Whats the best choice for a mixer: Behringer or Mackie?
Thomas Sehnert
Channel-Insert, 3Band EQ (param. Mid) and 2 Subgroups.
Behringer MX 2004A
or
Mackie 1404 ?
(Behringer is much cheaper than mackie with more features)
Best regards
Thomas Sehnert
Germany, Leipzig
---GT---
wrote:
>I wanna buy a mixer with 8 Mono and 4 Stereo-Inputs. With
>Channel-Insert, 3Band EQ (param. Mid) and 2 Subgroups.
>
>Behringer MX 2004A
>or
>Mackie 1404 ?
>
>(Behringer is much cheaper than mackie with more features)
>
The Behringer is indeed cheap. But it doesn't sound as good as a
Mackie. Lots of people think Behringer mixers are worthless, but I
say: You get what you pay for. They do the job they're asked for.
The Mackies are a lot more expensive, but they are about the best
compact mixers you can get.
Astrid
small home recording studio, for instance
I have a Behringer mx8000 which I normally use for home recording purposes
in my small studio, and it works fine. But when I bring it on livejobs it
often turns out that it does not suffice since the preamps are not so good,
and the power supply may be to small. The main bus is often overloaded, but
it sometimes helps to use subgroups (don't ask me why)
If you have the money and enjoy quality, buy the Mackie (or a Soundcraft) -
you might want to go for a used one. A good thing about buying used stuff is
that if you want to sell stuff you bought new, you get a lot less, but for
stuff you bought used you get about the same! :-)
yours sincerely
astrid, DK
Thomas Sehnert <tho...@talknet.de> wrote in message
news:3AEC8215...@talknet.de...
HellPope Huey
wrote:
> you do not write on what level you intend to use it: Big live sound or a
> small home recording studio, for instance
> If you have the money and enjoy quality, buy the Mackie (or a Soundcraft) -
> you might want to go for a used one. A good thing about buying used stuff is
> that if you want to sell stuff you bought new, you get a lot less, but for
> stuff you bought used you get about the same! :-)
I have to second the vote for Mackies. I've hauled my 1202 around in a
BAG at times and its always performed like a champ. The pots are
well-sealed, the feel is solid, the preamps clean. Greg Mackie originated
the old Tapco mixers way back before keyboards were anything but a mass of
hum and his experience shows. The mixer really is the heart of your rig.
If it sounds like crap, even the best gear in the world will follow
likewise. There might be some reasonable argument for high-end PRODUCTION
items such as the well-revered Allen & Heath boards, but I have yet to
hear anyone bitch that a Mackie let them down.
HellPope Huey, hellpo...@subgenius.com
Talkin' 'bout my half-deaf g-g-g-generation,
WHAT, WHAT??
"Cats are nocturnal creatures.
So are coyotes, feral dogs and devil worshipers."
- 'Malcolm In The Middle'
"I've got balls older than that."
- Bob Hope, to a pretty Desert Classic woman
who told him she was 24
"What do you think?"
"I'm nowhere near being able to answer that question."
-'The West Wing'
Craig Vanderborgh
it really sounded bad. It had headroom problems, and I just
couldn't things it to sound right. Desparate, I replaced it with
a 32 channel Soundcraft Ghost, and I was totally vindicated: The low
end Mackie stuff sounds TERRIBLE. I can't speak for the Beringer.
It is the year 2001. Why anyone would buy something like a
Mackie 1202 today is beyond my comprehension. The digital mixers
(like the Roland V Series) sound vastly better than those tweezy
relics from the past. No kidding. By the way, I am not a big
digital head either. It's just that if you care about sound they
really do sound better than low end analog "equivalents".
regards,
craig vanderborgh
David Simmons
The headroom complaint is a very common one, but the problem is with the
non-standard metering Mackie uses, not an inherent hardware limitation
(read the level-setting procedure in the manual). The original 1604 is a
little noisy, but the 2 subsequent models cleaned things up a bit. The
"low end" Mackie stuff does NOT sound terrible and definitely does not
shred your sound, at least compared to a Behringer anyway. The Mackie EQ
is certainly not very good compared to a ghost, and pro engineers
complain about the summing busses on the 8 bus, but we're talking about a
portable $500 14 channel mixer here for mixing synths and samplers. .
.The Roland digital mixers are definitely ok but kind of clumsy (poor
interface), and I agree with you that they have a lot to offer as far as
effects and automation go, but the little Mackies have very good preamps,
sound pretty good, and are reasonably priced. You can drag them around
anywhere to the shittiest gigs, throw them around etc and still know that
they'll work when you flip the switch. Either option would certainly
sound better than any Behringer though that's for sure.
