Tape - nice! That’s pretty hardcore. I don’t think I’ll get that elaborate (and awesomely analogue) for quite some time, but I do hope to get my hands on a Neve Portico 5042 “True Tape” FX in the near future.
I have the portico tape emulator. Great box, though doesn’t sound like any particular tape machine, it totally counteracts the sterility of digital. Rupert Neve I think builds all of his gear nowadays with the DAW in mind, and since he’s an old school analog guy, you can be sure his stuff has the analog vibe. The portico tape FX works well for almost anything, but it’s a dream on bass. Also check out the fatso by empirical labs. The Anamod thing is out of control, and supposedly is the most authentic tape sound, though the portico is almost like a tape machine for the 21st century, dispensing with all the limitations of tape but keeping the vibe. Tape is just so cool though.
Also, I feel I need to mention this for those analog guys out there that don’t know: A company called JRF Magnetics is making headstacks for multitrack tape machines. They have 2 inch 8 track heads!!! I have read reviews, and from what I read, it is HUGE analog mojo with super wide tracks, which allows for capturing signal at almost digital precision, but you can hit the tape very hard before it saturates, giving it an amazing thick sound. The heads are very expensive, like more than $10000, plus the cost of a working machine, but soooo much better than digital. If you have the loot, and are an old school analog head, this is the best you can get. If you have a Moog modular, you shouldn’t ever use Pro Tools.
And to bring forth an idea: why can’t they come up with a new analog format? It seems like with audio, they have given up on it and focused on improving digital, when they could have come up with something by now that is as easy to use, but with analog storage. Like some kind of analog chip or a micromagnetic material or something. As good as an analog/digital hybrid signal path is, to keep the audio path completely analog preserves information that cannot be acheived with sampling.
Mixer question for you.
Do you/will you be using the Firewire routing extensively and therefore become dependent on you DAW or did you just want something that is futureproof, meanwhile you’ll use it as a live mixer until your workflow gets there (guess you didn’t have anything but perhaps as 2/4 input Maudio box prior?
I ask because I am struggling with whether or not to by a high end ‘live’ board like an Allen Heath or a Soundcraft and then add something like the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, or to just go with the 1640i in which case, I’ll have everything in one but then need to depend on ANOTHER mixer to get all of my inputs satisfied.
Right now, as I said above, I have a 16 channel rack mounted Behringer which is fairly low budget (no EQ or aux busses but still cost > $100). I’ve got a few mono synths but some stereo and some analog drum that has discreet outputs… channels add up quickly.
Opinions?
Well, as of now, I am using the firewire routing with my mac, and am using it with Ableton. The only thing is that the 1620i is 16x2… so 16 tracks sending, 2 tracks return through FW. But if your looking at the 1640i, it is 16x16. Which would be nice, but personally for me it really isn’t applicable as I’m only using the return to monitor my tracks.
I’m primarily using this as my studio mixer, for recording. To tell you the truth, the biggest reason why I got it, is cause I’m accumulating so much gear, and I got annoyed with unplugging and plugging everything, every time I wanted to use a different instrument. But I’ve quickly seen how the mixer is giving me some big improvements in more ways than just that.
I don’t perticularly have any need for a live mixer at the moment, as I’m not playing shows currently. But when I do, I don’t think I will be using this live, simply because of it’s sheer size. I’m a one man band sort of guy, and like to keep my live setups small. Usually a laptop, a synth or two, a guitar, vocal and effects board. So when I’m ready to do live, I’ll probably just buy a 820i solely for live use. But if you have a band or something, definitely, this thing would be perfect for live use.
How many inputs do you need?
Good question. Home studio in living room at the moment but I’m building out a space that will take up an entire garage and will subsequently move my Hammond w/Leslie in a swell so:
2: Leslie:
2: VOS
2: Radias
2: MacPro (Ivory) [I don’t have any other VSynths]
2: Alesis DM5 drum brain
1: Little Phatty
1: Taurus III
1: Matrix 6
1: Matrix 6r
1: Matrix 1000
3: Jomox XBase09 analog drum
1: DI-in from my Mesa Bass amp
19
But I’m not done. (when are we ever done); saving up for an SEM, then I’ll be done.
Some of what I have (the Jomox for instance) could certainly be sent to a sub-mixer but then I’ll need those two channels to be piped in as well. And I haven’t mentioned the fact that I play drums also and while I do have pads what feed the Alesis, I have a high hat, and a few cymbals so that’ means Mics.
Was shooting for a 24 channel which somewhat limits my options (there are many more options at 16). Hate to blow $1,500-$2,000 and instantly not have enough channels. I’d trade my Matrix gear for a P’08 but don’t have the cash to make up the difference, woe is me… (I have no idea how CZ-Rider or worst of all, MC do it !!)
Why did you decide on the Mackie over the Allen & Heath? I have a 1604VLZ; Mackie does make great mixers. It looks like the Allen & Heath actually supports 18 FireWire In and Outs compared to the 16 on the Mackie. How did you find the routing on the Mackie compares to the Zed?
It looks like the Zed also supports 16 channels of ADAT but I’m not sure how that figures into the FireWire side of things…
Has anyone been able to compare how the Allen Heath (Zed etc) and Soundcraft preamps sound when overdriven? Its well known that Mackie preamps are great but don’t overload well at all.
If you have lots of channels to mix, you can’t go past line mixers like the Mackie LM3204 or the Samson PL2404. They’re 4 buss boards with EQ and auxes (some stereo); 16 or 12 stereo input channels (!). Or do you need a built-in computer interface?
No sliders, but 5 or 4 rack units, so very compact. The preamps don’t go to 50 dB gain, which is no good for mics, but perfect for keyboards and effects.
If you want the Samson, I’d sell mine (110 VAC model), expensive shipping though 
.
I run my synths into the Mackie which gets subbed into a Soundcraft Studio 24 then via subgroups to an RME FF800. This makes the transition from studio to live playing quite easy, as you simply unplug from the main desk and take your road case to the show.
The Rane SM-82 mixers have expansion jacks. When you run out of inputs, you can add another SM-82 and chain them using the expand jacks. This doesn’t use any input channels and you master outputs always are the L/R at the end of the chain. My system has three SM82s chained together for 24 stereo input mixing system.
If you think my system is bad - I’ve seen worse!!!
A friend of mine has a couple of the Mackie mixers, a 1640i and a 12 channel version of the same hardware, both of which were intended to be used simultaneously under Mac OS X. It turns out that they can not be used at the same time.. supposedly the units use Apple’s CoreAudio drivers, and Mackie says it is a problem with CoreAudio. Apple in turn says the problem is with Mackies implementation or lack of specific drivers. I don’t really have any additional information offhand; there is probably more details available online, but I thought I would mention this issue in this thread since my friend made some specific support queries to arrive at this conclusion. I was pretty interested in the 1640i myself, but find this information a bit dismaying…
FYI.. YMMV
Yeah I bought the mackie onyx 1620i… and have had nothing but stellar performance, except when pushing with my cpu…
for example… im on a old 2006 macbook.. running 10.4.11… and everything works great, except if I have Ableton and my music software, working while I have safari open… when safari is open I get a weird cliking / popping noise when i record, but as soon as I close safari, it goes back to being clean and clear..
Otherwise, I get nothing but a really clean perfect sound.
I want to clarify something about my mixer lag.
I noticed when I was doing a video. I recorded the video with a camera with its onboard mic. I also used the CP Mult to mult the audio signal, sending it to the mixer, which was hooked up via USB to the computer. This is the method that I used to get hi fi audio on my last video.
I lined up the audios on both the camera and with the logic audio and by the ned of the video I noticed that there is a fraction of a second delay. I guess this is the conversion in the mixer, so there probably is some lag through usb, just that the usb 2.0 isn’t as bad as others. I don’t notice this when I record directly in, but I really think that its more evident if I am using logic to overdub.
I thought that Id mention that since I noticed it a few days ago. For live recordings though that probably wont be an issue.
Eric
Are you sure you are using the same sample rates with both the mixer input (USB) and the camera? Most DV cameras record audio at 48kHz, though some (Sony’s are a common example) will record audio at 32kHz or 44.1kHz. If your video editing software allows clips of different sample rates to be placed in the same timeline, the audio/video sync will drift over time..
Neither one specifies what the sampling rate is and they can’t be changed. Its just a point and shoot camera, so I think Im lucky to be able to shoot videos or get audio at all lol.
But yeah its probably both the camera and the mixer contributing to the sampling rate, and iMovie will let you put anything together without consideration for the sampling rate.
I guess this is what timecode was invented for lol.
Vintage Roland Class A Line Mixer SMX=800 from 1980
(from the same family as Dimension D)
BBC radiophonic workshop used these
You can pick these up for like $100 on ebay–its the best deal around
I’ve got a Mackie CFX20 with built in effects. I tend to use my outboard effects unit more than the internal ones, but sometimes both can be pretty sweet.