Behringer Xenyx X2442USB Mixer

Hi Porvera,

These days most of the mixing is now done in the box, so the choice of mixer (or even the need for one at all!) is usually down to personal preference, provided it delivers a high S/N ratio and doesn't colour the signal too much. If you are only recording one instrument at a time it is very likely superfluous to requirements, unless you have lots of old MIDI gear like me, and then the mixer will most likely be simply for monitoring. I use an in line behringer mixer rx1602 for this purpose with and the behringer ultrapatch px3000 to keep the signal path as direct to my sound card as possible. 
A decent preamp is still an essential piece of recording gear. Tame/boost your signals with as good a preamp as you can lay your hands on. Then your sound card will need to be able to capture that signal with a decent resolution. Most cards these days can provide a 48 - 96kHz sampling rate with 24bit audio without you having to spend an arm and a leg.

You would be looking to recording the signal clean and dry and add all the fx at a later stage (where you can undo the process if needs be) If you are intending to record a band as a live performance which you then separate into it's components, a sound card with multiple inputs will be required. Again it is probably better to keep the signal as clean as possible coming in and only apply any fx at the mix stage.

I have had a rather poor experience with the smaller Xenyx boards, finding that the preamps tend to go very quickly on them, either due to poor quality build or bad luck on my part. I only use the behringer nnnnFX range boards for live performances, but I'd personally keep them out of the studio :)

Hope this helps

Thanks for the advice so far. I forgot to say I have a UA-25 but fancy a real mixer, so I suppose it would be more for the physical moving sliders etc rather than adding fx.

Progmatist


The Xenyx 2442 actually has the UA-25 built in.  They used to package them separately in the same box, but combined them about a year ago.

If you like I couldn't care less about the USB interface however, this is still quite a nice mixer.  It has individual outputs on channels 1-8, plus sub-bus outputs.  This comes in very handy for recording to an audio interface with more than 2 analog inputs.

Sorry, but that's incorrect.  it does not have a UA-25 (Roland product) with it or built into it.  it comes with a UCA-200 behringer 16bit/44.1kHz 2 input, 2 output USB soundcard.  see snip below from behringer's website
 
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USB Ready

While many of our competitors force you to buy a separate card to connect to your computer, we’ve included superb USB connectivity with each and every XENYX 2442FX. No drivers to download, no complicated setup routines, just plug the included UCA200 2-input/2-output USB/Audio Interface into your Windows or Mac computer and start tracking

Povera, the UCA200 does not have any mic preamps, it has 2 line inputs only, it is 16bit/44.1kHz only.  the UA-25 has 2 inputs which can be either mic, line or hi-z instrument, it can record up to 96kHz, 24bit, it has digital I/O and MIDI I/O and several other features.

the UCA200 is very very basic.  it's not much better than your onboard soundcard, IMO.

if you were to get the xenyx 2442, I would recommend that you continue to use the UA25 and just put the UCA200 in the drawer and never pull it out again. the UA25 is much, much better.  and you can use the mixer with the UA25 instead of the UCA200.

UCA200 is worth less than $30.
I have one, but it is only 16 bit.

If you have a UX25EX I would use that as the A/D D/A converter.
2442  is just an analog board that uses the UA200 as a stereo A/D stereo interface.
You already have a superior interface with the EX25EX.

You are taking all of those discrete analog channels and forced to mix them down to a stereo pair.

Example.
If you had 8 mics set up to record a live drum kit, you would not be able to record the snare, kick, overheads separately.   You would be stuck with a stereo mix. 
This prevents you from adding reverb/ effects to only one part, after the face, like the snare after the fact.

EDIT  <yeah.....what Beagle said!!    Just read that post.>