Outboard Mixers...

TelePaul

I was in town on Saturday checking the usual haunts. It seems the price of outboard analogue mixers have come down considerably...I'm not talking about a high-end Mackie with state-of-the-art pres and digital functionality...I'm talking about your run-of-the-mill, 8-pre, unpowered job.

Given that I could pick up something similar by Yamaha for three or four hundred lids, I'm wondering how many of you who operate in the Hobby spectrum of things use a mixer to route subs to your interface? Anybody use it to send, say, a drums bus to two stereo outs? There's something appealing about learning to mix old-skool, in the box (probbaly because I missed it first time around).

What do you guys think?

splitrmx

I record only synths and drum machines but I use an analogue mixer to sum everything to two tracks and record that with an audio interface. I think the analogue mixing desk gives the mix a bit more "air" or something, makes it sound less clinical than when I mixed it all in Logic.

madtheory

For and against:

Something with transformers in the audio path will give that "glue" effect on a mix. Nothing in the "budget" range has those though.

Not many budget desks have eq that's better than your average plugin- maybe A&H and Soundcraft, but that's it.

It's great to have actual faders to mix on, but you get that with a control surface.

Just adding noise can make a mix glue together too.

A mixer is good for recording snare/ toms top and bottom to one track in the DAW. Saves mix time, tracks and processing power.

TelePaul

madtheory wrote: »

For and against:

Something with transformers in the audio path will give that "glue" effect on a mix. Nothing in the "budget" range has those though.

Not many budget desks have eq that's better than your average plugin- maybe A&H and Soundcraft, but that's it.

It's great to have actual faders to mix on, but you get that with a control surface.

Just adding noise can make a mix glue together too.

A mixer is good for recording snare/ toms top and bottom to one track in the DAW. Saves mix time, tracks and processing power.

Hey man thanks for the reply. The snare thing is a great idea and is pretty much what I figured - not trying to re-invent the wheel, just trying to get smart with my workflow. Wasn't sure if you were serious about the 'adding noise' thing

madtheory

You're welcome . And I'm totally serious about the noise thing. Someone mentioned it on GS recently, and I realised that was a large part of the change from analogue to digital, for me. But take into consideration that I spent most of my time with lower end analogue stuff.

Rockshamrover

I've been wondering about this too.

Apart from the glue aspect of a mixer, they are meant to be great for automation as in riding the faders.

Would you have any recommendations for a specific desk Madtheory or anyone else?

There's always mixers coming up on adverts.ie but I haven't a clue which ones can actually work with a DAW.

Thanks

madtheory

Riding faders is best done with a controller, ITB is the way to go IMHO. From what I've used- The Euphonix is a great controller. D Command is nice too, but the build quality is not so good. I use a Behringer BCF2000 at home, LOL. I wouldn't recommend analogue for mixing, no recall.

Rockshamrover

madtheory wrote: »

Riding faders is best done with a controller, ITB is the way to go IMHO. From what I've used- The Euphonix is a great controller. D Command is nice too, but the build quality is not so good. I use a Behringer BCF2000 at home, LOL. I wouldn't recommend analogue for mixing, no recall.

Thanks for that MT. The Euphonix stuff looks incredible but it's very pricey.

Is it just a control surface or does it do anything else?

MilanPan!c

I would say that there's v little point to analogue mixers except to sum drums into a stereo in on an audio interface....

A control surface can be v cheap, esp if you accept that you prolly DON'T use 8 channels at once... In other words, a 2, 4 or even one channel control surface is gonna be a LOT cheaper and in MANY cases as effective as a big expensive 8-16 channel surface.


What was that cool one channel slider thing? Someone on here was gonna buy one... Anyone remember?

I meant to buy one then forgot.

madtheory

Alphatrack is the one fader thing.

Rockshamrover wrote: »

Thanks for that MT. The Euphonix stuff looks incredible but it's very pricey.

Is it just a control surface or does it do anything else?

It's "just" a controller. I only used the fader bit. There are two other bits as well, one's for transport control, I can't remember what the other one is for. Try the Behringer...