Karaoke Forums

I'm a singer who would like to run some small karaoke parties, sing and play guitar in a small church, and sometimes record.

I'd like a mixer with good reverb as you may already know from my "What compact mixers have great sounding reverb?" post and the one that especially caught my interest was the Soundcraft EFX8 8-Channel Mixer for about $410 recommended by hamsamich.

But then I got to thinking that if I wanted to record a performance of perhaps music and 2 singers (or even more channels such as if I had other musicians and/or singers playing in church) that it would be nice to have each channel going out hopefully dry to a computer for later mixing. So apparently that means finding a mixer with USB 2.0 or firewire.

And toward the end of the abovementioned post hamsamich wrote and thus far no one answered:
"AandH ZEDFX12 versus Soundcraft EFX8. Does anybody have experience with BOTH of these mixers? The Soundcraft has no USB out, but it is a bit smaller and cheaper than the ZED and probably has better EFX. If I knew the EFX on the ZED were almost as good as the Soundcraft, I would probably just get it. Anybody know?"

But I researched a bit and don't think the Allen & Heath AH-ZED-12FX 12-Channel Mixer with USB is USB 2.0 and thus cannot send each channel to a computer (just a bus).

So at this point my question is what is a low budget ($600 or less would be nice) mixer with nice FX and USB 2.0 (or firewire)?

And would this come with related recording software and is that easy to set up and use?

Thanks in advance.

In the past I've used a Behringer Xenyx 1222FX. For $220 you won't find another "LOW BUDGET" MIXER that comes close. Great FX , USB interface,. multiple channels. on board EQ and its rackable. --again for $220. a great buy.
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=631270

Of course the ZED from AH is a superior mixer in most regards ..but then again
It cost $500 which I would not consider LOW BUDGET

http://alesis.com/multimix8usb20

I think he wants USB 2.0. 1222Fx is prob 1.1

Found this, but the Zed is probably better in all other respects. Alesis also has firewire8 available. I think I'd rather deal with USB 1.1 on the Zed. I'm tetering between the soundcraft and Zed right now. But recording isn't as important to me.

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[glow=red]Yo sucka, we need this hea CHOPTER, and we need it now![/glow]

I've read in reviews that their are no drivers available if you are using a 64 bit operating system for the Alesis MultiMix 8 USB 2.0.
Don't know if it's still true but one thing you might to consider if your wanting to upgrade your operating system to utilize more than the 4Gb of memory.

Where did you find that information on the Behringer being 1.1 ???

no where. just assumed it was. could be wrong though!

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[glow=red]Yo sucka, we need this hea CHOPTER, and we need it now![/glow]

No doubt, the Zed 12 is the best out there and it comes with Sonar 6.0 of which you can register it at cakewalk and you'll receive the $0.99 promo to upgrade to the latest 8.5 version That software alone with it's plug ins is worth over $100.00, this has to be taking under consideration Now keep in mind that the Zed is not a small board, it uses 100mm sliders but talk about a great mixer, the mic preamps are simply amazing!! I love my ZED 14, can you tell

Feel free to listen to this mix, I recorded this with the Zed and completed the mix with Sonar

http://www.singersshowcase.com/song.php ... act2=82181

zed doesn't have USB 2.0 or firewire, only USB 1.1. that was part of his needs I think. doesn't bother me though!

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[glow=red]Yo sucka, we need this hea CHOPTER, and we need it now![/glow]

Did some more research and these look interesting:

- Edirol M16DX 16-Channel Digital Mixer ($399 to $667, made by Roland, built-in FX, USB works for multiple channels)

- Tascam M-164UF 16-Channel USB Mixer with Effects ($385 perhaps blemished or something to $500 new, still considered a new product by the company as of 1/2010, built-in FX, USB works for multiple channels)

It doesn't take that kind of bandwidth to transfer audio, anyway. USB 2.0 is pretty unnecessary.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

seems that way to me now (USB 1.1 good enough), althought I haven't done much recording. Paulster, anybody else care to chime in if they think USB 2.0 or Firewire is that much better than USB 1.1 for recording? I did a little research last week and USB 1 is low-rent, USB 1.1 seems to be good enough, and FW and USB 2.0 are very fast. USB 3.0 is the cutting edge right now, I guess, although newer FW are coming out screaming fast as well. Maybe they will be standard in computers someday....

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[glow=red]Yo sucka, we need this hea CHOPTER, and we need it now![/glow]

USB 2 & Firewire are capable of transferring multiple channels simultaneously for multitracking, which USB 1 does not, only a 2 channel mix.

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That's a feature of the mixer, doesn't depend on the bus. Even so, USB1.1 would handle a lot of channels with it's 12MB/sec (100mbit/sec) bandwidth. Digital snakes don't use that much, and they handle 24 or more channels.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.