Yes, BlueBear and I already deduced that grttrks is a phonic rep. Did not take long, after 2 or 3 posts of copy/past stuff...

Motu is decent low to mid end stuff for a decent price, from what I have heard anyway.

yeah, for laptop/small studio project recording the motu's are nice.

how lame is that? the phonic rep is a poser. this says a lot about their company in my opinion. i didn't see a rep from Mackie post on here.

i'm not sure i like these firewire mixers. it seems like a decent multi in/out break out box audio interface would do the job just as well. then get a Soundcraft or Allen & Heath board for the analog summing and mic pre's.

BlueBearSound wrote:

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...

Dear Mr/Ms. BlueBearSound,

You have far more experience than I and that is wholly worthy of respect, but you are comparing a $18000 unit to a $450 one. That seems rather like the ramblings of, umm, a clueless idiot to me...

I would love to be able to afford the fine equipment that you use. But not all of us have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around. Indeed, the idea of spending $299 for Phonic's 12 track version is overwhelming to my anemic budget. Finding a unit that functions adequately without severe latency is a big deal to us low folk on the totem pole.

If there's anyone out there that knows more about the "Kias" of the recording world than the "Cadillacs," their recommendations would be welcome.

So... compared to the other units of COMPARATIVE PRICE, does anyone have any further suggestions??

Thanks.

biggussoundus wrote:

I would get a Motu firewire interface. You could get the 828 used for $300.

Thanks for your opinion, but I am ignorant enough not to know whether the Motu 828, which is an interface, will function as a mixer as well. Could you advise if I'd have to buy additional equipment, or if this would suffice? If more would be needed, what would one look for?

Thanks...

with the Motu firewire interfaces or any other similar interface (echo Layla, aardvark, maudio delta, etc) each input shows up separately in the software on your computer. some interfaces come with software that lets you open up a "mixer" to route things and/or programs like Cubase will allow you to mix down all those channel inputs. so you have the option of mixing digitally within your mac or pc. -or- after recording your tracks you could send each track thru a separate output channel in your audio interface and mix that down with an external mixer. digital has convenience but doesn't sound as good as analog processing, especially when you're summing together all those signals. i'm not a professional so i'm sure that other people can comment a little further on the best method for recording and mixing down tracks.

Well duh...

Only a clueless idiot would take what I said to someone in specific reference to a comment they made, out of context in a such a way....

Look at Allen & Heath, Soundcraft, or Mackie in that price range.

scalesian wrote:

BlueBearSound wrote: 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... Dear Mr/Ms. BlueBearSound, You have far more experience than I and that is wholly worthy of respect, but you are comparing a $18000 unit to a $450 one. That seems rather like the ramblings of, umm, a clueless idiot to me... I would love to be able to afford the fine equipment that you use. But not all of us have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around. Indeed, the idea of spending $299 for Phonic's 12 track version is overwhelming to my anemic budget. Finding a unit that functions adequately without severe latency is a big deal to us low folk on the totem pole. If there's anyone out there that knows more about the "Kias" of the recording world than the "Cadillacs," their recommendations would be welcome. So... compared to the other units of COMPARATIVE PRICE, does anyone have any further suggestions?? Thanks.

_________________
Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

i've never been impressed by the sound quality of the Mackie's (like the 1604 - before the Onyx series). the EQ is pretty crappy in my opinion. the sound is a bit cold to me. but for the same price look at Soundcraft. the Folio series can be had fairly cheap used (like $200). Allen and Heath is even better and the mixwizard series goes for about $600-$1,000. the EQ section is quite good and the faders are smooth, and the sound is warm. i've used all three brands before and the Allen and Heath sounded the best to me.

biggussoundus wrote:

i've never been impressed by the sound quality of the Mackie's (like the 1604 - before the Onyx series). the EQ is pretty crappy in my opinion. the sound is a bit cold to me. but for the same price look at Soundcraft. the Folio series can be had fairly cheap used (like $200). Allen and Heath is even better and the mixwizard series goes for about $600-$1,000. the EQ section is quite good and the faders are smooth, and the sound is warm. i've used all three brands before and the Allen and Heath sounded the best to me.

I agree but all three are far better than the Phonic.... oh - and I forgot to mention Yamaha....
_________________
Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

biggussoundus wrote:

with the Motu firewire interfaces or any other similar interface ....

Thanks for the info and suggestions. I am strictly a hobbyist, and likely to remain so, but I do take this hobby seriously. I have much to learn, and want to be sure I make the best purchases I can as I piece together my "studio."

Is there an analog mixer you feel would be a particularly good companion to the Motu 828?

Oh, and BTW, a comment to BlueBear...I am happy wear the appellation "clueless"--that's why I joined this thread: to get a clue. I just think that your comment about your fine equipment seemed, shall we say, a bit out of place on a thread about a cheap lil' Phonic mixer, no matter what you were responding to.

I do appreciate your recommendations, though. Unfortunately, after a scan of a retail dealer's site, I fear they might be out of my price range.

something like this would work nice with the Motu 828:

link

unfortunately i think this auction is shipping from the UK but you could find other small mixing boards like this if you keep an eye open...

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh, in case the link didn't work it was an auction on ebay right now for a used Soundcraft Spirit Folio SX.

I've just ordered the 24 channel version of this from my local high street store. However they were good enough to let me take away and try out this model first, the Phonic Helix 12 firewire, to see wheteher it was for me or not.
I have to say I am impressed by the performance of this desk. The audio signal from 4 microphones around my bands drumkit was streamed simultaneously onto 4 tracks on cubase just as described. The drummer could play along to Cubases click track and hear himself back, without any noticeable delay. The Firewire really does it's job. To try and push it's limitations we got our singer, bassist, and two guitarists to simultaneously play along to some drums and other instruments we'd laid. This meant 12 tracks of audio for Cubase to send back along the Firewire (which it does as a Stereo mixdown), to the desk for our musicians to monitor, while processing their 4 inputs and feeding it back to them again so's they can hear themselves. The desk had no problems. I believe the latency was as low as 6ms. (anything less than 10ms is undetectable).
So in terms of processing audio and getting it onto Cubase, without the need of a fancy soundcard this desk is great.

The one down point I found was that after setting all the levels nicely according to the desk meter reading, the corresponding input level on cubase was just a little bit lower than desired, resulting in audio waveforms that looked a bit underfed.
Unfortunately I could find no way of turning up the firewire master output on the desk. In fact, it's worth noting that the signal sent to Cubase is not affected by any of the faders or EQ controls. And also the desks effects are redundant in firewire mode. This isn't a huge issue, because you really want to be using cubase to add all the bells and whistles to your audio tracks afterwards. It does mean however, that the only control you have over the level of each channel on the desk is the gain control. A fader value of 0db seems to be assigned by default, regardless of how much you push the fader up and down. Moving the fader, will however make the volume of the track sound louder in your headphones or control room speakers, but it won't change the signal level in Cubase. Only the gain control will do that and at it's loudest it's just a little bit low.
Good news is that a simple solution was found. Opening the mixer in Cubase SX (press F3) and choosing to view the whole mixer + input channels, you can simply adjust the input gain for each channel being sent from the mixer. A little tweak for each channel here, completely resolved the issue, giving nice big healthy audio waves.

In case anyone else has one of these, here's a few things that seem obvious but took me a bit of mucking around to get.
1)In order to find the Phonic Helix inputs in the Input drop down box next to each track in Cubase, you first need to create them.
Go to DEVICES > VST CONNECTIONS.
Then Right click in the columns and select ADD BUS. Add several buses and give assign each one a relevant input channel from the phonic helix. Hey presto! They now appear in the INPUT drop down box next to each track.
2)Another thing which had my mate stumped was how you simultaneously record onto multiple tracks on Cubase. This was easy. Simply create a few tracks and assign each one an input channel from the INPUT drop down box. Select the very top most track then hold down SHIFT and select the bottom track. A multiple selection has been made. Now just hit record.

My overall opinion of this desk is that it's great value for money and not a thing wrong with it. Don't let anyone tell you Phonic are crap. It might be a little less robust than professional models, but look after it and you've nothing to worry about. The thing that has always got me is that these things call themselves 12 channel desks when theres only really 4 inputs worth using. The rest don't have gain controls and the number 12 is got from including stereo returns and auxilliary ins and stuff like that. But then, all desk manufacturers are at that game.

*sigh*

I guess grttrks got fired.

RhoneRanger wrote:

*sigh* I guess grttrks got fired.

Seriously!

But no worries... for those serious about audio, as their ears start to develop, they become painfully of aware of the shortcomings of budget gear, so it doesn't take long before they begin to hear the sonic deficiencies and need to upgrade...
_________________
Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

I am stuck in that position right now.


I am in dire need of a good compressor. I thought the Alesis I bought was pretty solid, but now when I hear more how compression soundss, the release of this Alesis is horrible! I can understand hearing a little difference, but it is a major thing, and is almost becoming painful.

I wonder if the compressor IN on CUbase is any good.. I will have to try that before I shell out the big bucks.