SMALL mixing desk required

[torch1972]

I looking into buying a small desk and its seems now there are a number of small desks with FX and USB connection like the Peavey PV 14 USB, Mackie ProFX12 Live USB Mixer, Behringer Xenyx X1832 USB and Behringer Xenyx X1222 USB. Have anyone used any of these? Which one do you rate?

[Phill.Beynon]

If I was buying a small desk then I wouldn't consider any of those in all honesty, except at a push, the Mackie. There are some great models from the likes of Soundcraft, Allen and Heath and Yamaha that I would be looking at. The sound desk is the hub of the system and it is never worth buying 'cheap and not very cheerful' in my opinion. Spend a little extra, buy a desk from a proper sound desk manufacturer and it'll pay dividends in sound quality, versatility, longevity and quality.

[J Pearce]

We have a few of the Allen and Heath USB desks at work and they're great.

I believe they make a version with onboard fx too.

[timd]

Ditto, I've just started using a Zed as well. Fantastic desks.

 

Tim

[Jack-handy]

Either I've got a good'un or my ears have deteriorated even more than I thought; but my Xenyx 1622fx sounds fine to me - Nice warm sound, smooth faders & the fx are useable, although I use a Lexicon MPX100 for anything needing more controlability.

 

I could sell you my Soundcraft Spirit Live 4/2 - 16 channel desk, but I guess that would be a tad Huge for your purposes {:¬)

 

Pete

[S&L]

Thoughts on small and cheap desks:

I have a soundcraft spirit 8 channel, 2 mic channels that sounds great but 'feels' a little lego-ish to the touch working in the dark - but actually sounds really nice can't fault it.

I have been working with a band using their xenyx 2222fx recently. faders 'feel' lovely in the dark but they are not perfectly even and there is a big ramp on a few of the channels at about unity. the thing drives me nuts with aux's not doing what they should do (see seperate posts) despite help on here I still can't get outboard reverb working on the fx channel and the onboard reverd isn't great - but with a little patient tweaking I did get it to sound ok-ish on Saturday night. to be honest the desk would 'do' for a band using a mixer on stage 'with set and forget' settings. having a crampt layout also has disadvantages though to be fair the layout IS tolerable.

I think I would get better results if I could sit at home and work out whether the desk was faulty or just had quirks that need work arounds but I find that what I really want is a desk that I can set up for a number of bands and uses and I don't have to think 'how do I do this with this desk' - for me onboard fx just get in the way of that (I'm probably too old school). I'm going down market next week with a peavey 2318 (I can hear sighs in the background) but it IS designed as live desk, is bomb proof and I understand very reliable with a full 16 channels of mic input which is helpful. I can feed in my alesis multiverb rather than using onboard fx and alter parameters on the fly to suit the room and band.

I guess my point to this is that picking a desk, at least in my opinion is governed by budget but just as importantly by purpose. live or studio, theatre or rock, bar or or arena. If you are working in small bars and halls with people you may not know you are going to need something fast to set up, bombproof and predictible to concentrate on the mix not fighting the desk. if you are recording or working in some other field than I have described you may well have different needs.