Phonic stuff is OK. I use it. It's not bad.

Behringer are a morally inept company who stole a design from Mackie (allhedgely, can't spell, been awake too long) (alledgedly).

Protip: don't get Behringer. If it breaks 3 months from now you're back to square 1 but more out of pocket. Our Church's Phonic mixer has stood up to a 4 foot drop, being clattered about a fair bit, and 2 years of dust.

Can you be clearer on your needs for recording? One synth at a time? 2? All 3? In stereo? Mono?
Most USB mixers will only let you record a 2-channel mixdown.

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Also, as a sound guy, I'll tell you that I hate giving musicians the volume control. Interestingly enough I'm normally in the better position to tell what sounds good to the audience.

If all your gear comes with no speakers, great - give him a balance of all 3 - sorted. If your EP has speakers, you'll need to turn it down in the mix or it'll be too loud. But how much do you turn it down by?

Generally any sound guy worth their salt will balance your stuff properly and will hopefully have better gear at hand. And any sound guy who doesn't know EQ from a hammer will ruin your sound regardless of how well you fix it up.

So what do you want to do? Choke a good sound guy or barely avoid a bad sound guy?

Just to put a spanner in the works I actually like behringer stuff! (ducks flames) I've had a lot of success, and not come into any problems with them. Inc. a mixer one of the bands I engineer for has had is still going strong. So that's my experience of behringer, obviously others have had problems hence the hatred.

My advice to you on buying a mixer is think about what your potential needs might be in the future. If you get a 4 channel mixer and decide next week to add a member to your band you've wasted money.

However, soundcraft spirit series do a very similar mixer to eurorack 802 but i'm not sure if they make them any more.

If you have the budget, check out the PreSonus StudioLive. I caught a demo of it and thought it was pretty cool.

I was told it will soon be shipping with their Studio One software, which also looks pretty darn cool.

Can you be clearer on your needs for recording? One synth at a time? 2? All 3? In stereo? Mono?

well, truth is I only record 1 synth at a time, of course in STEREO, but I just wanted something to sit BESIDE ME ON THE TABLE so as not to lie down on the floor as a mat everytime I have to connect the cables into the sound board.

and as regards live playing... well... I see your point, it's probably more shrewd to let the sound guy do his job, but, I would have to give him 3 (and not just 2) cables, thus increasing the no. of channels coming from the band, and I also NEED to adjust gear volumes at critical times during songs since the elec piano's sounds I only use at particular moments, the rest of the time I use it as a controller for the synths.

I know, I can still control the piano's volume with its own knob and stop being a nuisance to my fellow members of the forum, but I thought I would be simpler, and a handy tool if ever I want to have an mp3 player or sth of the sort connected to the mixer and playback sounds or sequences from it....

maybe I'll just settle for Phonic, maybe the am220???

The biggest problem with Behringer gear (functional as opposed to ethics) is that they are noisy and have very little headroom. The Ultracurve with its auto feedback destroyer is somewhat helpful in a live PA situation, but none of the mixers are quiet so recording through one of them is less than useless. Can a person make it work? Sure. That still doesn't make it a good investment.

what about phonic? can they be considered the cheaper counterpart to behringer, or is it the other way round?

could I record with NO NOISE with a phonic mixer?

thanks!

I have not used any Phonic gear. I would seriously doubt it is a no noise mixer. I'll leave specific comments to those that have used the brand in question.

Noise floor is one of the things that differentiates cheap gear from good gear-and especially from top notch gear.

There's NO SUCH THING as a NO NOISE mixer.

You get gear which has a noise level so low noone will ever be able to hear it, but...

The phonic mixer we have, I have no problems with it. More headroom would be nice but in terms of noise, it's fine for live stuff.

I record to an onboard soundcard (shup) so mixer noise when recording isn't something I care about.

EVERYBODY makes mixers for your needs. Its the 'new' thing now. Save your pennies and get Mackie at the least. Soundcraft and A&H will also work. Yamaha. They have a soft spot in their designs for electronic keyboards......Its reflected in the way the inputs are padded to accept keys.

thanks davedog, can you name any model from the makes you mention at least for me to have a reference? truth be told, I'm on a budget... and a quite limited one... but I would like to consider any posibilities

cheers

TheJackAttack wrote: The biggest problem with Behringer gear (functional as opposed to ethics) is that they are noisy and have very little headroom. The Ultracurve with its auto feedback destroyer is somewhat helpful in a live PA situation, but none of the mixers are quiet so recording through one of them is less than useless. Can a person make it work? Sure. That still doesn't make it a good investment.

Agreed, they can be noisy!

try checking these out. fairly cheep if you can save up those few pennies.

http://www.mackie.com/products/802vlz3/

I'm selling my Alesis multimix 16 USB for $275. PM if you're interested. It did well for me, but I'm upgrading. Quiet too. Only has stereo bus out I believe unfortunately, but works good for beginners wanting a board. It's great for live stuff.

More info:
http://www.alesis.com/multimix16usb

Here's a recording I did with it:
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