http://www.recording.org/postt21973.html

no reviews yet, only opinions... take it all with a grain of salt as noooobody here has heard it yet-

mackie onyx

I think Kurt hit it on the head, when he said, Perkins was one of the main guys involled in the design of the sound of the prior Mackie boards.
I mean did Perkins just say "wow, I sure did get out done by Allen & Heath last time round....again"
Then he said, "Hey Greg, how bout you let me try harder this time. I know lets put my name on them and change the color of the knob."
:shock:
Please dont get me wrong, I have been looking at this board also. A lot. But if it is not way better than before. I'm gonna go with the Allen & Heath, Mix wiz 3.

I know, I know no converters

It's reviewed in the most recent Sound On Sound magazine (October 2004), not to mention the honorable front page pic. I'm a subscriber and read the review the minute I opened the mag. In a nutshell, there seems to be more of an improvement on the EQ side of things than the preamps, when compared to the VLZ equivalent.

One major omission was a MONO button, which I think is a pretty big fuck up on Mackie's behalf. Also worth mentioning, the direct ouptuts are jacked by D-SUB, contrary to your typical 1/4", which may be good or bad, depending on your patching system.

Sure, it may be one man's review, but if anyone's gonna keep me interested and dare I say it, sway me in any purchasing direction, it's Paul White from SOS. While I think that for this sort of gear could benefit from a few more user reviews to help it's cause, I'm glad I waited to place my order on an Onyx, as I'm no longer anticipating any sort of 'wow' factor from it.

Now I'd rather get a used Soundcraft, Soundtracs or A&H. Might as well do it right.

onyx

What is up with the soundcraft? I keep hearing about it. Is it a live board or recording board?

What??? You're putting out heavily-opinionated opinions on mixing boards like it was fact, debating an Allen & Heath, but you've never heard of Soundcraft?
Did I just miss the joke?

allen&heath

The joke was when you hit the reply button. :lol: And the other joke was when that guy in your mirror sat in front of your computer. :lol:
What do you think... I have owned every board on the market over the last 10 years. Wake up
I looked at all my prior post I dont see where I have been "heavily opinionated". I have opinions, however I "do not" claim to know it all. Nor have I had every piece of gear out there.
My guess is, you didn't have an answer to my question. :(
Please dont be upset :( that I will not ACT like I know it all.
Cause I dont.
This post is for various questions with good answers.
I would like to thank you for being so helpful with all your grand wisdom.
Its great working with true professionals like you. :mrgreen:

Re: onyx

its that guy again wrote: What is up with the soundcraft? I keep hearing about it. Is it a live board or recording board?

The easy answer to that question is "Yes." They make both, live and recording boards. Until recently, their main offerings were primarily moderately priced (5-20K) boards focused on live. Their legendary "Ghost" console sort-of bridges the gap and works wonderfully as a recording console (and it's damn cheap too - 6-8K) A couple of years ago, they came out with their M Series and then more recently a different "lettered" series which I can't recall. The M series mixers are a really good value as far as compact mixers and are good for recording to DAW or bus-summing down to 2 tracks.

They have, as far as budget consoles go, very good pre-amps a decent eq section, and direct outs on every channel that can be used as straight mic pres. (With the push of a button, you disable the fader and eq on the channel and are left with gain controls and pre-fade sends.) If you are looking for a budget board, I can strongly recommend the Soundcraft M12. I can't recommend their other series as strongly - the pre is not quite as good, there is not as much headroom and the eq isn't any better than the Mackie. Oh, there's also a S/PDIF out on the M series running at 24/44.1 which is great if you want to make a DAT/CD-R recording off of what's going to the master section.

I guess an affordable solution to the Onyx would be the Soundcraft M12 patched into a M-Audio Delta 1010. This would set you back about $1200 and you would have a pretty decent sounding set-up.

J... 8-)

All respect to Paul White, I don't see how the EQ on the Onyx could be any better other than the addition of one more band.

The omission of "Q" control on the mid bands, IMO makes the eq essentially unuseable. Add to that, Perkins opts for a wide "Q" that stays wide no matter how much cut is applied, this tells me I am not going to like the EQ at all .. I almost always go for a narrow "Q" when eqing kick drums .. I find it impossible to get bass and kick drums to sit right in a mix without using narrow "Q" cuts on the kick and boosts with the bass ...

It must be admited that Mackie builds their stuff like a tank .. I have seen more old ratty 16 channel Mackies that still work than any other small board I know of .. and the use of the DB25 connectors is a common trend .. the DB25 snakes are no more expensive than 1/4" snakes and the panels space savings is a necessity if you want all the channels to have direct outs .. if you already have 1/4' snakes, you will need to replace them ... but on the other hand, it's a good thing to do every once in a while .. and you're going to need 8 more direct out lines anyway (if you're running a 1604). Time to upgrade.

With the inclusion of the optional firewire converter card, Mackie is going to sell a lot of these to home recordists .. Just be sure to save some dough to purchase some Speck eqs to patch in on the channels where you will need surgical quality mid band eqs... and the ONYX will probably be a good board.. It's not something I'm going to get ... but I'll bet a lot of people are going to be very happy with them..