8 buss analog consoles still worth getting?

[Aaron Selix]

Hello,

I'm in the market for a good quality console. I will spend up to $5k. Of course, the current rage are the digital 8 buss consoles like the mackie, DA7, spirit 328, etc.

 

So the price of used analog 8 busses have dropped drastically. Now, I record digitally (doesn't everyone these days?) and might as well mix in the computer if I'm going to mix digitally. But I want the mixer to impart a "sound", not just be clean and transparent.

 

The only advantages I see with the digital boards are automation and snapshots/recall - and maybe noise (the analog consoles are still pretty quiet, though) But the sound of the digital boards?

 

Just looking for some input,

 

Aaron

[JohnBartus]

If you don't need automation, analog 8-bus boards are very cost-effective AND still sound pretty good. The (relatively) new Allen & Heath GS3000 (?) with the onboard tube preamp sounds like it might fit your needs. According to others (I've never sat at length with one), the tube preamp is useful, and the EQ is quite good. Other contenders in the analog 8-bus world are the Soundcraft Ghost and the venerable Mackie 8-bus consoles (although get ready for flames from alphajerk if you choose this board! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif ).

 

Some (like alpha) despise the Mackie; I've found mine useful for years. If you're looking for a particular "sound," however, the other consoles are reputed to be farther from neutral. In my experience, the Mackie doesn't noticeably "color" the sounds put into it, and that's why I like it. I also don't mind the onboard preamps for most applications, because (IMNSHO) the sound of the microphone is far more critical than the sound of the preamp (unless the preamp is w-a-y substandard).

 

My $.02... your opinions may vary.

 

 

 

------------------

John Bartus

Radio Active Productions

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www.radioactivedigital.com

[David R.]

John, I will second that emotion. I still love my Mackie 32x8 and have made many great sounding recordings with it.

Yes, I would love automation and flying faders. Or even a flying carpet. But for now, this works.

 

-David R.

[lwilliam]

Since I do most everything direct to hard disk (including mixing), I haven't had an itch to get one of the new digital boards.

 

Other than the built-in EQ and compression - which would save some load on the CPU - I wouldn't use most of the special features. ProTools has great automation, so I have no need for moving faders or snapshot automation. It would just be another thing to get sync'ed up and/or something else to go wrong.

 

My Mackie 32x8 works just fine for me. You can get them used for the low to mid $2000s.

 

 

 

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Larry W.

[dansouth]

Many hit records are still tracked on these consoles. Cher's believe was tracked (and maybe mixed) on a Mackie 32x8. Check out the Soundcraft Ghost. It's an awesome console, just a little more than a Mackie.

 

Analog consoles are easier to set up and use than digital consoles. You don't have to worry about sample rates and synchronization.

[Aaron Selix]

When you say "tracked" on these consoles, I'm imagining some high end outboard gear feeding recorders, and these boards are used to monitor the tracks/overdubs. I can't imagine Cher using the mackie preamps, but I could be wrong.....

[dansouth]

Originally posted by aselix@hotmail.com:

When you say "tracked" on these consoles, I'm imagining some high end outboard gear feeding recorders, and these boards are used to monitor the tracks/overdubs. I can't imagine Cher using the mackie preamps, but I could be wrong.....

 

I read an a profile of one of the producers in a magazine - not sure which one - and he made a point to mention that the Mackie console was used throughout the recording process. If he had used something else, I don't see why he wouldn't have mentioned it.

 

Victor Wooton's albums were tracked on Roland VS recorders and mixed on Mackie analog 8-buss mixers according to interviews with Vic, himself. Many, MANY performers use Mackie CR1604's for submixes on their way to recorders and big consoles. The Mackie isn't the warmest board in town, but as mentioned by another contributor to this thread, it's relatively color free.

[malpasomancs.com]

Who sells the Soundcraft Ghost boards online?

[ketone]

Unfortunately the Allen&Heath GS3000 console is no longer in production..........great shame as this was a beautiful desk.

 

Lets hope A&H are hard at work to bring a GS3000 MK2 to the market.

 

ketone

[Guest]

At NAMM I talked with someone at A&H, at he told me tgat they are considering bringing the GS3000 back into production. This by no means was a definate decision, just a possibility.

 

Also, Midas was showing off a new board called the Venice. It is sort of live board that could be used for recording applications.

 

It comes in 16, 24, & 32 ch versions. Each one has 4 of the channels being stereo modules. It is only a 4 bus/ 2 mix board, and is not all that big. The 24ch is only about 26" wide by 20" deep.

 

The mic pres are the same XL3 used on their biiger boards. And the 4 band EQ is supposed to be the same as the Heritage 1000 (less the vairable Q on the MidBands and variable corner freq on the high & low shelf)

 

There are 6 aux sends per channel and no inline tape returns.

 

List is $4800 for the 24ch. Not that big, and less I/O & routing, but the EQ, pres, and overall sound is probably better that the soundcraft or A&H.

 

I too was considering getting a 32ch Ghost console. Now I think I will do a hybrid of mixing in the Digital Performer with a Radikal control surface, and bussing some tracks out to outboard compressors and dsp, mixing & eqing those tracks in a smaller analog mixer (midas), and combining that with the digitaly mixed tracks in DP.

 

With a new 733 G4 running bombfactory & waves plug-ins, I think you can get better and more types of tone than you can with anything else in that price range in an analog console. All these stand alone digital consoles do 32 Floating point for summing tracks, the same as DP & other DAWs. I talked to several knowledable people (some programmers) at NAMM, and most said that their is no differance in summing from one digital consonle or DAW to another if they are both 32bit FP. The one that said that there is a diiferance worked for a company that makes a digital console, but could not give me specifics. Go Figure.

 

So, unless someone can convince me otherwise, I think the best value is to get the fastest Mac in the land, mix in the computer with a control surface, and have a smaller analog mixer for monitoring & submixing. Besides the plug-ins on a DAW are better IMHO and can be changed on a whim to suit your needs (ren EQ, bomg fac Pultec, TC, etc).

 

BTW: I am not that familiar with Midas, other than that they may well respected & expensive FOH & Monitor consoles. Does anybody out their have experience with any of their other consoles? Looking for feedback especially on their EQ and Pre-amps.

[ketone]

Hi Scott-Im highly enthused by the A&H dudes comments......ill be lining up with an order if they do re-release.

 

It's actually quite interesting, your hypothetical setup seems to share similarities to my own.

 

Though its likely i'll be doing things inverse to you.

 

I plan on using a 32 channel analog console, with real outboard FX and compression. I will set up a badassed Mac with some I/O box (undecided yet). I hope to set up AUX tracks in the software, take inserts from some channels in the console route them into the AUX tracks, set up some plug ins (for when i dont have enuff outboard -and for special fx) for real time proccessing ,utilise SAC-2k radikal tech's controller for plug parameters and have that proccessed signal sent out the I/O box an back into the console. When full mix down is complete ill run the 2 trk mix into ProTools LE for mastering and then burn to CD.

 

The only thing im concerned about is the latency by doing things this way. Im told it is horrific, however i dont think those ppl have tried to refine the latency using the usual methods.

 

Im very exited about the possibilities of the new PowerCore card from TC-Works and also Universal Audio's card. Im wondering if using these DSP cards for my purpose will solve the latency issue......Anyone here have any comments ???

 

If Mac OS X lives up to my expectations, then id ideally like to be able to use an I/O box from MOTU with Audiodesk running Plugs that use the PowerCore card and a Digi001 running Protools RTAS plugs draining the Universal Audio Card. All running concurrently.

 

The OS should be able to deal with this. Hopefully inter application communication will be first class in X. There would be little CPU strain because DSP hardware will be employed to pull the heavy shit. The OS just needs to be robust and intelligent enuff to perform this way.

 

Lets hope its a clean and bright future in Mac land hey.

 

ketone http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/cool.gif

[Guest]

I don't think you will be happy with running plugins in real time to processing tracks from your analog console. You can set the sample buffer in the MOTU Hardware Set-up screen. You can minimize it, but there will always be some latency. When the buffer is 256 samples or less, the latency begins to become less audible, but the CPU has to work harder and you will start to loose voices(tracks) and plugins.

 

Also, to monitor any sort of external audio, you need to have a track record enabled. If while mixing you decide to do some overdubs, you will have to first record the tracks from the analog console, before doing overdubs to avoid the CPU from really chocking.

 

You can do what you are asking, it is just a hassle.

 

ProTools, I believe, does not have these problems.

 

BTW: I have a mackie 24*8. I does the job and is fairly quiet, but I would much rather have a A&H, Midas, or Soundcraft. The preamps on the Mackie are good enough, but the EQ sucks. It has now character. You start boosting, with little effect until you get to +8 or so, and then it just sounds harsh. Once you use the Waves EQ you will become spoiled very quickly.

 

Take Care,

 

Scott

[Uh Clem]

A&H sound great to track with - I do a lot of location stuff with an $800 MixWizard and it is fine - the direct out work great. I wouldn't Mix with it though - too noisy, but that's not what it is made for.

 

As far as value, I don't think you can get an analog desk in the same price range as the Digitals you mentioned that will sound as good - it is just too expensive to build them correctly for doing critical mixing.

 

AS far as pro records like Believe being done with it - I don't think so. A very popular "trick" in many articles I used to read like that was to downplay the fact that the 32x8, etc. were used to monitor tracks during tracking only - sure it was throughout the project. The recording chains were the normal Neves, GMLs, etc. straight to tape and the projects were mixed elsewhere - most likely on an SSL. I think this allowed engineers/producers to satisfy the FAD without compromising the recording.

[Anderton]

One advantage of analog mixers is the "one function, one control" aspect. If you play a mixer, only an analog one will do. I too do a lot of mixing in the computer, but still need a mixer for when I want to move faders. I use the DA7 - I can't mess with much more than 20 faders at a time anyway - but of course an analog model lets you instantly access aux buses, EQ, etc. So what kind of mixer to get also depends on how you use a mixer from a stylistic standpoint. If you use a mixer mostly for set-and-forget level setting, just about anything will work including doing it all in the computer.

[BK_dup2]

Hello Arron,

 

My experince with the Mackie D8B and their analog stuff has not been good.

 

The D8B my business partner ownes has taken a dump on more than one occasion. The CPU has been a real problem. He has returned the board 5 TIMES !!!(Thats no good if those are your only converters) He is selling and we are buying ProControl. As far as features the D8B is nice. They really pack in alot for the Money. But when all is said and done I dont like the EQ and dont trust the thing to not ruin a session.

 

The Mackie analog stuff - Yuck!!! I realize that alot of people like them mainly for the price to features ratio. I just find that the Makie EQ and Mic pre's are to sterile. The EQ is just not musical to my ears.

 

ON THE OTHER HAND.

 

The Ghost 32X8 is great. Very nice layout. The EQ is about as good as your going to get for a board in this price range. The faders are very smooth and the pre are fine for your better sounding demo or production.

 

Other than that I havent worked on anything else except an old Tascam 2524 (average).

 

Best of luck on whatever makes your ears tingle.

 

BK

[dansouth]

Originally posted by malpasoman@cs.com:

Who sells the Soundcraft Ghost boards online?

 

Go to http://www.sweetwater.com and type ghost into their search field.

[malpasomancs.com]

Thanks Dansouth.

[soapbox]

If you've got ProTools, check out Digidesign's and Focusrite's new combined effort: Control|24. It's a little out of your price range ($7,999 list), but it combines 24 touch-sensitive motorized faders with 16 Focusrite Class A Mic Preamps for a great analog interface with ProTools. I probably will get one sometime this year.

[jo-eberhardbluewin.ch]

I've just sold my mackie and believe me i loved it, but i needed a bigger desk. To me the mackie sounded great (before the mackie i had a tascam desk) in the beginning and ok at the end (i recorded projects on MCI and Neves), but i learned a lot working for 6 years with the same desk. The sound of a mackie isn't colored to me - btw. is a neve preamp uncolored?

I would buy it again.

jo