Compact/Desktop Mixer Suggestions ?

[Daags]

Hi there,
I'm looking for suggestions for compact desktop mixers ... I had a quick rummage through Google images to find an example of what I have in mind and I'll post the pic below. Basically I'm looking for something about this size... it could be bigger, but only marginally so. it could be smaller by any amount - no suggestion will be too small (because I am interested in the very small offerings too, though for now the priority purchase will be something closer to the example posted below - though depending on price could pickup a very small one at the same time too)

things that would be ideal: good audio quality, eq quality, analogue, channel count, aux send count ....
everything connected will almost certainly be line level, so mic connections aren't essential ...
audio quality will be the number one feature...so i'll take less channels of a 'better' sounding mixer.

I've seen so many different types of these mixers in studio pics and performance setups over the years, but I have no idea what make they were, model type etc or indeed if they are any good. So, I will look in to all suggestions
thanks

(btw, regarding this pic...it is the footprint I am highlighting as the roughly maximum size, not the channel count. this design seems to have a lot of wasted space on the sides)

[thecontrolcentre]

Allen & Heath ZED10 looks great. It has built-in USB audio. Goes for around £144. There's an FX version too ...



I have the ZED14 and am very happy with it.

[BertKoor]

You found SoundCraft, but in their current line-up I don't see these small units anymore. If aux sends are important and you want more than two of them, you probably need something bigger. Unless you drop the EQ section requirement, then there might be enough room for these knobs per channel.

For me Mackie stands for quality. Mackie has a couple of cute little desktop mixers:
http://mackie.com/products/vlz4-series
http://mackie.com/products/mix-series
http://mackie.com/products/onyx-i-series

Then ofcourse famous in this market segment is Behringer:
http://www.music-group.com/Categories/B ... ers-123411

[Stupid American Pig]

Ive got a Mackie Profx8v2- has some mod/delay/reverb effects builtin. Got it open box for less than 200 bucks. I am pretty pleased with it.

[Stupid American Pig]

this ends today and is 24 bucks currently:

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/auctions/Al ... 29841.html

[VitaminD]

For me Mackie stands for quality. Mackie has a couple of cute little desktop mixers:
http://mackie.com/products/vlz4-series
http://mackie.com/products/mix-series
http://mackie.com/products/onyx-i-series

Yes indeedy! I have a VLZ3 that I've been using for a decade, daily.. it is a very, very solid device.

A lot of the cheaper brands don't even have a power on/off switch. or use a plastic shell. Not with Mackie.. it is a tank.

[Daags]

thanks for the suggestions so far everyone, I will look into all of them ... had a quick look at the mackie vlz4 12 channel version ... 4 stereo + 4 mono, 3 band eq on all channels, 2 aux sends, 2 stereo returns ... 255 euro ... seems like a strong contender from the onset.

[thecontrolcentre]

FYI The A&H ZED10 has 4 mono, and 2 stereo channels, 3 band EQ with swept mids (on the mono channels), PFL and 2 aux sends per channel, record out, monitor out, XLR & 1/4" main outputs and a 16 bit USB audio interface.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

Hi there,
I'm looking for suggestions for compact desktop mixers ... I had a quick rummage through Google images to find an example of what I have in mind and I'll post the pic below. Basically I'm looking for something about this size... it could be bigger, but only marginally so. it could be smaller by any amount - no suggestion will be too small (because I am interested in the very small offerings too, though for now the priority purchase will be something closer to the example posted below - though depending on price could pickup a very small one at the same time too)

things that would be ideal: good audio quality, eq quality, analogue, channel count, aux send count ....
everything connected will almost certainly be line level, so mic connections aren't essential ...
audio quality will be the number one feature...so i'll take less channels of a 'better' sounding mixer.

I've seen so many different types of these mixers in studio pics and performance setups over the years, but I have no idea what make they were, model type etc or indeed if they are any good. So, I will look in to all suggestions
thanks

(btw, regarding this pic...it is the footprint I am highlighting as the roughly maximum size, not the channel count. this design seems to have a lot of wasted space on the sides)

Hi, I have been investigating mixers for some weeks now.. literally nothing other than mixers day and night till i decided on the yamaha.

This is what I recommend you, for the price/quality balance.. There are better and worse offerings, but I am choosing this as it sounds great for the right price, as well as having 2 kickass effects processors and built in comps *AND* insert points for every channel. As you can see no wasted space and looks smart:

https://www.storedj.com.au/products/YAM-MGP12X

As far as mic inputs,it doesn't matter how cheap a desk you get, besides the rack mounted line mixers, all desktop mixers seem to give at least half mic inputs. Just the way they are.

behringer make great analog stuff these days with the QX series.. check out the QX2442, fantastic 16 input board, very compact. Don't laugh because of the name, it's specs are top notch and i heard one locally... absolutely great.

https://www.storedj.com.au/products/BEH-QX2442USB

as you can see again absolutely no wasted space.

Of course this could be all you need and also a wonderful product, but with no dedicated send/returns and no inserts, so it's a compromise, but SOUND quality is great:
http://www.soundcraft.com/products/signature-10

The yamaha mgp is the only "proper mixer" of the ones i listed, with inserts per channel and proper aux send/returns (you can override the internal FX ). It's worth the extra money. it's also the only "proper mixer" that's reasonably priced. Honestly i feel strongly that that's the best option. The usb is only 16 bit but you can record to a flash drive at 16/44.1 which is enough for a demo of course. Behringer is a very strong second, honestly, and with a full complement of features also. The behringer on board one knob comps are awesome.

Allen and heath are stingy on features for the price, and the stats are no better than behringer (in fact noise and crosstalk is much worse in the zed series).

All the mixers i showed have smaller versions

Hope that helps somewhat at least.

[JCJR]

Daags, how many channels, and how big is too big?

Maybe my conception of "small mixer" is a little too big for what you are seeking. This is the best picture of my carvin sm162 already online. There are numerous better SM162 pictures on the web, but mostly ebay and not directly linkable.



Unfortunately they don't make that one any more, and apparently nobody makes a 16 channel mixer "quite this form factor" any more. Mine is at least 15 years old, but still works fine, absolutely trouble-free. Full of 5532 opamps, sounds fine to me for a cheap mixer. 16 ch input, 8 mic/line, 4 stereo pair line level. Insert points on the mono channels. A couple of sends, and useful returns-- The returns and such can be re-purposed for other than FX return, and the sends re-purposed for various recording duties.

I originally got the SM162 as a small side-car to use along with a mackie 16 channel, to get 32 chans, mostly for synth inputs. Mackies are decent enough for the money as well. OTOH, my mackie developed some problems, didn't feel like taking it apart and fixing, so gave it away. So basically the little carvin has out-lasted the mackie. Still going strong (knock on wood).

As you can see, its sitting on a little home-made angled rack shelf, to put it easy to see and adjust. I don't want to use any more space than this for a mixer. It is about 16" or whatever wide, and not real tall.

I've looked around for suitable small replacements. The main problem I see in current available "fancier" small mixers-- They have slider faders-- Typically designed for live use, often have "overkill" monitor and FX send knobs. It really is (IMO) more convenient to have all the inputs/outputs on the front panel rather than the back panel. It is annoying to have to get behind the mixer to plug/unplug stuff, but front panel I/O also makes the mixer taller.

It is purt easy to find 16 channel or better mixers not much wider than 19" rack mount, but with all the extra space needed by volume sliders, numerous monitor/FX send knobs, and front-panel input/output jacks, the silly thangs can be 20" or more tall. If vertical rack-mounted, a mixer that tall takes too much rack space. If horizontal or angle-mounted, it is too big a reach from front-to-back for an "ergonomic compact" setup.

Volume knobs rather than volume sliders is one way to eliminate several inches of height. Nowadays several brands of low-channel-count small mixers with volume knobs, but I don't see any 16+ channel small mixers with volume knobs. They always put faders on the bigger-channel counts, making em too "tall" for my taste.

[D-Fusion]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5XJ1al8cM

[Daags]

it does help Theo, cheers!

i would never have considered a Yamaha mixer and it looks like an impressive unit. I'm also sure you must have researched the hell out of it, and this topic, before purchasing unfortunately it is too 'tall' or 'high' or 'long' ...or whatever the correct term for that dimension is. the width is fine. but it's too tall for my application.

i should state for the record that i already have a 24 channel, 8 bus vintage analogue mixer ...and an a&h mixwizard 14:4:2, the model before they started incorporating digital fx etc which occupies the same or similar domain in size as the Yamaha you suggested Theo - at least in terms of height. the 14 4 2 is also a formidable beast in terms of routing, but at some point it may get replaced and I will definitely put time into researching Yamaha mixers on the strength of your suggestion Theo so cheers for that.

so as you can see, I'm pretty much covered in terms of studio mixers, unless i intend to upgrade what i already have... so the mixer I want now I really need to be truly portable. like something i can carry with me on public transport by myself, along with another bag of my equally portable music gear. the absolute most i want to or can carry is the mixer in a bag occupying one hand, some gear in a bag occupying the other hand, and some gear in a backpack. but ideally just two bags. anyway, i'm at uni and the desk i'm using at home for research has become a bit of a jam station when the books are away. i swap out various bits and pieces but the mixwizard is occupying too much space and is pretty excessive for just doing a live-pa style jam, plus it's a ball ache setting it up and then removing it again when it's time to re-purpose the desk for academia again.

so what i'm wanting to add has to be small enough not to be imposing on my desk if left there, and to be portable enough to take to rehersal/jam spaces with friends on public transport - which i use daily.


the mackie was looking good until I researched it... older mackies have a better rep, if the fairly consistent userfeedback I'm finding is to believed the newer ones have build issues and sound 'boring'.

soundcraft and a&h are looking like contenders now. I think I might broaden my horizons a bit to anything that might have been recently discontinued. I like 'character' and 'warmth'. it would be nice to be able to have both neutral when the settings are flat, and character when things are pushed a little - but it's probably either one or the other. i make dub and dub techno kind of stuff in these particular desktop jam sessions.

the one thing I don't like about many of these contemporary mixers is all this USB / built in soundcard stuff. I won't use that, don't need it and I am suspicious of it anyway - like how much of the mixers cost is going towards built in converters i won't use ? does the presence of the built in coverters subvert the analogue signal path somehow ? i already own nice converters so i will be certainly using them at the studio, and won't be using a laptop at all when playing out ..so for my needs it is totally redundant. i also have a nice stereo recorder which is bound to have 'better' converters than anything built in to a 10 or 12 channel 300ish euro device. but i digress.


tl;dr ... definitely needs to be a relatively small footprint. anything taller than the 30's or wider than the 30's (in CM) and it starts to be counter productive in terms of mobility, and redundant in terms of what I already have permanently installed at home.


these three, in terms of form factor, are looking like the best candidates of what I've seen so far. Unless i think of another manufactuer to consider. I won't consider behringer.

mackie vlz4 1202
http://www.thomann.de/ie/mackie_1202_vlz4.htm
advantage: form factor, 4 stereo channels, no usb nonsense (ymmv)
disadvantage: fairly universal negative user feedback regarding modern mackies in terms of build and sound, no sweepable mids

a&h zed 10
http://www.thomann.de/ie/allenheath_zed10.htm
advantage: form factor, personal experience with a&h has been good, decent routing, sweepable mids
disadvantge: only 2 simultaneous stereo channels, plus 4 mono, not a great channel count in total.

soundcraft signature 10
http://www.thomann.de/ie/soundcraft_signature10.htm
advantage: 3 stereo 6 mono, 3 aux, 3rd party features licensed from reputable names i.e dbx limiters and lexicon effects, sweepable mids, good user feedback on sound which indicates 'warmth' and 'character'.
disadvantage: formfactor... it's about 10cm, or 25% taller than the rest.


i'll honestly have to break out some cardboard from the recycling bin and fashion some mockups just to get a tangible grasp of how much space they - particularly the soundcraft - will occupy on the desk. plus consider the weight, the soundcraft is about 5 kilos while the other two are about 3.

[JCJR]

Carvin doesn't currently make a suitably small sm162 equivalent but there are a few "fairly small" that maybe I could find space for.

This C1648 is 22" wide and not atrociously tall. 16 channel, 4 bus, four band channel EQ with two parametric bands. I'd just as soon not have the graphic EQ, but there are switches to disable the graphics and maybe sometimes they would be useful. I probably wouldn't care about the built-in FX, but they can be defeated and maybe they could be useful sometimes. It has stereo USB I/O, similarly maybe useful, but if not useful, don't have to use it. http://carvinaudio.com/collections/mixe ... ries-mixer

Usually there is a fairly big price diff between the C1648 and the less-expensive C2040, but their current "sale prices" are very close together and maybe I'd spend a little more for the C1648 unless I desperately needed 20 channels. The C2040 is near-identical in features, and adds 4 line inputs in the form of two stereo pairs. The C2040 only has three band EQ and one parametric band, and no USB I/O so far as I know. Dunno if I'd ever use the simple stereo USB I/O so that doesn't matter. Basically save less than 100 bucks and trade off simpler channel EQ, to gain 2 extra stereo pairs, four extra input channels. That C2040 is nearly exactly the same size as the C1648. Either would fit in the same footprint. http://carvinaudio.com/collections/mixe ... ries-mixer

The C1240 seems most-similar to my SM162, except it only has 12 channels rather than 16. 8 mono and two stereo line-level. It actually has more features than my SM162 at the tradeoff of losing four input channels. The current price is very attractive. The features are identical to that C2040 above, except 12 channels rather than 20 and 8 inches narrower. It isn't much bigger than my SM162. Only 14.5" wide, though a little taller. I could probably figure out how to mount it the same location, but might have to build a different rack shelf to fit it in. http://carvinaudio.com/collections/mixe ... ries-mixer

Finally, they make an RX1200R 12 channel rack mixer that looks fairly nice and compact, but it has very simplified I/O and busses compared to the others above, and only three-band fixed-frequency channel EQ. OTOH, my SM162 has the same kind of channel EQ and I get along with it. If I want fancier EQ I do it in the computer. I'd probably rather get one of the above rather than this rack mount-- http://carvinaudio.com/collections/mixe ... ereo-mixer

The first three listed, maybe bigger than you were looking for. With all those monitor and FX sends, and the four busses, and channel insert points-- Channels assignable to either busses or L+R-- Just sayin, with a big audio interface and some patch bays, they look capable enough to record lots of channels simultaneously. Looks feasible to "live record" a big stack of synths each to its own DAW track. Or live-record band rhythm sections to independent DAW tracks. Might have to slightly submix rhythm section live drums into fewer tracks, if you use a bunch of drum mics.

[Daags]

Nice on JCJR, you made this post as I was typing my previous one and you covered some issues I mentioned in it. I will definitely look in to the sm162, form factor looks ideal - as in it looks about the max i can tolerate for this application, and the channel count is spot on. routing is fine. will have to see what's available and what the interwebs tells me about it's sound...subjective user feedback of course but I will try to read between the lines.

fully agree with your comments regarding modern small mixers! for a live pa i can see the use in a volume slider, for cutting (not turntablist levels of skill mind you), but I think for something that is meant to be portable they could shorten the track of the volume slider even further if they absolutely had to have faders...

anyway thanks for the tip, will definitely look in to it!

Daags, how many channels, and how big is too big?

Maybe my conception of "small mixer" is a little too big for what you are seeking. This is the best picture of my carvin sm162 already online. There are numerous better SM162 pictures on the web, but mostly ebay and not directly linkable.



Unfortunately they don't make that one any more, and apparently nobody makes a 16 channel mixer "quite this form factor" any more. Mine is at least 15 years old, but still works fine, absolutely trouble-free. Full of 5532 opamps, sounds fine to me for a cheap mixer. 16 ch input, 8 mic/line, 4 stereo pair line level. Insert points on the mono channels. A couple of sends, and useful returns-- The returns and such can be re-purposed for other than FX return, and the sends re-purposed for various recording duties.

I originally got the SM162 as a small side-car to use along with a mackie 16 channel, to get 32 chans, mostly for synth inputs. Mackies are decent enough for the money as well. OTOH, my mackie developed some problems, didn't feel like taking it apart and fixing, so gave it away. So basically the little carvin has out-lasted the mackie. Still going strong (knock on wood).

As you can see, its sitting on a little home-made angled rack shelf, to put it easy to see and adjust. I don't want to use any more space than this for a mixer. It is about 16" or whatever wide, and not real tall.

I've looked around for suitable small replacements. The main problem I see in current available "fancier" small mixers-- They have slider faders-- Typically designed for live use, often have "overkill" monitor and FX send knobs. It really is (IMO) more convenient to have all the inputs/outputs on the front panel rather than the back panel. It is annoying to have to get behind the mixer to plug/unplug stuff, but front panel I/O also makes the mixer taller.

It is purt easy to find 16 channel or better mixers not much wider than 19" rack mount, but with all the extra space needed by volume sliders, numerous monitor/FX send knobs, and front-panel input/output jacks, the silly thangs can be 20" or more tall. If vertical rack-mounted, a mixer that tall takes too much rack space. If horizontal or angle-mounted, it is too big a reach from front-to-back for an "ergonomic compact" setup.

Volume knobs rather than volume sliders is one way to eliminate several inches of height. Nowadays several brands of low-channel-count small mixers with volume knobs, but I don't see any 16+ channel small mixers with volume knobs. They always put faders on the bigger-channel counts, making em too "tall" for my taste.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

im not into the usb nonsense either tbh. Unfortunately so many of them offer it. I use the analog outs to the apollo's in.

that said the cheaper yammies usb is 24/192 and has a very good driver.

https://www.storedj.com.au/products/YAM-MG12XU

there's also the 10 channel version of it which is much "shorter" as it doesn't use faders but rather knobs.

https://www.storedj.com.au/products/YAM-MG10XU

also no usb on the baby but still their latest tech specs/spx fx/a couple one knob comps.

Note these have no insert points but use yammies latest tech, they are quieter than the flagship mgp series i first linked to. But i wanted a proper permanent mixer, whereas you have that and need something portable. Check out the 10xu and let me know what you think. Again, incredible bang for buck IMO and they sound great. It was a hard choice for me but i decided i needed more ins and wanted the revX reverb and the multi band comp on the master out, hence going for the MGP.