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Hey everyone...I was wondering if anyone can recommend on a good mixer for my home studio...upuntill now I was working with a Mackie 1604 but it brokedown and its to expensive to fix it...
anyway I'm looking for an upgrade from that mixer in the price range of about 750$. I'm recording a lot of live-recordings with drums etc...so its realy importent for me to have at least 8 Direct-outs in the mixer and 8+chanels...thanks a lot guys! just looking for some opinuns!

p.s
sorry about the bad engilsh I'm from israel... 8-)

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moonbaby Fri, 09/01/2006 - 12:11

Well, I have a pair of GL2 rack-mount mixers. These were developed by A & H right before they were bought out by Harmon. Very solid. 10 mono channels, dual stereo channels, all of the features of their big boards.
I am not a big fan of the "Wizard" line that was subsequently developed by Harmon before they sold off the company. I really believe that the GL2 is a better product. Shop around, you may very well get one around your price!

RemyRAD Fri, 09/01/2006 - 21:16

You are not going to step up to anything similar to your 1604, for $750. Sorry. The 1640 would be the way to go but it is an order of magnitude, twice the cost of the original 1604. I know you are the chosen people but perhaps you should choose something else?

Already chosen
Ms. Remy Ann David

yes I'm Jewish too, so anything on sale is good.

JoeH Sat, 09/02/2006 - 08:57

The ONYX 1640 (and the other related ONYX line of mixers) is a rather serious step up from the VLZ Pro series (Which wasn't bad at all, of course).

Mackie's got all the info on their website, of course, but the big features are the new preamps, the Perkins designed EQ and the firewire interface (card purchased separately.) You'll also need a little more room in your mix area for them. Each counter part is a good bit larger than it's predecessor. (The 1640 is a serious size UP from the 1604, ditto for the 1220 Onyx vs. the 1202 VLZ. Much bigger footprints all around.)

The older series was/is great, and I still have a few of them for other things. It's a shame yours isn't worth fixing, but if you're going to start over, the ONYX is a good place to start, when you have the $ ready.

anonymous Wed, 09/06/2006 - 19:40

mackie's tight. depends on what exaclty you need from your mixer. i only need preamps on some of the drums (project studio don't have the money for killer preamps on every single piece.) i have a 1402? the one with 6 XDR pre's and im thinkin about callin up old texaas instruments and replacing the JRC 4558 op-amps with some burr brown's of some sort.

how exactly did the piece "break down," ive heard that the way mackie lays out their circuitry it is hard to replace or fix stuff. so in that sense ive heard allen and heath actually lays out their circuitry chasis a little bit better so that you can get to it if any problems occur. technically i think allen and heath and mackie are really similar. i just like mackies better