Need mixing board purchase advice

[CloseToTheEdge]

I am a guitar player and am not too mixer saavy. I find myself in the market for a smaller live sound mixer for my current music project. I know this is not primarily a gear forum, but also know you guys would not steer me wrong and I trust the advice and experience of this group.

We are a 5 piece jazz/rock group and we use in-ear monitoring. First requirement is good sound quality. We need a minimum of 16 XLR inputs, but would like more. I would like to be able to support 5 separate mixes for IEMs, but can also live without that. I would also like direct outputs (don't know if this is the correct term) to go into a Korg D888 DAW for recording rehearsals, etc.

I would like to buy a good quality board the first time, but do not have a huge budget (about $1,400 max). It would be nice to have some on-board reverb for the singer, but that is not a must since we can use outboard gear if need be, and hell, everyone knows what singers are like.

:Wink:

Thanks!

[Brendo]

geez, you don't ask much, do you?

[CloseToTheEdge]

True, but I don't have one, either!

[Brendo]

check out the allen & heath mixwizard 16:2 but keep in mind it wont do 5 mixes.

[Tim Halligan]

Check out the Crest XR20 and XR20M - the dedicated foldback board.

Either will do your 5 mixes for IEM, but both are only 12 mics + 4 stereos in...

Cheers,
Tim

[eagan]

Wow. Like the man said, gee, you don't ask much, do you?

Here's the thing I'm thinking.

If I'm getting this right, it sounds like you want a board to use for FOH mix (that you'll also use in double duty for a little rehearsal room recording), and also do 5 individual in-ear monitor mixes?


Is this right?

You want to have somebody mixing FOH while also mixing monitors with 5 separate monitor mixes?


Oh, that sounds like a fun gig. Good luck with that.



JLE

[pounce]

i took the liberty of moving this thread here so that more live sound folks could chime in. just hoping this gets you some interesting answers.

that said, the allen and heath mixwizard 16:2 was my first choice. it has the 16 xlr's, direct outs, and price you are talking about. it has 6 seperate aux sends, so there is not reason you couldn't do all the monitor mixes you want and still have one left over.

http://www.allen-heath.com/US/wz3162.asp

[waterboy]

Wow! That does look like a very cool board to have .... lot's of knobs to tweak! Me likes!!

[CloseToTheEdge]

Thanks for the advice. I didn't intend to come across as demanding or anything!

In the past we used a 24x A&H and before that a 16x A&H mixwizard. The mixes for the IEMs utilized the aux sends. It worked just fine. I don't have a budget for the 24 ch board and was wondering what other choices are out there.

I figured you would need to know what kind of stuff we planned to use it for in order to recommend something. So...

We would use this for very small venues as FOH (yes, with monitoring if possible), and as an on-stage monitor mix for larger venues.

Thanks for the move, I was not sure where to put this...

(how's that for a straight line?)

[pounce]

it does have internal effects, but i don't like them.

i'd use the 6th aux send to instead send out to a cheap reverb or whatnot and return that to the stereo channels. you should be able to land one of the cheaper lexicon, tc electronic, or yamaha units that would do just fine.

really, this board seems to be a perfect fit for you guys (imho).

[Spock]

We been using an 01V96.

It doesn't exactly met your needs on all levels, you would need an expander card to get all the aux outs you want, and of the 16 already in the board, only 12 have an XLR.

But if you can live with 16 inputs, 12 XLR and four aux outs, it's a nice board. You get a gate and comp on each channel and buss. And you can assign the buss to go out the lightpipe so you can record from it.

[floodstage]

I have Mix wiz 16:2 WZ3
Good small board.
Wish it had groups but it's packed pretty tight already
16 XLR ins
4 band eq the hi and lo mids are swept
16 direct outs (which are pre insert pre EQ so they're great for recording)
6 auxes - 4 pre fader, but I'll bet the other 2 can be modded to be pre fader also.
Clean
The internal efx are limited, but I do use them
You want more, spend more.
There is no competition for a board with 16 direct outs at the mix wiz price that I know of.
I looked a long time

[bunnerabb]

I have a MixWiz and a Soundcraft LX7.

I think you should look at the LX7.

[floodstage]

but do not have a huge budget (about $1,400 max).

When I looked for a board and bought the MixWiz, I had a max budget of 1000.
I didn't look at stuff between 1000 and 1400 so I never considered the LX7 series, but the 16 channel LX7 squeaks in right at 1400 and that's in your budget.

You have good options!

[burnsy]

Im mixing on a lx7 ii in around 8 hours, the 16 channel version has only direct out on the first 8 channels if im not mistaken ill probably up date this.

6 auxes 1-4 post or pre 5/6 post and two stereoe returns and usual milarky. Its a really lightweight desk and deserves a lot of credit the preamps are lovely in it and the eq is of a very good standard. I also use a yamaha o2r version 2 as live foh which serves me well with having to remember (SAVE) the seperate mixes and monitor mixes and eq settings however that only has 8 xlr then you have to convert to stereo rest of the inputs which go up to 24 but after 16 I believe they are stereo inputs. The internal effects arent too bad and the pre sets in all fairness are amazing. Took me 3 days to learn though.

Other than that have you thought of checking ebay for some 32 chl whoppers ?

[AxeSlash]

Second hand FLIGHTCASED desks (so you know they've probably been looked after) are a good place to start; some bargains can be had.

I'm not a fan of mix wizards, purely because ours at work spends half of it's life in service with a selection of problems. It had a new board fitted today as a matter of fact. Other than the reliability it's a perfectly good desk though, and it could just be our desk that's that bad - everyone else seems to get on OK with them.

The Yamaha digital stuff is worth a look as well. We have a lot of it and it is good in my opinion.

[radeng9805]

I know I'm gonna get clobbered for this but the Onyx 1640 is a good piece to check out. It has the 16 XLR's, 6 sends, and (get this) Balanced direct outs! I have the smaller version with the firewire option board and it really is not bad. The m-word stuff is looked down on big time around here but some of it does indeed do the job well.

Ducking down behind my racks now.

John

[Theshovel]

I have a Soundcraft LX7 24 channel, with everything you've mentioned. Its been a great piece. 16 direct outs, 6 aux etc etc...You can pick them up on egay....built to last too,...

Whats the beef with the Mackie stuff?

[bunnerabb]

My beef with Mackie is the preamps are poo and the E.Q.s are useless. The Soundcraft E.Q.s are fucking surgical, immediate and very lively.

The ones on Mackie's aren't... but I haven't tried the Onyx, yet.

I'm getting a new desk for my house and I think it's going to be the Allen and Heath 2400, if only for the matrix.

If I could get Yamaha PM gain and routing with Midas preamps and Soundcraft E.Q., I'd have the ultimate desk.

[Theshovel]

My beef with Mackie is the preamps are poo and the E.Q.s are useless. The Soundcraft E.Q.s are fucking surgical, immediate and very lively.


I agree 100% with you, I have the LX7, and an older spirit 7 and I wouldnt trade them for anything. I dont have any Mackie mixers I use for live sound so I was just curious. I will say one thing, I have a couple mackie active 1232's, and I like them. Ive had them for 6 years or so, the old italian versions....never owned a mackie mixer for live use though. I do have an old 24-8 in my studio pile.....better get back to work :Uh oh:

[floodstage]

The 1604 (CR - VLZ - VLZpro - etc) had crap EQ. Leave it alone was the best setting 95% of the time.
Pre's were okay I guess, nothing to write home about, but the EQ did suck something awful.
That said, I have no idea at all if they made things better with the new EQ on the Onyx or if the new pres are better. It is a different board and should be looked at as such. Pretty much the entire thing has been redone from the old 1604.

You might also consider a used Allen & Heath GL2200-424
22 mono channels and 2 stereo, 22 direct outs, 4 groups, inserts on everything, and the EQ works well. It's a solid board.

I have a GL2200-424 as well as a MixWiz and the GL is a better board until it comes to carrying it. In a road case it's just big enough to be hard for one guy to move. The MixWiz gets used a lot just because of that, even though the GL2200 is better sounding.

By the way, my MixWiz has at least 100 gigs on it and the only problem I've ever had was the Littlite socket quit working. I had that fixed and it's been 100% functional with no problems whatsoever. Super reliable has been my experience with it.

btw, the MixWiz WZ-3 is a better board for a number of reasons, that the WZ-2 and earlier incarnations.

I want to try oone of those little Crest boards. They look nice.