Suzette Posted June 9, 2006 Share Posted June 9, 2006 I'm looking for some advice on purchasing a new digital sound mixer for our small recording studio. I'm really after recommendations of which desks to look at. Requirements are 16 mono and 4 stereo inputs (or 24 mono), minimum 4 aux's (prefer 6 aux's) and an optical/ADAT socket to link to Mac. Budget is about £1200 (exc VAT) - I know it's not much. The plan is to narrow it down to a couple of possibles and then get them in for a days trail and see how they perform. I would prefer to buy new if possible, but may consider secondhand. At the moment under consideration are the Soundcraft 328XD (but I believe they may be out of production now) or possibly the Yamaha 01V96 (but that may be too small for our requirements) If anyone has any other ideas that we can look at then please suggest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hinds Posted June 9, 2006 Share Posted June 9, 2006 01v96 with an ADAT card to give you the outs to the computer, connect a Behringer or similar mic pre to the built in ADAT for 20 mic ch and 4 line inputs. Regards Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueShift Posted June 10, 2006 Share Posted June 10, 2006 May I also suggest the mackie onyx range. They have very nice sounding pre's and when coupled with the firewire card, can stream each individual channel to your DAW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted June 10, 2006 Share Posted June 10, 2006 Depends if you want a full digital mixer or a hybrid - the mackies are a bit of both. The Soundcraft was generally thought to be rather a fish out of water. Both the PA and recording mixers were never that popular. I suspect this is why they have vanished Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted June 10, 2006 Share Posted June 10, 2006 The Yamaha (or one of it's slightly bigger brothers) is probably the most common mixer to find in professional project studios. As has been noted, you'd need a couple of additional mic pres to give you the full sixteen inputs you want, but an ADAT out to a PC interface is an elegant and reliable way to handle the interface. The Soundcraft you mention is pretty dated technology now and even if you can find one I suspect you'll have trouble getting plug in adaptor cards and the like. I'm personally NOT a fan of Mackie, including the Onyx range. Despite what was said earlier, I find their mic preamps brittle and more than a little harsh. If it was me, I'd go for the Yamaha. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hinds Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 To be honest the Mackie Onyx is a MILE from a digital mixer in that it's errr Analogue! It might be able to have a firewire card to output a signal to a computer, but you still need Comps, Gates, Parametric EQ and Effects before its up to the same level as the 01v96. Then by that time and for that money you could have bought a DM1000 and enjoy even more benefits. I can't think of another small digital desk that's available new and does so much for so little [than the 01v96]. Regards Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim b Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 I sometimes do sessions in a small studio which possesses a 328 and a Pro Tools rig (as well as mixing down live multitracks in there) and I have to say I find that desk very restricted in what it can do and how good it sounds doing it. Basically I use it as a collection of preamps and as a volume control for monitoring-I prefer to keep the mix inside Pro Tools than send it through the desk for no real benefit-yeah there aren't lots of faders to handle so mixing isn't quite as tactile but it does sound good and I can edit the automation very easily. I'm not sure if you can use the 328 as a remote for a DAW which might increase its usability a little but again it wouldn't be my first choice. I think the Yammie looks a safe bet for your purposes (presuming this is for limited budget recordings). The Yammie can also control external pres so you may be able to upgrade to a bank of 8 very good pres which would sell your system a little more to external clients. (I don't know what pres it will control so best to ask around if you think this might be viable). Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 The 01v96 is a 32ch + 4st ch 8 bus mixer with 8 aux. It is very configurable and you can choose what you would like in terms of inputs and outputs. If you are happpy with line level analouge inputs then one option could be to consider an 01v96 with an MY8-ADDA96 card fitted. This would give you 24 line level analouge inputs, 12 line level analouge outputs, with 8 ADAT inputs and 8 ADAT outputs for your mac. You would have to do a lot of shopping arround to find something for that price though. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesperrett Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 What other equipment will you be using it with? What do you record onto? While I appreciate that everyone has different ways of working, I'm not a big fan of budget digital mixers. I much prefer to mix in the computer when mixing digitally. Cheers James. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 Hmmm...I'm not sure it's fair to call an 01V96 a "budget" mixer. It's a SMALL mixer, yes. But it has a pretty professional pedigree. I daresay a lot/most of the music you hear in some pretty big budget films and TV shows has passed through an 01V at one stage or another in the process. How many big name composers have you seen on TV interviewed in their project studios next to their Yammy digital mixer? I'm not necessarily arguing with the fact that most mixing these days can be well handled in the computer, but a digital mixer makes a good in/out device and can also be used for automation control. (My home rig is Audition 2.0, Yamaha DM1000, Frontier Design Dakota interface) Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesperrett Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 Hmmm...I'm not sure it's fair to call an 01V96 a "budget" mixer.... I'm not necessarily arguing with the fact that most mixing these days can be well handled in the computer, but a digital mixer makes a good in/out device and can also be used for automation control. (My home rig is Audition 2.0, Yamaha DM1000, Frontier Design Dakota interface) Bob I would agree that most recording studios need a mixer of some kind just to route signals around and to act as a pre-amplifier for most signals but I'm just not sure that a digital mixer is most appropriate for everything. I'm still using a large analogue console in conjunction with Audition as a multitrack. With all the new monitoring and real time control features in Audition V2 it is even more unlikely that I would feel the need for a digital mixer. The big problem that I've always found with digital mixers at the lower end of the price range is that they hide many things under many layers of menus. The more expensive consoles are better but, if I was forced to replace my current console with a digital one, I would probably want something like a Fairlight Console at around £20k(if I remember correctly). Cheers James. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 Well, a couple of points on that... First, if you're handy at setting up midi control (alas, Adobe doesn't offer a standard interface) it works well to use the digital mixer as a control surface for the Audition automation lanes. AA2.0 actually pushes me more in the direction of some form of control surface rather than encouraging me I don't need it! Second, I rarely have to touch menus on my mixer for standard things (I use it live as well as in a studio). Just touch the fader for the channel you want to adjust and you have knobs and buttons on the surface for all the standard stuff you could do on an analogue. I only get into menus for setup or for things like selecting effects. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzette Posted June 12, 2006 Author Share Posted June 12, 2006 Thanks for all the replies - certainly given us something to think about..... including as to whether we are going down the right route of digital? I'm not sure we have thought through all our options, and after more discussion with my sound man we are now wondering if spending the money on digital is worth it. Maybe we go down the road of a decent analogue desk with a couple of outboard compressors, as most of the effects are done on the Mac so a lot of the digital desk effects will never be used - maybe a waste of money? We are thinking we could get more for our money this way - but we are presuming analogue desks don't have ADAT cards as an option? Is that right? Or is there an analogue desk that does?The answer to what do we record onto - eventually it is all recorded onto either minidisc or CD - all done via Cubase on the Mac. We may record direct to minidisc for certain radio classes. Any more suggestions welcomed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 If you're using Cubase, be aware that the 01V96 functions as a very effective control surface for that software. You can see the capabilities you'd be buying here: http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/downloads/01...up_cubasesx.pdf I don't know of any analogue boards that offer a direct ADAT out. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzette Posted June 13, 2006 Author Share Posted June 13, 2006 Thanks Bob - if we can find the extra money then it looks like the 01v96 is the one for us ........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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