Hey brandon,

Since you're getting tired of bringing various individual pieces to the date, why not buy a active splitter like XTA DS800. This box works very well and you don't need pre's. You can go directly to your recording rig from this killer 2 rack space piece. It's a mic or line splitter and it can drive long cable runs. It also has solo, led metering and a bunch of other features too numberious to mention. Check out their website.

Have you considered the True System's Precision8 mic pre? It's an 8 channel, one rack space box with an MS encoder and 2 direct boxes built in the unit. If you don't need the MS and/or DI's, you don't have to use them. Nice piece. It's a very clean and clear sounding unit.

I own both the XTA and Trues Systems set-ups, among other types of splitters, mic pre's... Pound per buck, the XTA and P8's rock! The P8's would be a nice addition to your orchestra recording rig. 8 channels of clean mic pre's with the option to use the MS or DI's features is an awesome deal for the price.

Klark teknik and BSS also make active splitters. Check them out and stuff.

A nice size rolling rack works well, but try to consider a different case for your cables, mics, etc. It can become a very heavy box as a one piece item.

You may have to save your $$$ for a while, but it will be well worth the investment.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Steve Remote

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://aurasonicltd…"]Enter Aura Sonic Location Recording[/]="http://aurasonicltd…"]Enter Aura Sonic Location Recording[/]

Originally posted by Brandon Potter:

I'd like to just get a pretty good size rolling rack, and get a load of drawers for cables, mics, etc, and 6 channels worth of rackmount mic pre's (since that's usually the max mics I need to use with general orchestra micing), that way I could just roll into the gig with 1 rack and have everything right there. I'm looking for a low-cost (maybe downright cheap) preamp that sounds at or better than the Mackie VLZ preamps that are rackmountable. (Or maybe a small 1 or 2-space mixer?) I'm used to the Mackie pre's, and I've gotten pretty good at getting the sound I'm looking for out of them. With budget it would be a stretch to afford something over $500.

Thanks,
Brandon :)

I'm not sure I understand: are you looking for six mic pres (at least equal in quality to the Mackie) for less than $500, that are going to take up less space or weight than a Mackie 1604?

That might be tough. Of course, you could always get one of the cheap mini-mixers out there (Mackie 1402, Behringer, Spirit, Tascam, Yamaha) that only have 6 or so mic preeamps, but that hardly seems worth the trade.

Most of the decent 8 channel in a box preamps are going to cost you well more than $500. HHB has a four channel for close to that, but that leaves you two short. I guess you could get three BlueTubes for that, but I can't say how they sound. dbx and ART have super budget mini boxes for around $100 apiece, but again, who knows how they sound - and trying to rack them up might be a nightmare.