Unfortunatly you had a hellish experience. I used the original Mackie 24 x 4 live 4 nights a week for 3 years without a problem. However in the studio in that price range the bleed is a common problem usually due to the way things are grounded internally. My Soundcraft Spirit 32 x 8 has the same problem, the tiniest bit of bleed even with all channels muted. There 'may' be something at the same price point that would be better but I don't know of anything personally. You might want to think about something used for a little more money. Depends on what you need. Maybe a Soundcraft 600 (a more pro line console), I've heard good things about the Sountracs Topaz Project series but don't know about the grounding/bleed issue with those, Allen & Heath maybe?

Welcome to the delima so many of us have faced along the way.. Yes, the mackie is a gutless wonder and will do fine for certain things... door stops come to mind.

If you can find one, I'd highly recommend the A&H GS3000. Decent pre's, musical EQ and the two onboard valves' are kick ass for a B3 or guitar.

It's dual signal path and it should be very affordable now that they aren't making it any more...i.e. you might be able to find one as NOS or slightly used. MINE'S NOT FOR SALE!

Good luck!

Hi,

Mackie sucks!! I am suprised they even sent you a new board. I have been in their plant bitching to sales and service with no such luck. A few shirts and bumper stickers is all I got.

A Soundcraft Ghost is what I am getting as soon as I can. I really feel Mackie is living on past reputation and will have to improve quality to stay around.

Wow, I've never heard so many people complaining about the service at Makee at one time. Could this be the point of over-diversification?

Well we shall see how understanding Mackie is by my reqesting a full refund for this shit 32 VLZ Mackie board.

These "live" boards of Mackie's are said to work quite well for recording!

However if when all of your channels are down , with the mutes on and there is still noticable audio BLEEDING comeing out of the main outs to monitors/headphones from final 2 track destination and noticable (the leeking) on the mix tape , I would say that this sort of ridiculousness is unacseptable!

Not to mention that it has been confirmed that the 1604 (which works well with recording) is not the same board with extended channels , but an entirely different animal all together , wired differently and the power section is different.

All in all between the 2 the 1604 VLZ Pro is a better mixer (I should know , this was my 3rd 32 channel in 1 year!)

I have gone thru incredible setbacks because of Mackies bad design!

An entire year wasted with this thing out of my studio and in the repair shop or at Mackieville.

My original current thought a year ago was:

. Mackie will help me limp along until I can aford something where I can use the on board pres.

. Over a long period and as I started to get some substantial new outboard gear , I realized how useless this board really is!

. You cant use ballenced gear in the stereo incerts.

. The quality of the EQs are harsh and lifeless.

. The great XDRs that the company rave about that are claimed to be equal to $2,000.00 pres per channel , have to be bipassed , so as not to degrate the program material that I have recorded with better pres and a Manley Massive Passive EQ (which I think is the bees knees!)

. Finally I came to the understanding and conclusion that all these boards were good for was to playback tape recorders and nothing else.

Want to use a ballenced Compressor with the Mackie? How about main outs of board to XLR in of Compressor to source? Well that worked , but from no help that Mackie offered!

The SR32-4 VLZ PRO Mixer by Mackie is a joke!!

I gave them every opertunity to correct themselves and they failed.

Lets see if they comply for a full refund!

Thanks everyone for all your support , it is greatly appreciated!

Mad John
Zythum Studios

"The present day Composer refuses to die!"
Edgar Varese - 1921

If you're going to use a lot of outboard, then the new little Speck mixer may be exactly what you want.

I'm not exactly sure but boards with balanced inserts will likely cost at least 3 times used what the Mackie cost new so keep that in mind when you're shopping. Sounds like you want a Pro level board so the $$$ goes up from there and a used pro console around 4K will need a lot of TLC.

On a different note, what I find amazing is how quickly things change. 10 -15 years ago the Mackie 8-bus came out along with the ADAT and changed the recording world. Before that a half decent 8 track studio with a couple good mics was almost out of reach for most of us. Back then it was always Peavey getting bashed and the Mackie came out and most people raved about it "for the money". Now it's time for Mackie bashing, ADAT bashing, Pro Tools bashing.....I wonder what it will be in ten years.....

Don't get me wrong. Mackie is a great piece of gear for the price if it works. Even just a few years ago Mackie had a great rep. I think their prob now is that they have had a huge increase in the number of unhappy customers due to mfg. problems that should have never seen the field. A Mackie brd from a few years ago is way more reliable than stuff built lately. I do feel Mackie could have laid out the channel strips better without increasing cost. Stuff like a phase button, phantom power button on each strip, and a pad. These are simple things.

and a used pro console around 4K will need a lot of TLC.
********************************************

Not anymore! Have you checked the used console market lately? Its almost a fantasy for any of us old enough to remember used 12x4 desks costing $5K.

Not sure how far the original poster wants to go towards a "pro" board, but there has never been a better time to shop. At the low end of the scale, you can find a TAC Scorpion or Soundcraft Delta in perfect working order for well under $2K. Either one of those boards will make the Mackie look like the plastic toy it really is. You just need to wait until you come across the nicest, cleanest board imaginable. In this market you will find exactly what you want at whatever your price point, IF you are willing to look around for a while. These are both boards that people gladly paid $4K or $5K for just a couple of years ago; now yours for $1299 - amazing!

If you actually have $4K or $5K to spend, your options are almost unlimited these days. None of the following boards were available anywhere near this price a couple of years ago, most were on the far side of $10K; but now you can choose from:
Trident 65, 70 & 24, Soundcraft TS12 & TS24, AMEK Angela, many varieties of MCI, Neotek Series 2, and at least a dozen other top quality boards. Once again, your only important task is to shop selectively, because there is a huge glut of used analog consoles and you need to cherry pick a winner.
Having the Mackie crap out on you was a godsend; otherwise you might have stuck with that earbleeder for years. Happy hunting!

Wow!

Hollywood Steve that was a great help!

You have always been informative and you were the 1st one last year to point out to me the "cheapness" of Mackie parts and I remeber feeling a little defensive , because I thought you were being a wee bit snoby!

If you recal Steve, we were post buddies on VG, remeber?

Well the one area in our discussions that was the most prominent was the debate on Mackie mixers.

Despite past differences of agreement , needless to say, you were right!

Thank you for all your wonderful information.

I feel confident I can find something great now!

Peace & Dreams my friend,

Mad John
Zythum Studios

"The present day Composer refuses to die!"
Edgar Varese - 1921

John:

Just to get an idea of what's out there in good pro-level used consoles, you may want to check out:

http://www.proaudiomarketplace.com

Kind of a monthly pro-audio classified e-zine where people sell their used stuff. There's a subscription fee, but it's reasonable.

I agree with those above, if you need a console and you can afford it, get a used higher end board. However, if you need to stay cheap demo the soundcraft M-Series boards. I just had the rep in for a night on the town and we demoed a few of them in our studio. They are cheaper like the mackies, but use the Ghost pre-amps. Sound great for little $$$.

We personaly do not use a board, we are 100% Pro Tools, Pro Control, and Studio Technologies for monitoring, and i wouldn't go back if you paid me in gold! But the M-series is Soundcrafts answer to mackie prices, and it sounds wayyyy better. ;)