Mike,
The A&H is a step up from the Mackie stuff but that's not saying much. Any of these pres that are in these small boards are usually pretty inexpensive and sound it, by nature of the constraints that the price point that the mfrs. are trying to achive impose. You just can't put 16 quality pres in a console that sells for under $1500 and have all the bells and whistles like good eq summing amps and aux sends. It is unrealistic to even expect it. I have found that for me, the best approach is to go with dedicated outboard pres and to simply skip the pres in any small console. As I have stated before, the only small consoles I have heard that have decent pres (in my judgement) are the TLA, Crest and Midas consoles and these pres are still not as good as the Neve, API, Focusrite (the good ones, not the Platinum series) Great River, Grace, Sebatron, JLM etc. As far as what I have found, the Sebatron and JLM pres seem to represent the best value. A disclaimer here. The owner of this board is a distributer for the Sebatron products. But I was recommending them long before he became one. Kurt

here's some links
[="http://www.sebatron.com"]Sebatron[/]="http://www.sebatron…"]Sebatron[/]
[[url=http://="http://www.jlmaudio…"]JLM[/]="http://www.jlmaudio…"]JLM[/]

Thank you for the reply Kurt.

A step up from the mackie is really all i need - I do the recording mainly in my basement, I dont even have a nice dedicated studio space at this point to house the boards you mentioned.

I'm just looking to go up from the mackie,making the mackie my "live" board for performance, and the A&H my non-moving "studio" board.

I am looking into getting (building?) a nice outobard pre(s) eventually.

Just mainly wondering if its a good value for the $.

Mike

:) Mike, I have an older A&H board. The preamps are pretty good. This board is in the Neotek class of boards, I paid about 1k for it from the first owner. How many input tracks will you need at a time? The reason I ask is this, even though the preamps are OK on my board, for my type of recording, I could use external high end preamps and make even better recordings.

I could get by with 2 channels at present. Your Mackie line inputs, on mixing, would work fine provided you lay your tracks with a quality pre/DI. You have 700.00, spend it wisely. If you go with the small A&H, you may find yourself disappointed.

--Rick

Rick,

I need no more than 16 inputs - i mainly record my bands (drums, bass, guitar)live in the studio. For my projects if I need more than 16 inputs at once I'm getting too complex :-) I would go one to one to my 16 ins on my computer from the direct outs on each channel (or subgroup depending on the situation). The rest of the board's capability would be used to make monitor mixes through effects sends - I need 4 separate mixes for performers).

I do all of my mixing in the digital domain, so really the board serves as a bank of preamps, and monitor mixer.

Are there some other good used boards I should look into for this purpose? I'd really like to keep my expendetures under $1000 - I can't justify more for my current situation.

Why would I be dissapointed with the smaller A&H boards? I've also eyed the mix wizard series for my application, but the bigger size of these used board doesnt bother me since I'm not going to be moving it much.

Thanks,
Mike

Originally posted by Mike Zartarian (formerly mikezfx):
Why would I be dissapointed with the smaller A&H boards? I've also eyed the mix wizard series for my application, but the bigger size of these used board doesnt bother me since I'm not going to be moving it much.

Mike, my older A&H is a beast. The channel seperation is excellent, do to the type of electronics, grounding, metal and internal area. When everything is so jammed in to a tight space, with many IC circuits and plastic, there is some cross talk and ringing depending on how much the board is expected to do.
My present project studio mixer...

I think you can find something like this in your budget, it is heavy, 165 pounds, but it performs very well, it has 100mm faders, and should supply you with all you need. IOW, you may not have a noticable change in the sound with a compact board. But you would with one of these, or a Neotek or similar older board.

--Rick

Rick -

That would be amazing, and perfect. All I need now is to build a nice studio around my gear :-)

Mike

Rick,

How would I go about looking for these kind of boards? Want ads? Scouring studios? Asking around?

Mike

Originally posted by Mike Zartarian:
How would I go about looking for these kind of boards? Want ads? Scouring studios? Asking around?

:) Hi Mike! All of the above, I would look everywhere, e-bay, gear shops and trade in's, even pawn shops, word of mouth. With everyone moving to outboard pre's and DAW, there are many consoles being sold. Here is a link to some to give you an idea.

consoles

Good luck finding something you like,
--Rick

I mix on an Allen and Heath GL2200, and it is a nice board for the price. It is available in a number of sizes. I think they are worlds better than the Mackie boards in terms of sound quality, user interface and reliability. My direct outs run into an MX-2424 and this makes for an excellent sounding system for the price. I don't use EQ too much, but it does a better job than most boards in it's price rance.

The 'GL' signifying a 'live' type of mixer whereas the 'GS' would be the studio version...a bit more accurate on the eq and somewhat more flexible in its patchability but primarily the same circuit throughout.