Help Me Choose a Mixer for my Imaginary Studio

What are your specific needs in a mixer?

Are you going to be using eq on the way in? Do you want to buss tracks together? Will you be using the mixer for headphone mixes?

If you're not really going to be doing any of those things I think that an outboard preamp like the Audient makes a lot of sense. It sounds great, it is small and compact, very reliable, doesn't have a fan.

If you want a mixer , you can get some cool tracking boards for relatively cheap, for pure sound my pick would be an old Studer, for routing, a D&R is great and can be had for peanuts nowadays. I've seen some nice Midas boards for cheap that would work just fine too.

Thanks guys, I was thinking it would mainly be a tracking mixer. I'd probably use some EQ going in, but judiciously. I might want to print with some outboard too, like a compressor. The Soundcraft Delta was my first thought. I had never heard of D&R Brice, thanks for mentioning that.

I'm just here to say this is the best thread title in the history of audio forums. A version of this could be the title of about 90% of purplesite.com threads...

"Help me choose ____ for my imaginary studio."

No disrespect Martin! I totally get what you're saying... just got a good laugh at the headline.

Martin I can probably hook you up with a delta for a stupid low price if you wanted one.

Not to snipe Martin on this possibility, but I just sent you a PM for more info, Jeremy.

Welcome to RGO, jhamm80! Nice to have you here.

API Box 2 is pretty appealing by the time you cost it all out. 

Also, welcome to RGO! I loved your work on Mad Men.

Soundtracs makes a relatively small 8 buss that could be interesting as well.. A friend has 1 1/2(one has issues) that could be an interesting option. Hes a jazz guy so similar mindset. Funny I was thinking about him last couple days(usually catch up around new years) and was wondering if he was still using it. Not as common as deltas generally, but a lot of deltas are 2 or 4 bus.Ive seen them go for not too much although shipping these days is expensive. Yamaha rm800 is another one to lookout out for I had one for awhile very clean good build except for faders a little wonky good headroom eq limited

We're all pitching in with opinions Martin so here are mine - given that a console will be a bit of a finance soak and you already have 2 good preamps with 2 more on the X6; I'd go a quality ADAT 8 channel such as the Audient (not that I've used it - so purely dreaming here too} , save on money, space and possible maintenance worries. Being realistic,recording an ensemble would probably still be a smaller part of your operation so the 12 pres would be enough to cut that well when needed without over stretching the budget thus allowing you to do probably more important stuff such as room treatment, headphones, monitors, mics, leads etc (they really add up), etc.
Of course I understand your dreaming......
Cheers, Ross

Martin you can always jump the NJ transit out of the city to Denville when I get the Barn build-out done if you ever need a big room. (whoops haven’t started yet) 😬

Tascam Model 12 looks like a cool centerpiece to me. It can record internally to an SD card. Or you can use it as a control surface. Or just use it as a mixer. Pretty neat.

Fits my idea of a fantasy (small) piece.

Martin, unless you're willing to setup a proper hybrid solution (or have a specific need) skip the mixer. Under $15 - 20K desks or mixers aren't super high quality transformer loaded yet low noise mega mixing or tracking tools. IMO there has to be a need to warrant the expense, lack of recall, no automation and general increase in difficulty etc (unity faders / routing ITB? What's the point?).. The best you can hope for outside of the mega buck Neve or API boards is something clean and believe me when I say they add nothing over ITB and a high end interface, in fact they're often far worse.

If used for tracking only then it's just taking up space, a ULN-8 w/ choice pieces of tracking HW or a Cranborne / 500 setup will do the same job with better quality and ergonomics. For me I wanted to mostly remove the need for plugins and DAW's plus have everything running "real-time" with a certain chain signature.. The SSL Big Six is nothing but a routing matrix between the computer and HW, I don't expect and highly doubt it'll add anything to the party besides that. It has a couple of cool inbuilt features I might use but for the most part it serves a core function and nothing else..

However the cost to move mainly OTB has been a bit of a shock, I've overspent quite a bit and cables alone cost $1200.00. I didn't buy Mogami's or top end cables either.. Then you ask yourself how much of an improvement will this actually make? Well, I guess it just depends how obsessive you are, the BetterMaker Mastering Limiter for example made enough difference as an analogue summing mixer / colour box to sort of justify the move. Hopefully when everything else arrives it will add to the mythological unicorn "sound" that I'm chasing.