R/E/P Community
R/E/P => R/E/P Archives => Budget? Budget? We Don't Got No Steekin' Budjet => Topic started by: breathe on December 19, 2008, 10:47:59 PM
-
The first time I coaxed a cathartic audio experience out of Pro Tools was when I bought a Soundcraft 200B 8 ch mixer for like $300 and connected the 8 outputs of my Apogee AD8000 to it. Seriously, going from mixing in PT 5.1 which made the bass drum sound like a tennis ball and the whole mix sounded smaller than cheap mono, to summing on the 200B, made the rock record I was then working on feel like going from a splash in a kiddie pool to a fucking tsunami!!! The guitars were like this tidal wave blasting out of my speakers! I think I had an orgasm. I could not believe my ears at the difference in the sound quality. This discovery eventually lead me to abandon PT for a completely analog setup, which was cool until the client requested a remix to be a slight modification of an earlier mix. I've now sold my Yamaha PM2k, which I loved, and now have a PTLE rig about to finally expand so I'll have a bunch of Apogee i/o. My immediate plan is to resurrect my 200B, maybe even getting it serviced. and use that to 'sum' my mixes until I can afford my SPL Mix Dream XP. I'm even thinking the 200B might still then come in handy because it does the 'crunchy' thing really well but still has a lot of air to the sound. I think my 200B was modded but I used another one once that still sounded big.
Anyways, long story short, is there any other cool small CHEAP mixers that folks on a budget can use to sum their mixes until they can afford a real summing amp? I think the 200B is excellent for the price but there's probably something better in the sub-$500 range for an 8 ch mixer.
Thanks!
Nicholas
-
Soundcraft Delta 200. Balanced bussing, -90 db stereo crosstalk, true balanced line inputs. I paid $400 for the 8x4, $550 for the 16x4, $750 for the 24x4.
-
I just ran into a Studer 970 for 500 bucks. Nobody seems to care for these as they are known as broadcast/radio-DJ desks. But converting them into a music mixing console is possible and soundquality is studer.