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Thread: Mixer for live work multi Mic and or bands Yamaha vs Midas FX

  1. #1
    Member wapples's Avatar
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    Mixer for live work multi Mic and or bands Yamaha vs Midas FX

    Needing to invest in another mixer (Not for DJing) Mostly for FOH for bands and musos along for use with multi mic setups and audio visual needs at various events.

    Budget $1000 new or used

    Looking at something Like a Yamaha or Maybe a Midas.

    FX that seem to the be standard on Yamaha gear and the clean ease of use from others using Yammy mixers in my neck of the woods is what stands out the most. Nothing quite like a Muso tuning up & saying the rooms a bit wet lets add some effect. My current mixer I hire out does not have FX but I do love it. I would expect musos to deliver their own FX however with vocals I get what they are banging on about.

    These are the two brands that are readily available and both are winners but people who play and or install these like Bill esquire might chirp in with some winners around this price point.

    Open to other brands of course and while the digital stuff like the likes of QSC are very drool worthy people around here are very black and white so simplicity really is king all advice welcome.

    OP

  2. #2
    These days in your price range you should be looking for a digital mixer. If you have an iPad already and content with that alone as a control surface then you have many choices. If you want a real control surface you are right on the edge of your budget for a Presonus Studiolive 16.0.2 new/used, or a 16.4.2 used, Ashly Digimix, or a Behringer x32 producer. A used x32 compact should be in your range too. I just mixed on an X32 for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I'm not a fan of Behringer but had to admit that it was easy to use and worked well. It was my sound system but someone else supplied the console, snake and monitors... I had 20 minutes to figure the console out and get things going, and I was able to do that. So yea, pretty decent layout.
    Last edited by light-o-matic; 09-16-2018 at 07:06 PM.

  3. #3
    Member wapples's Avatar
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    Yes that Berringer is a bargain although it does not have the warm refined sound of the MIDAS its an industry standard layout of its more expensive counterpart. Again I dont think my application warrants that and indeed the digital approach IPADS etc yes agreed, & is the way to go but some of these crumblys don't have the patience to learn something new. There was a brilliant Yamaha mixer that popped up on ebay the other day the only down side was it was rotary knobs instead of faders on the bottom. NOT THAT IM KNOCKING rotary infact I love mixing with rotary but this mixer is more about the others not me still. Sound advice LOM

  4. #4
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    If you are providing this equipment to a band or artist to use I can understand the want for an analog console, they all work pretty much the same, that function is pretty obvious to all but complete novices and it's much easier to make an adjustment on the fly.
    How many input channels do you want/need? The older Yamaha MG series are functional but they don't have a lot of headroom, if you overdrive a channel even a little bit it gets ugly sounding real fast. That said I have done lots of work with an MG16/6fx that I have, the FX do a good job, I also own some smaller Mackie mixers that work well(Profx8).. the EFX in these do a good job too, and have used the 2404VLZ for bigger shows. The industry standard bar band mixer here was the A&H Mixwiz 16/2DX until digital mixers took over, I have used that too and it works quite well. The biggest limitation with smaller analog mixers is the number of AUX outputs for monitors, most desktop models will only have 1 or 2 if you leave the FX bus for adding effects.
    Last edited by conanski; 09-17-2018 at 10:08 AM.
    Paul O'Brien
    Old Tech Guy
    www.Techott.com

  5. #5
    Which Midas do you think you are getting for $1000? And, Midas has been owned by Behringer for years now...
    I see that they are now selling a Midas branded mixer for $350, I am sure it works.. but it is a $350 mixer, that is going to be more or less the same as a Behringer mixer with a nicer paint job and a more prestigious name. The "warm refined sound" of Midas you speak of is a reputation earned on consoles costing 10's to 100's of thousands of dollars, not on the mixer you are looking at.

    My point is that you need to look at the mixers in your price range and get what suits your needs. Don't get caught up in brands too much, particularly in the Midas name when the company that made that name famous in the 1970s-80s has changed hands twice since then. I see they are selling a Midas-branded digital mixer (rack mount, ipad control only) for $450 which supposedly contains Midas preamps. That's great except for the fact that you only get four of those mic inputs.. which isn't enough to mix most bands. So yea, figure out what it is you need first.

    If you want a more traditional layout in that price range you will need to get an analog mixer, which means at most you will have one onboard efx unit and that's it. Compression, and everything else you have to add outboard. The Yamaha MG16X has a (very limited) single knob compressor on each mic channel, which is not ideal but a whole lot better than no compressor at all. Also has one digital efx unit and sweepable mids. Not bad at the price.

    If you are serious about wanting to own a mixer that someone who knows how to mix a band would want to use, you basically NEED to look at the digital mixers that are available in the $1000-$1500 range, because those have ALL the gear that is usually required to be outboard.. inboard.. it comes with the mixer. You get a gate, compressor/limiter, parametric eq, etc on every input and output.. as well as usually at least two digital effects units. Some of them have matrix mixing, you get lots of aux sends for monitors, which you usually don't get in that price range from an analog board.... That is why everyone is buying them.

    Basically, what it comes down to is that if someone told me "you have to mix a rock festival next month.. here's $1000.. buy everything you need for FOH".. I would pretty much have no choice but to buy a used Behringer X32 Compact or X32 Producer. Or one of the other compact digital boards from Allen & Heath, Soundcraft, Ashly etc... because those would provide the processing and number of inputs/outputs needed to do the job right. If someone said to me "Hey I have open mic night next month, I have two JBL speakers and 6 random mics and a couple of DI boxes and Sam the barback is also a drummer and has worked a mixer before, so he'll run out from behind the bar to get the bands set up".. then I'd be like, ok.. $350 analog mixer sounds about right". If someone said "I run a small jazz club, I don't need it loud I just need a little reinforcement, I want it to sound as natural as possible.. I spent $6000 on a pair of Meyer UPA1P tops and matching sub, almost $4000 on 6 mics and a DI box, I have $1000 left for a mixer"... then I would shop around for the best small analog mixer I could find for $1000, almost definitely used....

    Different mixers for different needs. You have to figure out who you are trying to please.
    Last edited by light-o-matic; 09-17-2018 at 11:26 AM.

  6. #6
    Allen & Heath ZED 22 FX $ 800 brand new.

    BillESC
    Lighting, Sound & Video since 1973
    804-435-6858 [email][bill@entsyscorp.com]

  7. #7
    Member wapples's Avatar
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    Its the last sentence there. The clients who are wanting it are after something specific and i could not go past the yamaha MG16U could not be happier ticks all the boxes and as it serves more jobs then we can look into something more as the market dictates but for the moment ticks all the boxes at a great price. Thanks again EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING. I suspect I could be back for a studio monitor in the next couple of years.
    OP

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