I have an Alesis 12 R. The thing kicks ass and only takes up 3 rack spaces. The ONLY complaint I have about it is that the knobs have colored tips and they sometimes come off.

It has 8 mono strips with inserts, 2 stereo strips, and phantom power.

It's great for Home or small project studios and works great for live situations as well. A great little mixer!

You can find them on e-bay relatively easily (where I got mine for about 150) as well as your usual online music sources. Zzounds is asking almost double what I paid. 8)

A used Mackie?

Ebay seems to have a lot of them for sale at really cheap prices

Behringer is a Mackie knock off and some of their new mixers aren't half bad. Not exactly the best in the world but serviceable.

I second Thomas's suggestion of a used Mackie. I've loved every mackie board I've ever used - great value. Personally, I'd stay away from Be*ringer stuff.

Wes

I'm using a behringer...and don't like it. I'm thinking maybe a soundcraft compact 4.

Before you spend any more money what is it that you don't like about the Behringer?

Channel Bleed and Non Transparent sound

I think you are looking for something that is hard to find a "cheap" mixer with good specificaitons and good sound. They normally do not come together. Basic suggestion save your money and save up for a better mixer. I can say from personal experience that the Mackie 1640 Onyx is one of the better all around mixers you can buy. With the firewire port and the software it makes a very nice console/ recording setup for very little money. If you want to stay within your "budget" then look for a used Mackie on Ebay or maybe at your local retailer. The cheaper new Soundcraft boards are not much better than what you have. I recently saw at our local GC a very nice older Soundcraft board for less than $600.00. It was probably worth $6000.00 when new. It was a bit beat up and some of the knobs were missing but it looked like it had been well cared for just used a lot. All the lights came on and the unit had a seperate power supply.

Just a suggestion.

Don't overlook the Yamaha MG series in your research. I used a MG12/4 for a few years until I upgraded. Their built like tanks, no channel bleed and the sound is reasonably transparent.

me personally, i like the yamaha mg series, i have a mg16/4, haven't a problem with it yet and i've had it for about 5 or 6 months now.

Thomas W. Bethel wrote: A used Mackie?

Ebay seems to have a lot of them for sale at really cheap prices

Behringer is a Mackie knock off and some of their new mixers aren't half bad. Not exactly the best in the world but serviceable.

Yes, I think this is an excellent suggestion. The 1202s are fairly inexpensive used.

I had a behringer 1202 copy that was absolutely atrocious which I eventually sold. The sound was awful. If you are going to buy a cheap mixer at least get one that you can actually use.

I use a Yamaha MG 12/4 for monitoring and it is quiet, reliable, and flexible. I've had no problems in 2 1/2 yrs.