mixer preamps

L

logancox

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i was kind of wondering what mixer ( for under $1000) has the best preamp.
 
Mackie has excellent preamps in terms of noise. Much much better than a lot of channel strips. It's definitely quieter than my JoeMeek. You can get Mackies quite cheap if you buy second hand
 
I love my Mackie mixers and they do have very clean pre-amps. I like the EQ points and Qs (and sweep mid), too, but fans of "british EQ" usually think they're too "mild."

I think the strips are great for instruments and multitrack channels but I've found that I do usually use my outboard tube mic preamp for tracking... it's just a "warm" jones after a decade of digital recording, I guess. (Heck, I usually run my final mix through a tube limiter, too.) But that'd probably be the same with any desk short of Neve-land. It's hard for me to imagine buying anything but a Mackie these days. But mixers are very personal things. Everyone works a little differently.
 
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in the end if i dont find anything else ill deffinitely go the way of the mackie. but i was wondering if there was a maybe a kind of mixer i over looked. im more into trying to use stuff that is less common in studios.
 
logancox said:
in the end if i dont find anything else ill deffinitely go the way of the mackie. but i was wondering if there was a maybe a kind of mixer i over looked. im more into trying to use stuff that is less common in studios.

Well, depending on what you'll be doing and what your recording platform will be (digital tape, multi-track all-in-one, computer) you might even consider a single or dual channel solution. That could be anything from a single "channel strip" (maybe even from a vintage board -- a few people have marketed salvaged Neve strips -- they're not usually cheap by any stretch but, as they say, there's something about a Neve) to one of those all-on-one preamp/EQ/ compressor boxes (I have both an ART Tube PAC, which has a preamp and simple semi-auto compressor, and a Joe Meek VC3 which uses 'vintage-style' solidstate circuitry to provide a preamp, compressor, and enhancer).
 
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well... what im doing is running a smaller mixer into my daw for more tracks and also using the mixer a for its preamps. a kind of cost effective way to kill two birds with one stone.
 
Well, a lot of folks like the small Mackies. I've had an original 1204 since around '92 or '93 (with the rotary pots instead of channel faders) and I've put a fair amount of gig miles on it. I carry it around in a little laptop case. Even that early model had some great convenience features. (I laughed when I saw the little tape in/tape out RCAs -- but they are aboslutely invaluable in a lot of situations.)

A couple times I've used it and an ADAT for location recording (that model's only got 4 mic pres but it's also got 4 "stereo channels" -- for a total of 12 channels. (And even the line ins have enough gain that you can plug in a dynamic mic -- at least if you have an unbalanced connector on it. And the mic channels all have phantom power, of course.)

Heck, I love that little mixer!
 
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yeah im probably going to get the mackie. its cheap and descent. by the way.... where can you find those salvaged neve strips?
 
You'd probably have to look around... I ran across some at my pro audio shop back in the mid 90s. I think there was a guy packing them in a box with a power supply for around $400 a channel or so. Neve actually sold individual channel strips so, actually, they're not necessarily even 'salvaged' although the ones I saw definitely were pulled out old mixing desks.

You can get some background info on different Neve models in this article: http://www.technicalaudio.com/reading/neve1081/1081.html

If you wanna part with some serious bank, you can get the Amek "Channel in a Box" for about 3 large. (List price is a cool $3250.00!) This unit is sometimes called the "Neve Channel in a Box" because it was designed by Rupert Neve himself). If you're outfitting an overdub or project studio this means that the all important first stage of your project can be done on the (channel) equivalent of an $100K console (give or take... I haven't check those prices in a while.;) )

http://www.macmidimusic.com/ampurchaninb.html
 
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