I've used few nice preamps for about 5 years now, groove tubes brick, Old school audio preamps, and I still use an api 512c and purple biz as well as the stock preamps in my 896 and 828 interfaces.

I much rather record live tracking instead of just track everything out, using the nicest preamps available, like almost everyone here will most likely say is "best", But after having a personal session that I wanted to spend too much time on, I did mic/preamp shoot outs for each drum, trying many mics on each drum, recording them through 3 different preamps. My 512c, purple biz, and stock 896 preamp. First being 4 mics on a kick, 3 being "kick drum mics" and one being just a nice dynamic (md420), and then I listened to all the recordings back, to put in order which mics I liked the most to least, and also which preamps I liked best to least, out of 12 possibilities to choose from, the top 4 choices blew me away, the top two choices out of 12 were both the d6 mic going through the 512c and the completely stock and 5 year old 896 interface's preamp, this was also similar with my beta52 too, though the sound was ok, and I liked the sound I got, the d6 was more of the sound I was going for.

This all being said, brings me to wonder, a $775 preamp that requires a power supply costing anywhere from $300 to $400 just to use it, so in total in my case (since I use and a designs 2 bay power supply) a $1075 preamp, that consists of one knob, with polarity switch, pad, and phantom power, sounded extremely similar to my stock interface preamp, that I only spent $999 bucks on brand new. I've done other preamp/mic shootouts, not really to pick what I like better, but was for recording tom hits for sound replacing, and also just plain curiosity.

So all that is said, cause I know theres going to be a tone of people that just say to get a 3124, and save up for it, bla bla bla. I have owned an api for 5 years, have done many recordings with it, have a/bed with other preamps, mics, instruments, etc. I'm fully aware of how great they are/renowned.

Now, my question is, Should I sell my 512c, purple biz, and power supply for around $1200-1500 on ebay, and purchasing a used or find a good deal on ebay for an allen & heath gl2400. So I can have both more preamps for my all live recording, multiple channels of analog eq, and also the ability to have both the "preamp" with an "output fader", which I really enjoy having if I want to run the preamp hot and then move the output fader back to control the tracking levels.

I've looked into this to also become my monitor controller too. I have a dangerous audio D-Box, $1400 volume control and ghetto rigged talkback mic setup. I'm feeling I could sell this too, for around $1k (maybe more, who knows, i've yet to research the resell value of these on ebay yet). So doing this I could get a gl2400 and maybe a new mic or two for kick (I love having lots of different mics, cause they allll sound different).

So, I've been doing a ton of research, trying to find a nice mixer in relatively "new" condition, so it won't need a complete recapping, or have to fix the power supply. I did a lot of research on the soundcraft lx7ii, which seemed like in the reviews, that people that liked it, used it for just live use and were very inexperience, bla bla, and the people that didn't like were people that have used many consoles, and all had issues with things breaking on it, and that (to their ears) the preamps and eqs either sounded "harsh" or didn't sound different that the comparable Behringer models, etc. So, from those reviews there were a lot of comments saying the gl2200 was a much better console to check out eq, routing, preamp, etc. I checked the new version of the gl2200, which is the gl2400, and seems great and perfect for what I'm looking to use, so I can have many channels with post fader direct outs, that has a great sound.

I feel like I'm going backwards, when everyone is looking to do EVERYTHING in the box, but I enjoy analog eqs, (nice ones are way too expensive imo to purchase for my place, especially for how poor and sh*tty the music industry is these days). But I'd rather have a nice "live" mixer, that has respectable preamps that are either very clean, or in the very least not muddy, and have a decent headroom for drums, and having eq that are obviously not on par with an $800 500 series eq that is built with the best components ever invented in the history of man, but also usable eq for drums, and maybe guitar for bands with garbage equipment.

So, who is using or has used the A&H GL series consoles, is it going to be a good option for multitracking, are they way too noisy, is noise a concern or just something you bring up to put it down, is the noise coming from the direct out, or the stereo output?

I've recorded over 300 bands over 8 years. This isn't a hobby, or a "starting a studio" thread, just want to have people that have used the GL2400 consoles, give their opinion of its reliability, sound of eq and preamp. thats all.

Bands are poor. I want to record bands that are poor. This means I can't take out a loan for thousands and thousands of dollars, and then charge amounts that bands CAN afford, and also be enough to pay me. Take this a way that thinks about the band, the engineer, and the studio.