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Any ideas on a good mixer for home/live?

547 Views 9 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  7moon, 
ibaraki_gaijin
My home set up has
  • Guitar + stereo effects board
  • Bass through a dedicated preamp pedal
  • Analogue synth (often run through the modulation/delay/reverb part of the guitar effects board
  • Drum machine (midi syncing to my looper or pc)
  • A couple of condenser mics for recording acoustic guitar/Cajon/piano/strings

I've got good results with just an A/B pedal and the various inputs to the RC500 looper. (Which also drives my midi clock)

But I'm thinking it would be better to run everything through a small mixing desk, preferably with a stereo FX loop.

Does anyone here do something similar?
If so any recommendations or pitfalls to avoid?

I've heard the Beringer ones sound quite good but are prone to over-heating and don't last. And the general rule of always buy one with a few more inputs than you think you need. But otherwise I'm pretty clueless about what to look for.
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V
Allen & Heath ZED R16
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ibaraki_gaijin
Thanks, I'll check them out
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B
I have QSC Touchmix 16 and Touchmix 30 Digital Mixers and they do well with everything I throw at them, plus they have a ton of automation that get you some great results. The Touchmix 16 would probably be a good fit for you and it sounds great. It does have some pretty great effects as well.
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A
Depends on the budget and channel requirements, but the Behringer X18 is very good. Behringer X32 is even better. Skip the Producer version and go for the Compact(Producer version has no scribble strips to name the channels which makes it a PITA to know where you are). Midas M32R is more money, but better sound. If you go for the digital snake and stage boxes, the Behringer mixer can use the Midas stage boxes(better preamps). All of these can double as recording interfaces.
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Formerly Given To Fly
ibaraki_gaijin said:
My home set up has
  • Guitar + stereo effects board
  • Bass through a dedicated preamp pedal
  • Analogue synth (often run through the modulation/delay/reverb part of the guitar effects board
  • Drum machine (midi syncing to my looper or pc)
  • A couple of condenser mics for recording acoustic guitar/Cajon/piano/strings

I've got good results with just an A/B pedal and the various inputs to the RC500 looper. (Which also drives my midi clock)

But I'm thinking it would be better to run everything through a small mixing desk, preferably with a stereo FX loop.

Does anyone here do something similar?
If so any recommendations or pitfalls to avoid?

I've heard the Beringer ones sound quite good but are prone to over-heating and don't last. And the general rule of always buy one with a few more inputs than you think you need. But otherwise I'm pretty clueless about what to look for.
Click to expand...
I'm curious if you got this figured out and if so, what you ended up doing? :unsure:
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ibaraki_gaijin
Formerly Given To Fly said:
I'm curious if you got this figured out and if so, what you ended up doing? :unsure:
Click to expand...
Talking to a few friends as well the consensus seemed to be get something one notch of quality up from a Beringer like this: Allen and Heath ZEDi-10 Compact Mixer & USB Interface at Gear4music

Or the Yamaha/Mackie equivalent.

I'm currently trying to be disciplined and wait for the next month's paycheck before ordering (whilst keeping an over-active eye out on a certain auction site).

10 inputs seems about right, will do my home set up and small acoustic gigs/rehearsals.
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Formerly Given To Fly
Cool! I was just curious because I had no clue, and MIDI is the sort of thing that... :eek::eek::eek:
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ibaraki_gaijin
ended up getting a Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro.
Seems like it's worth the bit of extra money compared to a behringer or something like that.
Very quiet built like a tank.

So far it's opened up lots of options..
Guitar > gain pedals > iconoclast > mixer
Bass > preamp pedal > mixer
Synth > delay > looper > mixer
Drum machine > mixer
Mic X 2 > mixer
Mixer stereo FX loop includes modulation, delay, reverb. Any channel can be fed into the FX loop either in series or parallel with a blend of the dry and FX.

Then in the alt FX loop I have the RC 500 looper which also midi clock controls the drum machine.
Each track on the mixer has a button that you can push and it re-route's that track to the input of the looper.

Then the output of the mixer goes to headphones or DAW. Later I'll get stereo speakers and put my tube amp in storage..
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7
Mackie is the historic choice for live sound and garage studios. Sounds good.

Behringer is a kinda you get what you pay for the brand. They have some nice stuff but also some cheap. I find their low-end mixers can have a noticeable noise floor but the newer designs might have fixed this.

I do use an rx1602 to sub-mix some keys for headphone monitoring and it's OK but I would never record through it.
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