Digital Mixers: what have you got your eyes on?

[Martin Naef]

Hi Jay

Jay Vaughan wrote:
>> A check first: Why digital? If I started all over again and had the
>> space and money, I'd probably go for a nice analog desk today (e.g. a
>> Soundcraft Ghost or similar). Also, the current crop of analog desks
>> with a firewire interface (e.g. Mackie Onyx 1640) look like a nice
>> bridge between having the immediacy of an analog mixer for the jam
>> sessions, but end up doing a full mix inside the computer.

> yeah, i wanna go all-digital just for convenience mostly .. i have to  

Do you need total recall? Do you work with complex signal routings? If 
none of that is the case, you're not gaining much with a digital mixer. 
I mean, this is the year 2008 where EQ and compressor per channel can be 
handled quite well by a modern computer.

I did manage to max out my 3.5 years old P4-3GHz with a ~20 channel / 8 
bus project, but that included a 5ms latency session and quite a lot of 
gates, compressors, EQs and other stuff including multi-band compressors 
active. I don't think it would have sounded anywhere near as good if I 
had mixed it with the 01V.

> admit though that in the last 2 days the prospect of just getting a  
> couple extra firewire audio i/o units - maybe presonus, maybe mackie  
> - and doing it all in the computer has risen its head.. also the idea  
> of just chucking in all the hardware lust and going completely and  
> utterly software too ..

Well, I still think there's no replacement for a good jam session on 
hardware. But today, I'd really just use an analog desk for monitoring 
and jamming, and stick a nice multichannel interface onto its direct 
outs to just record all the data and do the mixing in the box. The Onyx 
is pretty much that in a single package.

Bye
Martin

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