Whats a good line mixer for mixing out of the box?

[tubedude]

By good I mean good and cheap

The Dangerous 2 buss is out of my price range right now. I'm assuming someone makes one thats good or that can be modded to be great. Ashley or Rane or someone.

Anyone know of any? Anyone using one?
I totaly dig the idea behind the Folcrum, being passive and using the preamps as makeup gain. Cool shit.

Thanks for you help.

[dim light]

Long shot!

The Allen&Heath MixWizard 16 is pretty good

[ozraves]

Some of the TAC stuff can be worthwhile. Over at www.studioforums.com, "Tacket" and "Jetboatguy" own smaller TAC consoles. They can steer you to the better prospects.

[Liam Judah]

Originally posted by dim light
Long shot!

The Allen&Heath MixWizard 16 is pretty good

I second the Mixwizard.

[kevinc]

Speck Xtramix.
Line mixer on serious mega steroids.
Sounds way better than any Allen and Heath and other budget shit!

That`s probably out of your price range though.grudge
Sorry.

[dim light]

I get the impression of Xtramix being a keyboard players dream… I actually was interested of the speck before I read some reviews etc. It’s pretty expensive too. The D2B seams like a better deal if you can live without EQ, faders, AUX, etc… But if I’m wrong about the Speck please say so.

The Xtramix cost 4 times more then the MixWizard.

[edmann]

This is an experiment that I have been wanting to perform: try one of the new Yamaha MG (?) series line mixers (w/o fx). They are extremely inexpensive and simple but I have a feeling (based on what I have read) that they might deliver seriously good results - equiv. to a mixer that is much more expensive

[edmann]

the older Ramsa boards have a good rep - cheap on ebay - $400 +

[The MPCist]

Originally posted by dim light
I get the impression of Xtramix being a keyboard players dream… I actually was interested of the speck before I read some reviews etc. It’s pretty expensive too. The D2B seams like a better deal if you can live without EQ, faders, AUX, etc… But if I’m wrong about the Speck please say so.

The Xtramix cost 4 times more then the MixWizard.

I have an Xtramix and it's sitting in the rack not even being used. If I could do it again, I would have bought something else. I presently use a Manley 16x2 with MassivePassive, 1073's, IBIS, inserted in the channels. Smoking!

Instead of the XtraMix, I would suggest a mixer that has a few more functions and can be used for tracking, etc. For example, Cranesong Spider, Manley 16x2, MixWizard, SSL, Neve, etc....

[dim light]

Originally posted by The MPCist
I have an Xtramix and it's sitting in the rack not even being used. If I could do it again, I would have bought something else. I presently use a Manley 16x2 with MassivePassive, 1073's, IBIS, inserted in the channels. Smoking!

Instead of the XtraMix, I would suggest a mixer that has a few more functions and can be used for tracking, etc. For example, Cranesong Spider, Manley 16x2, MixWizard, SSL, Neve, etc....

Yes!

The manley 16x2 must be a wet dream.

[pounce]

i don't believe there is a cheap thing someone would want as the cheap stuff is more likely to degrade the audio instead of improve it. if it's mix in the box or use a very inferior mixer, than stay in the box and save yourself the trouble.

[Beezoboy]

A Soundtracs Topaz might be a good option too.

If it works for Harvey Gerst, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. They pop up on e-bay all the time.

Beez

[edmann]

Originally posted by pounce
i don't believe there is a cheap thing someone would want as the cheap stuff is more likely to degrade the audio instead of improve it. if it's mix in the box or use a very inferior mixer, than stay in the box and save yourself the trouble.

I don't know...I have some mixes that I did thru a Mackie 1202 and 2404 that I definitely prefer to in-the-box mixes..because they sound more open and clear. For someone on a budget and willing to experiment with a returnable item, inevitiably inexpensive solutions will appear.

[dim light]

I think it's good to jump out of the DAW Box, the softies, compressors etc are gay in a bad way if you are in the box.

[edmann]

Originally posted by dim light
the softies, compressors etc are gay in a bad way if you are in the box.

Is this new terminology?

Q: "How's that sound?"
A: "It's OK, but can we make it sound a bit more gay?"
Q:"Good gay?"
A: "Not too good. No, let's try bad gay first......"

[dim light]

In my world, yes!!!

[edmann]

Originally posted by dim light
In my world, yes!!!

OK - so what is "good gay" and what is "bad gay"?

have a good gay

Ed

[dim light]

the manley 16x2 is pretty good gay...

[Duardo]

I think it's good to jump out of the DAW Box, the softies, compressors etc are gay in a bad way if you are in the box.

I think that's a bit of an oversimplification...I'm not sure what a "softie" is, but there are some good compressors you can get in the box, and regardless of how you interpret "gay in a bad way" there are definitely plenty of horrible-sounding compressors, EQ's and so on both inside and outside the box.

-Duardo

[dim light]

I exaggerated, but if I had to choose, I go for the analog.

I hear a lot of people exaggerate over the UAD-1... It sounds like the real deal etc... I don't think so.

If it sounds good, it's good... Digital or Analog!

[jbuntz]

Dude you need to get off this analog or die kick. Probably nobody on this forum said the UAD-1 sounds exactly like the real thing. So what if it doesn't? It's $600 which is less than every peice of gear it emulates, and you can use it on tons of tracks during mixing. I'm sure almost everybody would prefer to have 5 1176's, 5 LA-2A, 5 Pultecs, and a few Fairchilds but not much short of winning the lottery would get you that. At $600, it's a steal.

P.S. Digital isn't doomed to sounding bad all the time. Know-how and other gear (to a lesser extent than know-how) are a lot more important than medium.

[edmann]

Originally posted by dim light
the manley 16x2 is pretty good gay...

what about straight?

what is some straight gear?

is there any straight software?

this is dim indeed

[dim light]

Hey, I hope there is room for analog...

[ulysses]

Originally posted by tubedude
By good I mean good and cheap

I totaly dig the idea behind the Folcrom, being passive and using the preamps as makeup gain. Cool shit.

I think you've answered your own question there, tubedude. If you don't mind me pimping for a minute, I'd like to point out that the things that make the Folcrom good are the same things that make it cheap! It's not that cheap, really, but the price is pretty low compared to other options. We achieved that goal by leaving as many things out of the box as possible. Minimalism costs more than you'd think, but in this case it works out to a be pretty good deal.

www.rollmusic.com/systems/folcrom.shtml

[The MPCist]

Originally posted by ulysses
I think you've answered your own question there, tubedude. If you don't mind me pimping for a minute, I'd like to point out that the things that make the Folcrom good are the same things that make it cheap! It's not that cheap, really, but the price is pretty low compared to other options. We achieved that goal by leaving as many things out of the box as possible. Minimalism costs more than you'd think, but in this case it works out to a be pretty good deal.

www.rollmusic.com/systems/folcrom.shtml

Looks interesting. Could you share some technical info as to how its built? Curious as to how it will stack up against the Dangerous...

[duaneadam]

I took a gamble on this mixer:

http://www.crestaudio.com/products/xseries/xmatrix.cfm

Didn't like it at first but after bypassing the amplified outputs and using the bus send for the outs, it sounds pretty damn good. 12 channels with panning, no EQ, around $900 street with power supply. Very solid, clean sounding mixer.


Duaneadam

[jeronimo]

Ohh boy... If I had 10K siting around... I would get a 16x2 Manley

[ulysses]

Originally posted by The MPCist
Looks interesting. Could you share some technical info as to how its built?

The Folcrom is a simple 16x2 mixer with all of the features removed. There are no faders, pan pots, aux sends, EQ, or any of that stuff. The idea was to eliminate any and all circuitry that didn't need to be there. This eliminates the need for a whole bunch of buffer amps between various stages which can add up to a clouded sound because there are so many of them in a typical mixer channel. The Folcrom doesn't contain any gain stages or any active electronics at all. Since the Folcrom will see rather predictable sources, we even ditched the input buffers. Any worthwhile DAC, as well as any good-quality processing gear you might connect between your DACs and the Folcrom, will be
a good low-impedance balanced source. (If you decide to patch a guitar pedal in there for some weird effect, it'll still work, but the L-R crosstalk performance would suffer a little bit.) Likewise, the outputs of the Folcrom expect to be connected to a typical microphone preamp's load impedance.
The deal is that there's one place you can't get away with not having gain in a mixer, and that's at the output. The passive summing matrix in the Folcrom has an insertion loss (as does every mixer's summing node). In an ordinary mixer, the summing node itself is an inverting amplifier that provides the necessary make-up gain. In most passive mixers of the past, an amplifier will be located immediately after the passive summing matrix inside the mixer. The thing that makes the Folcrom unique is that we left the make-up gain out. Instead, we set up the outputs to look and act an awful lot like signals coming out of a microphone (150-ohm source impedance, balanced, and nominally about -35dB).
So what does this get you? Well, it shaves a whole lot of cost off the price of the Folcrom, since there's no power supply or active components. It's still not cheap, because the whole point of this is to built an ultra-high-quality device, so we used good gold-plated switches and connectors, hand-matched resistors (down to 0.2%), and a beefy steel chassis. But it's a lot cheaper than any of the other high-quality outboard summing options. It also gives you fantastic flexibility. Rather than being stuck with whatever generic high-quality gain stage we could have thrown in the box, you're free to experiment with whatever various new, old, tube, solid state, clean, or crusty mike preamps you happen to have sitting unused at mixdown time. The end result is that the folcrom itself is the absolutely most pristine, uncolored signal path you can dream up, so it doesn't taint the pleasant coloration (or lack thereof) of your preamp.

[duaneadam]

FWIW I thought the Folcrom looked like a great idea but decided against it for two reasons.

1. The DB25 interconnects seem like a compromise interface (cost cutting measure?) in an intended pure signal path design.

2. The rumoured price of $595 turned out to be $795 which seems too high for what it is.

Like I said, FWIW.

Duaneadam

[dim light]

d2b is the ticket to heaven...