Rain
The low cut at 100Hz is one of the reasons I picked the Mackie instead of the other mixers I was considering. In conjunction with the low shelf at 80Hz, it allows me to really clean up the POD HD.
 
A little notch at 2.5 takes care of the rest and the guitar just seems to sit in the mix so much better, right from the start. I got so carried away with it that I spent almost 2 hours jamming with that set up last night, just for fun. It really tightens things up.
 
 

The frequency choices for the bands is something that's kind of peaking my curiosity. The Mackie manual for the original goes into some quirky/comical references to "Zoltan" from another planet being the dude who came up with the original frequencies chosen for bands in early mixers (from the 50's 60's) that didn't make a lot of musical sense but ended up being the standard for simple EQs on boards for many years. They then go on to say that THEIR (Mackie's) choice of putting the low freq at 80hz as opposed to 100hz (but don't actually specify whether it is a shelf or a bandpass even though they specifically point out the Hi control IS a shelf so I'm not sure whether the low is a shelf or a bandpass but does sound like a shelf... I think) and the Hi shelf is at 12khz (or around there... I forget) whereas earlier mixers used 10khz for their hi control.
 
So I gotta wonder... considering this mixer came out in 92 (I think) making it over 20 years old has the mixer manufacturing industry started using 80hz for low bands and 12+khz for the high bands? Or is this still somewhat unique? I know the Sonar ProChannel bands (at least the low band) are set in a similar fashion. Did Mackie set some kind of trend (because they sure seem to be implying in the manual that setting the bands that way was THEIR idea) or is this something that was more of a natural evolution that all manufacturers started adopting because... well it made sense?
 
Please note that I have only started learning about EQ fundamentals in the past couple years. Before that it was all "twist things until the sound good" type tomfoolery. I guess I do still follow that principle (which Mr. Danzi encourages me to quite often) but it sure does make things easier when the starting/fixed bands are in the right spot as well as knowing "Hey... this kick sound is all fuxxored... perhaps I should poke around the 80hz range to see what's what".
 
Anyway... just some general blathering. Waiting for some meatworld stuff to happen so you all get to enjoy my inanity. lol

I'm guessing that the low and high frequencies were simply dependent on the averages allowed by technologie - back in the days of all analog equipment and vinyl and tape, a low cut below 100Hz didn't seem to do much, and similarly with 10Khz vs 12Khz.
 
The Allen & Heat mixer I was considering as an alternative has basically the same high pass at 100Hz and same EQ frequencies, with the advantage of a sweepable mids EQ. Same for the Soundcraft I checked (minus the high pass).
 
The Yamaha MG was using the old standard of shelves at 100Hz and 10Khz but it had the high pass at 80Hz. 
 
 
 
 

Beeps, this is such a cool thread! I don't know how I missed it when you posted it before and I'm sorry I'm a little late to the party now. Nothing I say here will help you, but I am going to share how *I* run my Mackie in my little cave when time allows. :)
 
Now mine probably has more options available because it's the big baystid, but it's really cool because everything in my man cave goes into it and can be sent to Sonar or any other soundcard or tape machine. I'll explain it and maybe it can help you.
 
Here's how I run my stuff.
 
I have 64 possible ins (mic+line) per channel, 8 bus outs and 6 Aux sends/returns.
 
When recording, I have three ways I'm handling how I come out of the console and I use all 3 methods. I have direct outs on each channel as well as bus outs and aux outs too. But my aux stuff is specifically for outboard effects like reverb, chorus, delay and any special effects. I NEVER run any compression or eq type stuff in the aux sends. I run that stuff direct on each channel as it sounds the best and is applied destructively...which those effects work the best that way when using a console. Or I simply don't use anything at all. Most of the time just a few light compressors inserted right on a channel in the Mackie.
 
But to send signal, here's how I do it and why: 
 
1. The first 16 direct outs go to an Apollo. (which I'm just trying out..pretty cool piece!) 
2. The next 16 direct outs go to a 16 track, 1 inch Tascam reel to reel.
3. The 8 bus outs are sent to a Layla 24/96 card.
 
This allows me to send to several places and when I use the number 3 option, anything in the board can be sent to the Layla card because of the switches on each channel of the board allowing me to enable and send to and through the bus of my choice.
 
I don't know how yours looks, but I have switches on each channel of my Mackie that run along side the fader. They look like this...
 
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
 
So for example, if we want to send something to the Layla, we can do so on any track in the console because every channel has those push button switches. It doesn't matter what channel. So if we want to send channel 9 to Layla, I would press one of those buttons and it would send out of the bus to Layla.
 
Bus 1-2 are sent to channels 1-2 on Layla...bus 3-4 sent to channel 3-4 on Layla and so on.
 
So when I press say, bus 3 on the switch, I would pan my knob on that channel left which makes it send to 3. This will show signal in Sonar coming through channel 3 on Layla. If I pan the channel on the Mackie to the right, bus 4 will see signal. (as long as you have those sound card channels selected in Sonar in a track) If I have the pan straight up the middle on the Mackie, and a stereo 3-4 set up on a Sonar track, both 3-4 will see signal or I can run two mono tracks using 3 and 4 independently. Understand? This is what they call multi-track mode.
 
The other direct outs are sent to specific places...so when I record on say channels 17-32 of the Mackie, the direct outs are going right to my tape machine. Channels 1-16 going to Apollo.
 
So anyway, that's how I do things here and it's also how I'm *sort of* doing things at my real studio minus the tape machine as I sold the 24 track 2 inch we had there. I just like the in/out capability of a console not to mention having everything permanently sent where I need it to be. A console with good pre's (which the Makcie unfortunately doesn't have...fair at best) is really important if you can afford it. I messed around with one of those new Behringer X32 live boards in the studio about 2 weeks ago as my bud was trying to sell me on it. I just can't take Behringer serious with stuff like that...however, those Midas pre's that come with that thing are something else! 
 
The SSL is really starting to look good...even though it would be a car payment which is nice NOT to have right now. Then again, my whole life growing up in this field....you couldn't touch an SSL for under 250-300 k and if you could, there was something wrong with it. Though it's still pricier than I want to spend, 69 k with a 10k rebate is as low as I'll get in this lifetime for a brand new SSL that WILL do all the stuff I want it to. LOL!! Maybe after I buy the woman a truck. I'll name it SSL. LOL! :)
 
-Danny

Ha! Hi, Danny. I was about to send you a message just to say hi but here ya are so... howdy!
 
Yeah, I guess you're catching me in my "enlightenment" phase in regards to console concepts so I actually understood what the heck you were talking about in that post... lol. I just could NEVER wrap my head around where and how all these jacks and cables and buttons and whatevers related to each other and now... PWAF... it's starting to make sense.
 
I unfortunately do not have access to all the perstrip routing options you have aside from the four aux out knobs (and their corresponding jacks) and the direct outs (which are also the channel inserts so there is no either or going on there with this board but I don't have any outboard processor anyway so it doesn't matter). Being able to just push a button to fire something to a specific device sounds ultra handy but again I only have one place to send things to (the interface). Also as nice as the 18i6 is it only has two real line outs anyway (the Mains... the other outs are the stereo headphone jack and the SPDIF output... neither of which I'll be trying to route back to the board for the "split monitoring" type setup Quantum describes above).
 
With my Layla 3G though I do actually have 8 1/4" analog outs but I don't have that hooked up to the DAW because it was a little wonky through the bridged PCI motherboard (which sadly I only found out about after building the system but it led me to buy the 18i6 which I really like and the Layla gets to live inside my old system for yanking my old files off of as needed). However if I REALLY wanted to do a "split monitoring" setup with the Mackie I could with the Layla but I don't think it's worth it. I'm doing fine just working in the box for that stuff. I did attampt that setup years ago as I mentioned upthread but something was wrong and I think I screwed up my connections thus introducing a loop of some kind. I even did a couple test mixdowns through it "because my engineering buddies all did their mixdowns through their boards and I wanted to be "cool" like them) but they all sucked so I just stuck to mixing inside Nuendo (and now Sonar).
 
Anyway, it's really nice at least understanding what the hell is going on as far as consoles after so many years of just not getting it. Actually yesterday as I was checking out various vids about the Mackie boards and boards in general a vid about the Yamaha 02r popped up in the sidebar. I used to do some grunt work in a half arsed studio where the guy had an 02r (which languished/never got used) that scared the hell out of me. So I decided to watch the vid and braced myself to be totally lost and confused. Lo and behold I even understood THAT. Not saying I could immediately sit behind one and immediately record/mix an album but I understood the routing and layers and other craziness of it all. Pretty cool.
 
I'm just bringing it up because your set up reminded me of some of the stuff being talked about in that vid.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlAfUe1RPww
 
It's apparently part of a course taught at SAE Atlanta which I guess is a production school with various labs for the students. There are some other vids like it about routing on their specific equipment which are cool and enlightening even though they are meant as supplements for their own students and not tuts for the general public.
 
Good to see ya, man. I hope you've been well.

Hey Beep you sure your channel mutes don't switch to 3/4 like was said back a bit here, I seem to remember that feature and the only 2 Mackie's I ever owned where the one you have and the same vintage 1202. Might have been the 1202 that did that trick. And ya you can flip the pod to face forward but I seem to remember some sort of metal bracket you use for one way or the other. 

Ah, yes. I was getting confuzzled. The mute button acts as a switch for Alt 3/4 (not Aux). It seems to be a simple stereo bus output (two 1/4" jacks) right beside the Mains inserts. 
 
But no buttons like what Danny seems to be describing which to me sounds like you just press one/all or a combo of them down to route them to various places without interrupting the main signal.
 
I know some of the vids and manual described some uses for the Mute Alt 3/4 option but honestly I forget at the moment. Got a lot of stuff running around my noodle at the moment.

I have the 12 channel VLZ and in my studio I wouldn't be without it. I'm not doing all of that routing with it like you are Beep. It sits there primarily tied into a stereo pair of inputs on my Presonus and I use it as kind of a utility mixer for whatever I want to put into it, usually I have a few keyboards hooked to it, but over the years it has served me well using those aux outputs and even live using the TRS as outputs to record. I don't seem to be able to tell any significant difference in sound quality between aux .vs mains. I don't care how old school it seems I don't think I'll ever get rid of it.

Hi, Starise. Good to know and from all reports these mixers are built to last so yeah... I think this one will live with me for quite some time.
 
OT: I finally got around to checking out your interview with Mr. bitflipper yesterday. Cool stuff. I've been meaning to take a poke around your site for a while now but always get distracted by other shiny things on the intertubes. Good jorb.

This conversation kind of spilled over into another thread so I'm just going to repost some conclusions that I've made after Danny informed me the aux outs on his particular Mackie are perfectly clean and fine for recording purposes (his is a little more modern than mine but for all intents and purposes should behave the same)...
 
Soooo here's my current line of thinking...
 
I also came up with a good reason to use the 6 aux outs on the board as opposed to the 8 direct outs (if as you say the aux outs are nice and clean). Considering every channel on the board (all 16) has access to the Aux outs (and can access any of the six AND can access 4 of those aux's at one time) then I can set up cables, outboard gear like the Line6/Traynor amps, mics, etc and then set the input trim and EQ for those devices so they sound best. Then I simply have one of my snakes run from the six aux outputs into the six line inputs on the back of the Scarlett. From there instead of having to move cables around and reset channel trims/eq's on the Mackie I can just turn up the appropriate Aux knob on that channel to feed the Scarlett.
 
The direct outs/channel access connections are limited to the first 8 channels on the Mackie and can only be use with the corresponding channel (unlike the aux outs that can take signal from any channel).
 
So here's what I'm thinking (keeping in mind that Scarlett In 1 and 2 are the multi ins on the front which I would rather keep free so if I want to just plug straight in to write something or jam out without firing up all the other gear I can OR I can use the direct outs on the Mackie for special input set ups that I don't need set up all the time)...
 
Mackie Aux Out 1 = Scarlett Line In 3
Mackie Aux Out 2 = Scarlett Line In 4
Mackie Aux Out 3 = Scarlett Line In 5
Mackie Aux Out 4 = Scarlett Line In 6
Mackie Aux Out 5 = Scarlett Line In 7
Mackie Aux Out 6 = Scarlett Line In 8
 
Then I use the 9-16 channels on the Mackie to set up gear I think I will be likely to use on a regular basis, set the ideal trim and EQ and bingo bango... I can just turn on the mixer, turn up the fader to unity, turn up the appropriate Aux level knob on the mixer channel(s) to unity (or whatever I want or even mix and match for blending channels into a single track). If I run out of space within those 8 channels (9-16) I can start creeping backward into the 1-8 channels. Why keep the first 8 channels open? I guess it doesn't REALLY matter aside from organization but the first 8 have the direct outs and I only have two 8 channel snakes (one of which has two bad cables so it is essentially a 6 channel snake). So I would opt to use the direct outs for those eight channels and use them as wild cards or specifically for the TRUE use of the Channel Access which is with a TRS cable sending and receiving from outboard gear (it's an insert... not that I currently have any gear that works like that at the moment but you never know what might come down the pipe). I COULD still use the Aux on those channels anyway but I like keeping things straight in my head because this is all confusing enough as it is. lol
 
So yeah... it's been almost a week since I started really messing with the board but provided I don't run into any stupid noise problems I think this might be a good plan. Even if I do run into a bit of noise with the Aux outs (due to stomp boxes running through the external gear or something) then I can fall back on the direct outs as needed which is a good reason to keep the multi ins 1/2 on the Scarlett free as well.
 
I get the benefits of a permanent patch bay type set up and still have a ton of flexibility. Cool!

After a bit more playing with my own rig, I can confirm that the Aux Sends seem to be pretty clean.
 
At one point, there was a bit of noise creeping in but I soon realized that I had the preamp gain on one of the (unused) channels turned up all the way. Wasn't too obvious unless you solo'ed the recorded track. Comparing the background noise levels to a guitar track recorded previously with my Randall amp and a SM57 direct into the Scarlett, it was actually very similar.
 
At any rate, unless pushing the preamps - and I don't need to - the Aux Send itself is absolutely quiet and more than adequate enough for rock and roll.