Mixer Comparison Advice

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

not very inspiring or special mixers for my tastes. What draws you to them in particular?

[SlutPuppy13]

They're all $99.99 or less! The only one that is less is the Alesis which I found listed for $79.99.

I just want something that gets the job done, not really looking for anything extra, but I want it to get the job done well. I'm pretty new to this and I know my recordings are already going to be kind of sloppy, so I want to avoid unnecessary hardware noise/frustrations.

Do you have any advice for dealing with mixers/audio interfaces in general that can help me avoid hangups in the future?

Or is anyone reading this who has hands on experience with these particular models?

[gravyface]

Forget about a mixer for a second. What are you planning on recording? Live drums? Acoustic and vocals? How many tracks concurrently?

[SlutPuppy13]

Drum machine, synth, monotribe, kaossilator, guitar, bass, vocals, and 8-bit chiptunes.

I can work with one at a time, and that's how I planned on doing it, but multitracking would be nice.

HOWEVER: I should note I'm currently working with the free software Audacity.

I've looked at other audio interfaces other than mixers, but the options I found seemed lacking. For instance, they'd have just one line in with no stereo inputs, or they'd have stereo inputs only, or a combination XLR 1/4 input, which I heard generates lots of noise (but I'm no expert.) I've had more luck finding a good combination of inputs with mixers, but if you can point me towards a good interface of another type in this price range I'm totally interested

[gravyface]

Alot of those low end USB mixers only record two channels (stereo) simultaneously. Better off getting a decent audio interface that will have better preamps and AD/DA converters.

There are decent hybrid mixers out there like the Mackie Onyx series but they start at 600 bucks.

[SlutPuppy13]

What do you mean? the signal being sent via USB will be stereo?

Or that their inputs are mostly stereo?