Anyone using the Midas Venice?

[Hiwatt]

How are the pre's? Eq? Summing? What kind of aplications are you using it for, recording, live sound, mixing? Thanks

[Markd102]

I'd like to hear some opinions too.

We're about to get a Venice for live work, but I'm wondering how they stack up in the studio..... for tracking purposes only.
How good are the pres and the eq?
I'm hoping it will be good enough for tracking drums and maybe guitars.

[Ijustmake-Beats]

Sure hope someone replies, I'm really interested myself on how the Venice stacks up against other summing mixers, as well as other good studio mixers with regards to it's eq, preamps and overall sound quality.

Everything I've heard so far on the Venice has been outstanding news, but it's all been mainly from people working in the live arena, a studio perspective would be great.

[Clueless]

I've been using a Venice (first a 240, then 240+160, then 320+160) for 2+ years as a summing mixer in my studio. I loved it so much that when Midas created a larger unit, the Verona, I upgraded straight to that.

I really think that if the Venice has the ins and outs that you need, you won't find a better mixer for less than 4x the price.

[Hiwatt]

Thanks Clueless, so how are you liking the Verona. I have been eying them up as well.

[Clueless]

I love Love LOVE the Verona! I love having variable HPF on every mono channel. I love having variable shelving. For once, I'm growing into my console instead of growing out of it.

Do I lust for an H1000? Of course I do--I'm a Gear Slut! But the Verona makes me quite happy (and aware) of all the other components in my system.

N.B. If you do go for a Verona, make sure that you put feet on it before sliding it across any surface you care about. My mix table is solid oak, and I put several long, deep scratches into it before I realized that at the bottom of the Verona are screw heads, not rubber.

[Remoteness]

There are a few thread on the Midas Venice...

Do a seach and you will find a boat load of information.

[Hiwatt]

Ah yes the search button, you know I should use it more often than I do but lazyness is becoming more and more part of our culture...

[thearnicasync]

Howdy,

Just curious...I've done searches here and have come to the conclusion that the venice mixers are nice. Not SSL, but nice.

How are the eq's? I'm thinking of getting the eight channel for DAW summing/mixing...and I'm wondering if I can justify it. Honestly, I'm ok mixing ITB...I use metric halo channel strip most of the time...waves ren. eq other times. How would the Venice hold up to these?

Also, I assume the pres are wire-with-gain type, yeah? Clean...detailed...maybe like a sytek or something?

Thanks so much!

kelly

[Ijustmake-Beats]

Hey Kelly,

I have a Metric Halo 2882 soundcard, and when I was shopping around for soundcards I tried out the MH Channelstrip plug-in just to see if I could justify the extra money for a MH 2882 + DSP. After giving it some serious use my most honest opinion is that Midas EQ, coupled with RNC compression, blows the Channelstrip plugin right out the water.

I'm sure you know it better but I personally found the Channelstrip a little trying to get the results I wanted from it, and the sound, though warm for a plugin, was a tad 'mushy' in a digital sense.

I have the 8 channel Midas (16 channels really) and an 8 channel soundcard.

My mixes all tend to look like this in terms of channels on the Midas...

9 + 10 (stereo channel) everything not included below.

1, kick
2, snare
3, hats
4, bass
5, main hook 1
6, main hook 2

I also blend my synths on channels 7, 8 and the other stereo channels with this arrangement from time to time.

Chances are that if you have lots of outboard already, and are happy using plugins for the rest, then the best option for you is to buy a high quality summing box and to just run things through your outboard. I don't have a lot of outboard and I didn't want to spend huge amounts on getting 'em, also I don't personally get the depth, bounce and full texture that I want for my music from plug-in compression and eq so I have to go analogue one way or another. I'm not ready for digital mixers and all the reports say that Mackies and Soundcrafts will compromise your sound fairly significantly.

So basically the Midas was the perfect choice for me.

Now I get solid eq on every channel, it's very aggressive eq, but I've learnt to apply it in tasteful amounts. I don't have to buy 8 outboard eq's. Also, though I've never owned a standalone summing box, the Midas seems to do just fine, no complaints. Also, I can route things through my Ensoniq reverb plus I'm adding outboard compressors as I can afford to. The desk sounds very decent with no obvious degredation of the signals occouring at all (no ultra signal enhancement like a high end console happening either though I guess). So all in all right now I'm quite content with my purchases and pulling a sound that I actually really like and I personally know for a fat that I wouldn't be able to pull off ITB alone (Note: I mostly do hip-hop, downtempo, chillout, house and d'n'b kinda stuff, drum sounds are very important for what I do, vocals and live instruments not really so much yet).

Comparing it with SSL mixes I still can't get the SSL compression sound obviously and there is a kind of full smoothness, focus and clarity to sounds mixed on SSL that I still can't achieve but all in all, for a whole lot less money, I'm doing quite ok.

Something that you might want to do to really be sure is to hire a Midas of some kind of a weekend, there are places in most major cities that will do this. Do a whole bunch of A/B comparisons and see what you personally think, to me it sounds like a Midas would be perfect to take your mixes up another (quite significant) notch, but that's just me though, and I'm biased because I have a Midas and I'm very happy with it.

Anyway, best of luck..

[thearnicasync]

Wow...thanks for the great post! That's exactly the kind of review I'm not looking for $. Thing is, there's a pretty great deal on one relatively closeby, and I just got some cash.

The most appealing thing about the midas right off the bat are the chosen eq points...they're right where I do most of my tweaking, anyway. I have yet to read a bad review of the overall sound quality of the board.

Again, thanks...I'm going to post a "help me spend money thread" and then go from there!

Seriously, thanks for the great opinion.

kb

[Billster]

Nice threat. To me the Midas seems to be an interesting alternative to summing boxes. Recently there was a comparison-threat of the Venice and SPL Mixdream, which the Venice won easily.

I´m still in the process of making a decision what to get. I only know that I need a mixbus with more balls to it. Right now I use some nice outboard in combination with the PT HD-mixbus, which tends to flatten the round bass I get from my Massive Passive.

To have a lot of pres and eq onboard isn´t a bad thing after all. You can still use your exquisite outboard for tracks that really need that kind of attention or in an overdub situation. The compact size is comforting as well.

Can you guys think of another mixer that´s in the same ballpark as the Venice in terms of value for money ?

Regards, Bill

[dbbubba]

Since I sit with a Midas Venice 320 in front of me a lot of the time I thought that I'd do a test and see what the output levels were when a channel was fed with 1 Khz @ 0db (+4)

If I feed the channel #1 line input with a LoftTech tone generator producing a 1 kHz tone at +4db I get these reults:

Channel Gain set to "0" (this is the LINE INPUT SCALE)
With the fader of the input channel at "0" and the master fader at "0" I get a +4 output signal. This shows that the console pretty much has unity gain from the channel input to the master output. The output LEDs are fairly accurate, too.

At the SUB GROUP OUTPUTS I get +3 db which is a loss of 1 db.
At the #1 channel DIRECT OUT I get a level of +6 db or a gain of 2 db
At the #1 channel INSERT OUT I get a level of +5.2 db or a gain of 1.2 db

If I feed the channel INPUT and adjust the DIRECT OUTPUT level to read +4 db with the line gain knoob I get a level of 3.2 db at the INSERT OUTPUT. This is consistent with the levels above.

So... the channel's INSERT LEVEL is .8 db down from the channel's input level.

Not bad and not an un-common thing with consoles.
This is prett decent gain staging.

Danny Brown

[Jalabodu]

Danny,
Good data. I'm loving mine for live applications. Would it be possible to test the noise levels on the internal power supply vs. the external? I'm thinking of using it in the studio.

[dbbubba]

You know.... the external supply to ours sits under my desk in the office.
I have never thought about using it until you mentioned it!

I have no issues with noise and I have listened in some SERIOUSLY good monitoring environments, too.
I have listened to my mixes done on a Midas in some world class rooms.

I need to drag that external P.S. home!

DB

[skygod]

Originally Posted by Billster

Nice threat. To me the Midas seems to be an interesting alternative to summing boxes. Recently there was a comparison-threat of the Venice and SPL Mixdream, which the Venice won easily ...
Regards, Bill

I don't know how old this post is but I stumbled across it googling something else altogether. You kidding me? Besides the 'ill famed' Heritage product line, upper end XL Midas mixers squash anything out there in the pro audio market PERIOD in terms of preamps, peq etc., barring very surgical OTB Mastering EQ that is hardly necessary most of the time if you tracked and mixed down on a quality desk to start with.

I mean, hey folks, to borrow an 80s computer geek term, yeah all the plugs and software mixers are all "Elegant' [whateverthefukkthatevermeant] in computer geekspeak, but really hey now, c'mon folks, reality here in the 21st century, older will always still be gooder. The ears always remind me so.

Hey I have a lot of that automation and software stuff now. It just isn't that audio real though. It’s close. It’s fun to play with. It’s fun to be a NASA rocketscientist audio engineer with. It’s fun to have so many choices. It’s fun to be sitting in front of a computer LED for hours on end staring at all the colors and routings and this and that and everythingelse (NOT). But what it is NOT is artistic or inspirational. It’s mechanical and it’s uninspirational and that’s a fact Jack.

Know what? Four or five decent compressors, high end pres built into a clean +4 mixer with tape outs and the usual strip routing bells and whistles, a good mic collection, a nice external MDM (Radar, Alesis whatever) to record to native to then mix to another MDM set, and you just became liberated from being a slave of ANY company’s CPU and its limitations and the limitations of the architectural structure that a software designer redefined your life into, instead of you defining the environment in which you live and work. Hey are you a cubase/nuendo persona or a digi persona? A digital perfomer persona? No? Maybe a logic persona? Are you defined by your tools at cocktail parties? Audio porn star camps lol.

Instead of arguing ‘dollars and cents’ and I must have one of everything as affordable as humanly possible, think in terms of ‘creativity and sense,’ and more of all 52 flavors is not always the best and never necessary. Sometimes Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry (a scoop each) is all we need, or maybe just a scoop of orange sherbet. Sometimes just a single scoop of pistachio, but at the end of the day it’s ALWAYS about quality and NEVER quantity.

There isn’t a single recording that has been made since the end of the golden age of classic rock age that will stand the test of time folks. The 15 mins of fame that each artist now enjoys goes down into the pit with the rest of the crap on the airwaves. Why is that? Why is it that anyday of the year you can listen to a cut off of Axis, or El Ladyland, or Derek & Layala and assorted lovesongs, or Tommy, or Zep I-n, or even drabby old Neil Young, or Van Halen and they still sound as fresh today as they did back when? Because it came from the heart – from both the artist and from the engineer. And the tools were simple and unconfounding. MIT not spoken … only talent and chops!

analog basics ,,, a punch is still just a punch and a kick is still just a kick

-- Ai Ki --

~skygod~

[ecolleno]

How is midas venice for studio recording? I think it is built for live, but it could be well for studio? like Toft?

[jhepple]

Hi, i know it as a live desk. A few problems might be that the auxes run pre eq and the direct outs are post eq, but under the frame is a switch for making it pre/post fade.

[lane thaw]

Do a search, there is some good info on GS about this.

[dbbubba]

I have mixed two CDs on Midas Venice series consoles.
One was mixed on a 240 and one on a 320.
They are identical consoles except the 320 has more input channels.

I was more than happy with the final result and I have had the fortune to mix on a lot of equipment over the years.
The mixes stand up well compared to work I have done on vintage Neves, SSL, Sphere, MCI, etc...

People who have heard the mixes have generally been amazed that I pulled them off on a small "live" console.
My proudest moment was istting atn 80 input SSL and listening on a pair of ADAM monitors while my Grammy nominated old friend asked me how I managed to get the sounds I did.

There are a few limitations when you work on a small format console, but most can be worked around with a bit of creativilty.

If I didn't score the MCI 538c that I am just now finishing restoration of I'd have bought a Venice 320.

[papawhitehead]

I use a Midas Venice for most of my input channels. I also use it for mixing. It has nice Mic pre's and EQ, decent routing. I use the direct outs into Pro Tools. I don't need use that many outboard effects so the smallish number of sends doesn't bother me. The only drawback I've noticed is there is no pad or phase reverse on any of the channels.

[Black Dirt]

that last post is so nice to read!

glad i stumbled upon it...