Mixer or no mixer?

I suspect you'll miss the feel of the board.

Do you use the mixer for for input monitoring? If so, I suspect you will have to use RME's TotalMixFX in lieu of a mixer.

You could "step down" to a MIDI controller but I suspect you would not appreciate the potential limitations.

If only a router, you may be able to get used to not having it at all.  The size of the virtual mixer faders does matter to me.  I was so used to mixing on a real board that when computer mixing came alont, I still cannot get used to the small fader so I am most always writing in the volume, pan and effects nodes manually.

Rimshot

Hey Maurice,
Thanks for that!  My acoustic group Jan & Ted play at Justin Winery, Eberle Winery, Tobin James, and Pear Valley Wineries.  I am a member of StillWaters Winery.  All good up here!  Please let me know if you are planning to out here, I would love to meet you.

Rimshot

I have no mixer. Using the Saffire Focusrite I've not needed one. 

I used to have a mixer back in the old studio but I don't miss it one bit. 

No mixer here, either. 

Fifteen years ago, I moved to a new house and lost my large studio space. So the mixer got "temporarily" moved into a closet until I could find space for it. And there it sat gathering dust for the next 10 years until I finally gave it away.

You are going to get different views on this from not needing a mixer at all and doing everything ITB to the other end of needing a mixer. But I want you to think about perhaps a digital mixer concept instead.

Something like this:

http://www.yamahaproaudio...roducts/mixers/01v96i/

I find the digital mixer concept excellent because they can do the following:

Provide all the A to D and D to A you will ever need
Provide Mic Pres that sound excellent, very quiet and lots of headroom
Zero latency during recording and you can set up any effect you want
Act a control surface for your DAW
Can be setup for the most complex mixes imaginable and recall that in an instant
Send out all the moves you make and record and edit that in your DAW
Help mix your music by sending many stems into the mixer digitally from your DAW for final adjustment and use all the great effects they have to offer
They have EQ and dynamics on every IN and OUT plus 4 fantastic reverbs inside
Small footprint
Handle all monitoring and headphone mixes
Many outs for driving external hardware
Yamaha mixer above has a serious analog modelling channel that anything can be routed through
If you have external synths like me you can patch all of them direct to the mixer and take complete control from there.
Software can control the mixer and can run inside your DAW.
Motorized faders are giving you instant feedback as to where all levels are at all times.
Yamaha has ADAT IN/OUT standard and can add a card with either another ADAT or even more analog inputs for ridiculous amount of inputs
Spare buttons on front can be programmed to control Sonar transport (MMC)
You can plug in CD players and things and drop reference CD's in a flash while you are mixing etc..

Because you are always monitoring through the mixer during recording you are getting zero latency. You can set your buffers quite high in your DAW and leave them there. You will never have problems with your DAW glitching on playback.

Digital mixers are way smarter and better than any analog desk. An analog desk would have to cost the same as a house before it can beat it and even come close to the sound of a high quality digital mixer. I think the Yamaha above is ideal in this situation. Roland do not make a product that can compete directly with this. (yet anyway, here's hoping!)

There are good arguments for both situations. You started and you are using a digital mixer now so why not just modernise the idea and get a much better one. On the other hand if you think you can do away with it all together then that is also a good idea. You may need some sort of monitoring station though.

Jeff Evans


You are going to get different views on this from not needing a mixer at all and doing everything ITB to the other end of needing a mixer. But I want you to think about perhaps a digital mixer concept instead.

Something like this:

http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/global/en/products/mixers/01v96i/

I find the digital mixer concept excellent because they can do the following:

Provide all the A to D and D to A you will ever need
Provide Mic Pres that sound excellent, very quiet and lots of headroom
Zero latency during recording and you can set up any effect you want
Act a control surface for your DAW
Can be setup for the most complex mixes imaginable and recall that in an instant
Send out all the moves you make and record and edit that in your DAW
Help mix your music by sending many stems into the mixer digitally from your DAW for final adjustment and use all the great effects they have to offer
They have EQ and dynamics on every IN and OUT plus 4 fantastic reverbs inside
Small footprint
Handle all monitoring and headphone mixes
Many outs for driving external hardware
Yamaha mixer above has a serious analog modelling channel that anything can be routed through
If you have external synths like me you can patch all of them direct to the mixer and take complete control from there.
Software can control the mixer and can run inside your DAW.
Motorized faders are giving you instant feedback as to where all levels are at all times.
Yamaha has ADAT IN/OUT standard and can add a card with either another ADAT or even more analog inputs for ridiculous amount of inputs
Spare buttons on front can be programmed to control Sonar transport (MMC)
You can plug in CD players and things and drop reference CD's in a flash while you are mixing etc..

Because you are always monitoring through the mixer during recording you are getting zero latency. You can set your buffers quite high in your DAW and leave them there. You will never have problems with your DAW glitching on playback.

Digital mixers are way smarter and better than any analog desk. An analog desk would have to cost the same as a house before it can beat it and even come close to the sound of a high quality digital mixer. I think the Yamaha above is ideal in this situation. Roland do not make a product that can compete directly with this. (yet anyway, here's hoping!)

There are good arguments for both situations. You started and you are using a digital mixer now so why not just modernise the idea and get a much better one. On the other hand if you think you can do away with it all together then that is also a good idea. You may need some sort of monitoring station though.

While I agree with Jeff on this - a digital mixer can be an excellent piece of studio equipment - you do have to be careful on the one you choose.  make SURE you do your homework.  the yamaha digital mixer he listed above is a good one, so is the presonus and maybe some others, but beware of the cheap ones.  Alesis multimix USB is 2 channel recording ONLY.  it has several input channels, but it only records the mains.  same goes for the behringers and there may be others.  I think the Alesis Firewire one records all inputs separately, but not the USB one (in fact the USB one doesn't even have its own drivers - they recommend you use the "USB CODEC" from windows!  )
 
so, yes digital mixers can be excellent, but make sure you do your research to determine the best one for your needs.

 I would miss having a mixer. I have several instruments with different output ranges and for me, the mixer helps to more quickly dial in those settings. I also like the EQ and preamps on my Mackie. I can have the inputs adjusted and add some eq in half the time it takes in software. I could probably work without it. Habitual I guess.
If you plug and unplug instruments/mikes constantly then another consideration is that you put the wear and tear on the mixer as opposed to the plugs on your interface,and to me, the mixer is far more expendable than the interface.