frequencies with a mixer

prior to tracking, its gone and you cant get it back no matter what you do. all you wind up doing is boost noise

where the frequencies used to be.

 

Lastly, you may think you need a mixer to loop hardware effects through it.

You can loop hardware effects through a good interface just as easily. You can

play a track back through the effects (and even a tape recorder) then rerecord the track into the DAW program.

Programs like Sonar make this super easy to do and the Virtual mixer even has sends and returns you can use to drive the effect units.

 

Even then the effects plugins can do as good a job if not better then most hardware units and they cost a whole lot less.

You can download hundreds for free as well.

[mistersully]

i use a midas venice f24... it's a great board... you get a really cool analog mixer with it's own converters, so no need for an interface... 24 channels via firewire... they also make 16 and 32 channel versions

[eflatminor]

Soundcraft Ghost!