Mackie Onyx 1640

[Ironklad Audio]

That is true with anything. Neumann doesn't repair electronics in their mics either. Behringer compacts their returns. $75/hour bench tech time vs. $35 to replace a $150 retail box...you do the math. I would rather have a new unit than a repaired one myself. This is the age in which we live.

on a sidenote, this is not only true of other gear manufacturers, but really any product sold under warranty in the US today

i've worked retail for a while now, and i can't tell you how many times my place of work has replaced a defective unit, only to throw the broken one in the trash, even when the issue would've been cheaply(real word?) and easily fixed.

[PDC]

Originally Posted by seventn

PDC, I don't know if you are british or Chinese design but you do have your own sound; you sound like an ass.

Lighten up and stay off the red bull.

I am an ass because I like the truth and enjoy no market BS (most of the time) here on slutz? Ok. Whatever.

I guess his generalization that all Brit designs are good and all Mackie designs are not are as valid as all guys named seventn are shallow.

[Ironklad Audio]

Yea but the mackie has the british-sounding perkins eq!!!!

edit: damnit, this is the one time i wish all caps was allowed on here...

[Funk-O-Meter]

Oh geeze guys, gotta be careful or you'll wind up in a flame war. It's so easy on the interwebs.


Anyway, wanted to say that you gotta remember Mackie has made their boards for live use primarily since the beginning. So that's why you see things like pre-EQ auxes and directs. They assume you want to mix for the house primarily and everything else is secondary. They don't want to complicate things by having the EQ effect the mointors as well. Same thing with the directs. They assume your going to multitrack off the board at some club or something and the live mix is the priority. They're not designed as recording consoles generally except the 8 buss.

And that the reason they were cheaper than the competitors was because of building them on one board. Early on I think they were built very well. I saw them dogged around in clubs for years and alwasy held up well. But that was the 90's. I haven't owned one since. I still mix in clubs around town with the original 1604vlz's that are going strong.

But with the firewire thing and the high end pre's they've blurred the lines between recording and live. They should have put configuration options in the Onyx series since they're pimping it as a recoding board with the firewire thing. I agree it's silly to have the directs pre-eq if your selling it as a recoding console. They've also done a few other bone-headed things lately that isn't like the Mackie of old. Like one board I had the diss-pleasure of working with required you to route to a sub-group to get to the master buss. I thought the master buss had crapped out and I mixed the show off a couple auxes only to find out later that you HAD to route through a sub-group. Got the show off though.

So yea, I wouldn't buy a Onyx for a recoding board since you have to mod it to be used properly. Good pre's though.

[Ironklad Audio]

They should have put configuration options in the Onyx series since they're pimping it as a recoding board with the firewire thing. I agree it's silly to have the directs pre-eq if your selling it as a recoding console

TBH, i sort of like having the firewire send pre-EQ

when tracking drums, i can EQ the shit out of them for monitoring purposes, but not commit the EQ to the recordings

as nice as the perkins EQs are, my waves SSL and API EQ's are way the hell better, and i'd much rather hear them in the final mix, but the band sure loves being able to hear a scooped kick and boosted high end on the OH's while tracking

[Funk-O-Meter]

Right, right, and right.

[tysonviolin]

Originally Posted by Ironklad Audio

TBH, i sort of like having the firewire send pre-EQ

when tracking drums, i can EQ the shit out of them for monitoring purposes, but not commit the EQ to the recordings

as nice as the perkins EQs are, my waves SSL and API EQ's are way the hell better, and i'd much rather hear them in the final mix, but the band sure loves being able to hear a scooped kick and boosted high end on the OH's while tracking

I like having the pre/post EQ option like in the 1640i

[mixedup99]

Originally Posted by Ironklad Audio

the only main gripe i've had thus far was that the PSU crapped out in my unit last month...i went to power it up, and all the lights started blinking and it blasted this annoying click through the monitors

deleted my message by mistake but thought I'd reply again just in case anyone is having the same problems....basically I switched it on here and there over the last two years with no luck (it was 3 days out of warranty so no hope of having it repaired and no hope of finding the £400 I was quoted for repair) but I turned it on the other day and it worked!!! So if your 16-series breaks down with flashing lights and a constant click (that can get louder) then don't bin it if you can't repair it - stash it away, maybe there's some static or a capacitor that isn't discharged?? But I was so close to selling mine as spares or repair for about £100....was so lucky I gave it one more shot!

[gentlemanvase]

Hi,
I have a chance to buy a Mackie Onyx 1640 with the added firewire card inserted. I wondered if it will work exactly the same as the 1640i which has the card already built in. I don't know if the 1640i has any additional features from the 1640 apart from firewire. Can I feed it all 16 channels back to the 1640 from the DAW?

Cheers

John

[Retrofreak]

Yes you can feed all 16 channels to and from your DAW with greater routing flexibility and converters with the Onyx 1640i.