Hey whats up im new here.

I am currious if anyone has experience with Phonic's helix 12 firewire
mixers or Phonic equipment in genral. The Phonic helix 12 fw seems
like a great solution for laptop recording as it doubles as a FW interface.
So if anyone has any insight id much appreciate any feedback.

http://www.phonic.com/partner/modules/product_explor/products_detail.php?product_id=140

IMO - Phonic is complete and total junk...........
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

Really in that case what do you think of Alesis. The multimix 8 firewire they
make is very similar. Its just like $100 bucks more.
http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=40

I don't much much of the newest Alesis gear either, but their build quality tends to be significantly better than anything by Phonic. Helll, even Behringer puts out better quality than Phonic, IMO!!!
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

The Phonic Helix FW 18 mixer uses the same exact Firewire chip as the Mackie Onyx. I picked one up at Ash last week and it works great. The audio quality is quite good and $459 for an 18 input mixer? It blows away the Alesis. Mackie's Onyx is built in China and I've seen too many of them come out of the box busted. I expect more for almost FOUR times the price. Phonic has a 3 year warranty on this mixer which means that they'll stand behind it, and with the bucks I saved, I picked up a Focusrite pre-amp and my tracks sound smokin.

thanks for the reply i am psyched to hear that phonics FW line may
not suck. im gonna drop by ash and take a look at the helix 12. I figure
it will work as an portable unit to record live w/ my laptop.
Peace

gtrtrks wrote:

The Phonic Helix FW 18 mixer uses the same exact Firewire chip as the Mackie Onyx. I picked one up at Ash last week and it works great. The audio quality is quite good.

And by what criteria have you made that determination??? And just because one manufacturer uses the same chip as another doesn't mean they've implemented a good cricuit design to work with it.

If all you know is soda pop, then cheap champagne would seem like world-class too...........
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

The manufacturer of the Firewire chip used in Helix (BridgeCo), the part number, and the specs and performance are identical to that of the Onyx, (unlike the Alesis FW mixers which uses a different chip, the DICEII).
Have you checked the Phonic Helix out? If not, why the diss on Phonic before even looking at their new product? After all, even the Boston Red Sox finally got it together and won a World Series, right?
Myself, I chose not to pay for Mackie's over-hyped, overpriced, Chinese-made board as a front end for my rig when the Helix Firewire specs and features are identical to Onyx at 1/4 the price. Plus, Mackie stuff breaks down so much that they should be the ones offering the 3 year warranty. Come to think of it, Behringer & Alesis don't offer a 3 year warranty on their products either. Regarding how this board actually sounds as a recording front end.....I'm digging it.

I don't need to watch a hammer hit the ground to know that it will fall when it's dropped....

I've seen and heard Rolls gear and it's beyond awful, in my opinion, and a tiger can't change its stripes....

But hey, what do I know? I've only been running a pro studio for over 5 years now....
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

5 years, that's admirable. I just worked on getting (26) Phonic Sonic Station 16 mixers installed into NBC/ Universal in Los Angeles. They've just replaced their old Mackie mixers in all of their Pro Tools editing suites with Phonic.

You mentioned Rolls gear? I've never used it.

gtrtrks wrote:

I just worked on getting (26) Phonic Sonic Station 16 mixers installed into NBC/ Universal in Los Angeles. They've just replaced their old Mackie mixers in all of their Pro Tools editing suites with Phonic.

Video place, eh? Since when did they ever give a rat's ass about audio quality?????

Mackie's nothing to write home about either, so replacing mediocre gear with even poorer quality gear is hardly impressive.....

And I mentioned Rolls because it's quite inferior in my opinion, and from what I've seen of Phonic, their stuff it is even worse, also IMO...

YMMV, and obviously does... but I'll have to remember not to be too surprised at the rough audio next time I see an NBC production......
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

Someone mentioned that the Mackie Onyx is made in China, which is what is says on the back of my Onyx 1640. I'm not sure what difference it all makes but Phonic is a Taiwanese company (their stock is an OTC on the Taiwan Exchange). Like the fellow above I saw the low price of the Phonic. I was looking at the 24 Helix. I called Sam Ash and tried to order one back in September. It was not available. I called Phonic. The first Helix boards would not be available until sometime in October. This made me feel uncomfortable. A company that didn't have all that big of name recognition in the US and a brand new product. So I went with the Mackie. The firewire connectors may be identicle but the Mackie offers more feautres (particulary with live sound). The board does have a learning curve but I'm very happy with it.

Phonic has done OEM manufacturing for Yamaha, Roland, and many other companies over the past 25 years so they own their own factories. They have their own engineers on their production line which allows greater quality control which is probably why they feel confident offering a 3 year warranty.
Mackie, Behringer, etc. sub out their manufacturing to the lowest bidder in China. This isn't neccessarily bad, but it can cause major reliability issues with certain production runs and both companies have had their share of failure issues.
Nothing wrong with going for the better known brand in my opinion as long as you feel like you're getting your money's worth.

BlueBearSound wrote:

Video place, eh? Since when did they ever give a rat's ass about audio quality?????

Since before you where ever born jackass. I work as an audio op. at a corporate nbc station, and our audio budget is larger than the video. We have people that are hired just to sit around and find the best that money can buy. The fact that you diss phonic shows me you're just a damn narrow-minded bullshitter. You've got a little wanna-be studio OF A WOPPING FIVE WHOLE YEARS, so that somehow makes you the new know-it-all of the block. Why dont you leave sound to those who have experience? Phonix has it's faults, but in studio--it certainly outpreforms the mackie.

holymexicobatman wrote:

Why dont you leave sound to those who have experience? Phonix has it's faults, but in studio--it certainly outpreforms the mackie.

You can play with consumer-oriented crap all you like (and argue about it while you're at it) - but I'll stick with my Sony DMXR100, thanks anyways...

clueless idiot...
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer