Mackie Onyx 1640

[edgeguy]

Its all I can afford as a front end to Nuendo. I need 16 mic pre's, and 16 adc's. Is anyone useing this yet? I was going to get another Aardvark Q-10 but they are out of buisness. I'll keep the Q-10 for Gigasampler. Mackie went through some major manufacturing mistakes in the past (India). How is there (China) manufacturing?

[DrDeltaM]

If it's all you can afford, there aren't too many alternatives i guess... Only other way is some ADAT interface (like RME) and 2 8 channel pre-amp with A/D convertor units. But you probably end up with a higher price then, unless you go Behringer

These new Mackie Onyx's could be good value for money tho (haven't seen them around here in Belgium yet). The older Mackie's sure were usable, and these should be rather an improvement. If you decide to go the Onyx route, please report back your experiences!

[Recording David]

I use a 12 channel Onyx and I'm very happy with it. Especially at the price I use the pres when I have run out of channels on my Broadhurst Gardens unit. The pres are rich and clean with lots of headroom (although I only have four!). I find the desk sturdy and nice ergonomically - I have a good workflow with it.

The only beef is that to get direct outs you have to buy D-Sub connectors (OK maybe it's a small beef, but direct outs would have been nice).

Also, my 'B-room' ADC/DAC is the RME ADI8-AE (8 channels) - it's excellent value for money and the conversion is good. Not as good as my best converters (Troisi), but not a million miles away either. And built like a tank.

[edgeguy]

Thanks Mathijs, you see what I mean. I have a weak price point.
And thanks Recording David, Glad to hear that in your opionion the mackie pre's can hold there own against some fine equiptment.

[PaRaNoId]

i Have heard nothing but good things about the Onyx line, sound quality-wise. Eqs are very good for the money, pres are 75% "pro" by my stds, and the signal flow is very logical; except for this- you cannot internally trim the signal going to the optional A/D's other than with the pres, which sometimes results in clipping the D/A's. they need to make the A/D's POST large fader and EQ IMO.

[oudplayer]

Anyone here having consistent success recording 8-16 tracks into their laptop from an Onyx? What about the "pops" I've read about on the Mackie user group (seems to be a few individuals with consistent problems)?

[I play in a ban]

I'll sell you my Q10 cheap..it's only been in my little home studio with decently light use. It might as well be new.

Let me know! Post here or e-mail me (Iplayinaband@yahoo.com)


- Bill

[tINY]

Originally Posted by oudplayer

Anyone here having consistent success recording 8-16 tracks into their laptop from an Onyx? What about the "pops" I've read about on the Mackie user group (seems to be a few individuals with consistent problems)?

I'm not sure I'd even try to record 16 channels on a laptop with ANY interface. And, If I did, I'd remove Outlook, Office, Explorer, Anti-virus software, all media players that weren't part of my recording software and so on. I'd probably try running a Firewire high-speed hard drive too.



-tINY

[oudplayer]

Originally Posted by tINY

I'm not sure I'd even try to record 16 channels on a laptop with ANY interface. And, If I did, I'd remove Outlook, Office, Explorer, Anti-virus software, all media players that weren't part of my recording software and so on. I'd probably try running a Firewire high-speed hard drive too.

Some of the newer "desktop replacement" laptops feature Athlon 3700+ processors, dual-channel memory, and can record with no effort with all inputs on a digi002 system. Since they spec out equivalent to computers that can effortlessly record 20-40 tracks simultaneously (our experience with an Athlon 3400 desktop system), it would seem that 8-16 tracks of 24/48 should be no problem, if the drivers are well-written, right? If the drivers are well-written...

And yes, external firewire, audio-only system.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by tINY

I'm not sure I'd even try to record 16 channels on a laptop with ANY interface. And, If I did, I'd remove Outlook, Office, Explorer, Anti-virus software, all media players that weren't part of my recording software and so on. I'd probably try running a Firewire high-speed hard drive too.



-tINY

I had no discernible problems recording 10 channels (of 24/44.1) into my Dell Inspiron (a 1.4 GHz Centrino machine -- with a 7200 rpm drive) using my MOTU 828mkII FW interface. (It's not what I normally do these days, so I don't have deep experience doing it. But my test went fine.)

Back when I started recording directly to computer in 1996 I regularly recorded 8 channels in and played back 8 ch out on a Pentium 133 with a 5400 rpm drive (of course that was 16 bit) usually with 16-18 active audio tracks (typically mixed into subgroups and sent to an analog mixer) and a whole bunch of MIDI (in Cakewalk). Of course -- that was without real-time plug-ins...

[warhead]

Originally Posted by Recording David

The only beef is that to get direct outs you have to buy D-Sub connectors (OK maybe it's a small beef, but direct outs would have been nice).

Hi Dave.

You can use the inserts as 1/4" direct outs on each channel. They are post preamp and post hi-pass filter.

War

[beechstudio]

OK............who else is using this mixer? What's your impression(s)?

Does it measure up to the hype I've been reading?

Thanks!

[warhead]

Rick, the preamps are pretty much unhyped from top to bottom and sound right. Compared to the VLZ stuff the Onyx preamps are full range without top end tizziness. The gain is pretty smooth top to bottom. The sound is very all purpose and I've used them mainly for drums, but they work well with all sources from acoustic guitars to vocals to elec guitars. I like the fact that phantom is selectable per channel and not grouped.

The EQ is wonderful...when it hits. The Q is rather wide on the mid adjustment and cannot get surgical but it is quite musical. The problem of course is that the EQ is only going to be available when sending out the busses or main outputs to use the strip. The direct outs are mainly post preamp and pre "everything else" including EQ. Being designed for live sound and recording it's great, but they should have made it an option in my opinion. I don't record drums with EQ most times so for me it wasn't an issue, I bought one for my personal studio because I need a bunch of drum preamps.

But yes, the sound is right and it's dead quiet too. Mackie's claim of "good as boutique preamps" depends on who you're talking to I suppose and more marketing hype. Mackie did however get the preamps sounding very tight and focused this time around.

My biased (dealer) opinion, but I am an Onyx owner too!

War

[beatzz]

The onyx does look pretty cool!

Ill definetly get that once i grow out of my delta 66.

[beechstudio]

Originally Posted by warhead

Rick, the preamps are pretty much unhyped from top to bottom and sound right. Compared to the VLZ stuff the Onyx preamps are full range without top end tizziness. The gain is pretty smooth top to bottom. The sound is very all purpose and I've used them mainly for drums, but they work well with all sources from acoustic guitars to vocals to elec guitars. I like the fact that phantom is selectable per channel and not grouped.

The EQ is wonderful...when it hits. The Q is rather wide on the mid adjustment and cannot get surgical but it is quite musical. The problem of course is that the EQ is only going to be available when sending out the busses or main outputs to use the strip. The direct outs are mainly post preamp and pre "everything else" including EQ. Being designed for live sound and recording it's great, but they should have made it an option in my opinion. I don't record drums with EQ most times so for me it wasn't an issue, I bought one for my personal studio because I need a bunch of drum preamps.

But yes, the sound is right and it's dead quiet too. Mackie's claim of "good as boutique preamps" depends on who you're talking to I suppose and more marketing hype. Mackie did however get the preamps sounding very tight and focused this time around.

My biased (dealer) opinion, but I am an Onyx owner too!

War

Thanks War!

I'm definately gonna check these out!

[Jaxman]

Just got an Onyx1640 w/ FW. Will be attempting to use it ( FW direct) into a custom PC; P4 3.0GHz, Asus 800 FSB Mobo, 2G (3200) Ram, 2 WD Raptors RAID 0, WinXP Pro. Software; Cubase SX3, UAD-1 Studio Pak and Waves Platinum. Hoping to record 16 tracks simultaneously and give the client a "quality" recording???
JaxStudios is still under construction so gear is still in the box. Should be up and running (testing) soon. Thoughts anyone?

Ken

[Peyton]

whats you US price for a 12 track onyx all i every see is "call for price " or "too low to print"

[Jaxman]

Just under $1100.00 But this was for the 16 channel. Not sure what the 12 would be.

[beechstudio]

Originally Posted by Jaxman

Just got an Onyx1640 w/ FW. Will be attempting to use it ( FW direct) into a custom PC; P4 3.0GHz, Asus 800 FSB Mobo, 2G (3200) Ram, 2 WD Raptors RAID 0, WinXP Pro. Software; Cubase SX3, UAD-1 Studio Pak and Waves Platinum. Hoping to record 16 tracks simultaneously and give the client a "quality" recording???
JaxStudios is still under construction so gear is still in the box. Should be up and running (testing) soon. Thoughts anyone?

Ken

Hey Jaxman,

Any thoughts on the 1640? How do you like it?

Can you post any samples?

[6dyslexicelephnt]

I have the 1640 with the firewire card, and although I'm a bit of a newbie, it sounds really nice to me. I used to have the presonus firepod and looking back I hated everything about it, but didn't know any better. Something about having an analog board that has a firewire converter is much more pro sounding than... a piece of crap like the prosonus firepod and they're roughly the same price for 16 channels. The only issue is with the construction. I had a 1620 (before I needed more channels : ) ) and the headphone jack is made of plastic AND mounted to the TWO piece circuit board which is RIVETED to the frame so if that breaks you have to send it somewhere to be fixed for about $150 or be daring enough to drill out the rivets yourself and track down the correct plastic headphone jack. When they were replacing mine I asked if I could have a nice switchcraft jack and they said they would have to drill another hole to move the headphone jack because of how it is constructed. Also I often seem them on ebay with the first channel not working... I'm not sure if that has something to do with the design regarding the first channel, but I suspect it's the extra wear that goes into that channel always being used. All these things make me nervous, but I can't afford anything that sounds better, especially anything that will interface with my hybrid home studio where I could easily have it hooked up to my laptop and a tape machine (one day) and be able to record onto analog and mix on digital without even having to plug a cable into the patchbay. There's the Alesis multimix that's analog with firewire for cheaper but I doubt that has better build quality and it only has 8 pres. So far I've only used mine for recording onto 4 track but I think with 2gb ram you should be able to handle 16 tracks at once for sure. Finally I would assume that people talking about pops in the audio on the mackie forum don't have their latency set right.

[liquidorange]

my little brother is using the crap out of that fire pod . no pops or clicks. the pres are fine and the converters are useable. i was surprised. mixing all in the box is so convenient. he-s looking to go apogee ensemble soon. i bet that will be a real upgrade.

[mpr3]

I use a 1640 for quickie location recording and have had very good results. I once took 16 channels of Avalon 2022 with a DIGI 192 and a G4 to a location recording and honestly, I wish I would have brought the Mackie 1640 instead. Do the Onyx pres sound like class A Avalon? IMO, no way, but they do get out of the way very nicely because the bandwidth is wide and the dynamic range is smooth (not jumpy like other cheap pres). In the mix I put a Phoenix plugin on every track and the edgy tones settle a bit into Class A territory.

I record 18 tracks (16 monos plus the 2mix) at 24 bit, 96 khz to the internal 7200 drive on a MacBook Pro. The longest continuous recording (done using Tracktion 2.0) was a little over an hour. No problems. Is it worth recording at 96khz? IMO, yes, the converters are the weak link, so pushing the filtering artifacts into the dog and cat range helps quite a bit.

[flwehr]

Originally Posted by tINY

I'm not sure I'd even try to record 16 channels on a laptop with ANY interface. And, If I did, I'd remove Outlook, Office, Explorer, Anti-virus software, all media players that weren't part of my recording software and so on. I'd probably try running a Firewire high-speed hard drive too.

-tINY

I recorded a gig we played last Thursday evening with an Onyx 1640 equipped with the Firewire card - first night out with the new gear. Set all the levels (2-3 players but lots of diferent instruments). I had all 16 channels recording on my Macbook - at 24 bit - into Logic Express. Set the song length to max and the tempo to 30 bpm so I had about 2 hours of recording time. All recorded to the internal hard drive on a Macbook (7200 RPM, 100 GB). Not a glitch - 15 GB of tracks recorded fine, no dropouts, glitches, or any evidence that the laptop even broke a sweat. BTW the Onyx sounded wonderful.

I think the idea that you MUST have a fast external drive for recording on a laptop might be true if you are using a lot of sample-based instruments, or are using the laptop for soft-synth sounds or a lot of processing while recording If all you want to do is record live audio from a Firewire interface, the internal HD on a reasonably fast laptop will work fine in my experience.

- Fred