I want to get a Phonic little Mixer, any advice / warning?

[Nestor]

that is total garbage.

Right! I really need some more spare money to sapend...

But, how is it that there is not a small but good mixer out there? Are they all like this?

[garyb]

yes.

get the little Phonic, or Mackie that we've been trashing if all you need is a few channels in a mixer. if you want to use it for your studio, avoid a powered head like the last one.

i've had one of the little Phonics for years in my rehearsal space. it's coated with dust, but still works fine. in the rental shop we have several of the older AMERICAN made Mackie VLZs. those are much better quality, but if they go bad, they're not worth fixing. we just buy another off ebay....

[Fluxpod]

For monitoring and some actually good mic pres.Mackie 802 VLZ3. Around 220€.Solid build low noise and very good features.Thats a Buy once last forever item ime.

... Really.This is as cheap as anyone should go.And its a really good mixer.

[Nestor]

Ok, I appreciate your warning, I will

Most probable anyway is that I will end up with a Phonic because there is little to chose from around here, even if I were to spend some more on it.

[garyb]

the VLZ3 is made in China and is the EXACT same piece of garbage as Phonic with a better face and name. inside, there's no significant difference. same parts made on the same machines... the AMERICAN made VLZ is MUCH better, but no longer made.

[Fluxpod]

the VLZ3 is made in China and is the EXACT same piece of garbage as Phonic with a better face and name. inside, there's no significant difference. same parts made on the same machines... the AMERICAN made VLZ is MUCH better, but no longer made.

Not ime.The old vkz 16 something made in the usa had multiple connectors failing inside.Very annoying to say the least.The vlz3 is a solid piece of equpment ime.Also Phonic has a very Broad design aproach depending on the branding.Thats why yamaha and roland mixers from phonic are actually not shit.Same place different parts-quality while assembling.You get what you pay for.

[garyb]

can't argue with that point.
buy the cheapest stuff and you get what you pay for.

it amuses me to see a brand like Mackie become the quality choice. Mackie has always been about cheap shit. i did like the old 2600 poweramps though.

i'll never forget the old Mackie ad with the quote from the "engineer" who was pictured, "i work on SSL boards all day long and my Mackie 8 bus sounds better than any of them!". or something pretty damn close to that wording....

[Fluxpod]

Well...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACo3VgXijlU

[garyb]

and so?

will this make people whine at the soundman less?

[Nestor]

Scary movie

[Fluxpod]

I know ot but thats a good ad in my book

Oh and i worked on a 8 bus a LOT it was a ok desk.It didnt needed much work.Now the Digital x bus....omg.After 2 month it went on fire.The replacements were killed in a month.Disaster.Anyways.The vlz i linked really works good ime.

[Nestor]

Talking about all this, I remember now that M-Audio has always seemed to me a serious choice, but once, very long time ago in fact “when hiss was still the standard”, I returned one of their mixers because there was so much noise that I found it unusable. They gave me the money back without saying a word, which was great of course, then I got the one I have now, which comes in fact from M-Audio anyway, just remembering…

[garyb]

I know ot but thats a good ad in my book

Oh and i worked on a 8 bus a LOT it was a ok desk.It didnt needed much work.Now the Digital x bus....omg.After 2 month it went on fire.The replacements were killed in a month.Disaster.Anyways.The vlz i linked really works good ime.

no agument here. the little vlz certainly works well.
the 8 bus was a decent desk. it wasn't better than any SSL or even my Soundcraft 1600, but it was usable for sure.

[Nestor]

Gary, you're gonna make me cry, don't tell me Alesis is also a bad choice for mixers! Are them?

[garyb]

for what?

all these things depend on what you use them for.
the Alesis is about the same as the others we have talked about. it's cheap. it works. no, Alesis is not a maker of high-end audio gear. it might be everything you need though. if the grocery store is right across the street, you don't need a brand new minivan to get the food home. a little red wagon will do the job just fine.

there won't be significant differences in quality with any of these items. they'll all use the same op amps and circuit boards and crappy potentiometers that are still plenty quiet.

[Nestor]

It is amazing to discover through you, someone deeply in touch with the music-gear industry, that those mystified trademarks are in fact bad pieces of gear! I grew up listening about Mackie Mixers and most of all, Mackie Loudspeakers as being the top to have in any studio; I have heard it so many times…

The same with Alesis, people would swear by it to death… amazing...

Now, even if I cannot afford and honestly, do not need to aford them anyway, which are the very best of the best trademarks for: Mixers and Monitoring Loudspeakers? Your answer is going to be interesting I guess… yet another revolution...

[garyb]

well, pretty much none of the big names will be there.

the best audio gear is made by small companies that make very expensive products for specific professional purposes, although many of those companies have been run out of the industry by the likes of Mackie and Alesis and their ilk.

look, none of that stuff is truly bad. most sounds very good, even as consumer or "prosumer" gear. that's why so many purveyors of truly "pro" gear have gone by the wayside. it's like everything else in this current world, lots of flash at a cheap price is the order of the day. in my father's day, heck when i was younger, people would get violent if you tried to sell them any product that wouldn't be expected to serve for a lifetime. that's why 1176 compressors and RCA ribbon mics and Minimoogs still exist. none of the current stuff is truly bad, but if you're gonna call it good, i have to acknowledge it as the throw away garbage that it is. when i was a child, there were no disposable "bic" lighters. on the other hand, it's cheap stuff that's made it possible for more people to have studios. on the other hand, it's created more ignorant asses who think that they are doing something special, when they should be quiet and just be in somebody's audience.

it's like you're asking me, which burger is really the best? McDonalds or Burger King? my answer has to be "none of them". the only good burger is the one that you make yourself out of the best ingredients.

i have a pair of Blue Sky monitors. they're really good, but they're not even close to "the best". they're just the best pair i was able to get for $1500. i certainly wouldn't use any of the mixers we've mentioned for anything that i was doing "professionally", EXCEPT if that was all i could get/afford. then i'd use it and like it just fine.

[Immanuel]

I still don't get it Nestor. You have one cheap little mixer, and you want to spend money on replacing it with another cheap little mixer? I don't think you should expect a sonic gain from that. If all you really want is a couple of cheap preamps, then you might want to try the M-Audio Audio Buddy. I haven't tried it, but Tom has and spoke good of it. And you signal will have to pass a much shorter path.

You shouldn't underestimate the dammage long cheap circuitry can do to music. When I started working at this school, there was a powered mixer - nothing great at all. In another room, there was this Behringer mixer. For convenience, I routed the sound from my Pulsar card through the Behringer, and immediately I felt the music turn more pale. The biggest loss was not added noise or colour. The biggest loss was emotional impact.

So here are some other suggestions for you:

1) if you want a new mixer, because you want new preamps: Get new preamps - not a new mixer

2) if you just want to spend some money - and at the same time get better monitoring sound - buy a second hand Luna card, then a headphone amplifier and a cheap MIDI controller. Hook the MIDI controller up to your Luna and use it to controll the level of the outputs from the Pulsar (going to the speakers) and the Luna going to the headphone amp. Voila - you just freed your music from having to pass any cheap mixer when going out of the PC (and you almost doubled your DSP-count).

[Nestor]

Hi Immanuel

All I need is a clean way to monitor, that’s it. When I say I would use the Line Ins that a new mixer may offer to me, it is just because they will be there, but I already have a pre-amp to record, the VC3 which I like very much.

I always do the mixing “within” the PC, record with the VC3 and never get out the signals. My way of working, being a one-man-band, is very simple.

Said it in another way, what I need is a replacement of what have become to be a noisy output because the potentiometers cannot be cleaned. Is very much what Gary is saying about cheap flash stuff of today’s market. It sounded great as long as it lasted, but when you want to repair it, you cannot. When it gets too dirty the unit is dead.

[spacef]

the problem is not often the background noise or the build-quality that can be taken care of,
but the preamps that are of a lower quality. The sound will sound thinnier. Not awful, but when you have scope, it is difficult to downgrade).

I made an similar search, and concluded that instead of a mixer (in my case, coming from scope, a mixer would be useful only if it is a great quality, so it is high budgets),
a "mackie big knob" or equivalent would be fine. It is not cheap, eventhough the cheapest at a decent quality.
it does not "mix" on a master, but allows to monitor and have aux inputs. it switches between inputs and outputs. It is already a budget though, i am not getting one now.

so it depends on exactly what you want to do with it and if you need a master mix or not (ie, routing)