What do you need it for? Unless there's some overwhelming reason to use it I would keep that mixer out of my signal path.

bouldersound, post: 385225 wrote: What do you need it for? Unless there's some overwhelming reason to use it I would keep that mixer out of my signal path.

I'm a relative newb at this proposition as well, and I've just initiated a new thread posing a few related questions to the membership, but can I ask . . . why is it preferable for this gentleman to remove the mixer from his signal path?

I don't personally own an "audio interface" of any kind other than a Mackie Onyx-1620 mixer with firewire connection to a Mac with VSTs, but should I too look at disposing of my mixer and purchasing something else? I'd sure appreciate your views on this.

NO. The Onyx has a very good set of preamps with that FW interface. The reason that BS said that was because the Tascam interface has some mic preamps in it (not as good as the Smackie, but certainly useable), so you have a redundant situation.
And to the OP, assuming that you need more simultaneous XLR mic inputs than the Tascam offers, you take the left and right LINE outputs from the Mackie mixer into the LINE inputs on the Tascam...in a nutshell. Consult your owners' manual before attempting this with young children in the room...

moonbaby, post: 385404 wrote: NO. The Onyx has a very good set of preamps with that FW interface. The reason that BS said that was because the Tascam interface has some mic preamps in it (not as good as the Smackie, but certainly useable), so you have a redundant situation.

Ah! Thanks for the clarification, Moon!

What moonbaby said. Plus the CFX and DFX stuff from [="http://bouldersoundguy.com"]Mackie[/]="http://bouldersound…"]Mackie[/] is pretty junky. Odds are the [[url=http://="http://bouldersound…"]Tascam[/]="http://bouldersound…"]Tascam[/] preamps are quite a bit better if not quite as nice as the Onyx ones.

Huh?

Troubadour, post: 385439 wrote: Huh?

I'd be happy to clarify...if I knew what needed clarification.

bouldersound, post: 385444 wrote: I'd be happy to clarify...if I knew what needed clarification.

Moonbaby said to pitch the Tascam mixer and keep the Mackie because (in his view) the Mackie's pre's were considered superior . . . you then said "what Moonbaby said" (indicating that you agreed with Moonbaby), but you went on to say that the Tascam's pre-amps were as good or better than Mackie's? Unless I've misread or misinterpreted something somewhere, I'm afraid those two statements don't reconcile, at least not for me.

Troubadour, post: 385488 wrote: Moonbaby said to pitch the Tascam mixer and keep the Mackie because (in his view) the Mackie's pre's were considered superior . . . you then said "what Moonbaby said" (indicating that you agreed with Moonbaby), but you went on to say that the Tascam's pre-amps were as good or better than Mackie's? Unless I've misread or misinterpreted something somewhere, I'm afraid those two statements don't reconcile, at least not for me.

We are talking about two totally different Mackie mixers and two different interface arrangements, the OP's and yours. He said your Mackie Onyx has nice preamps and is its own interface so you are set, but that the OP's Mackie CFX is redundant and her Tascam probably has better preamp so she should skip the mixer and just use her interface.

Ah, so then, aside from the redundancy issue, a given model of Tascam (in this her US-1800 AI) "can" indeed have better pre-amp's than certain Mackie mixers, just not better than the Onyx models. Got it! My bad and my apologies. Thanks for clarifying.