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new cart based mixer


Glacierjay

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If you wish to stay analog, the two main choices would be a used Cooper or the Sonosax (the Sonosax would have to be new since it is a fairly new product). I am sure others here may have some additional recommendations but this is my take on the present situation for large scale cart based mixing panels.

-  Jeff Wexler

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If you wish to stay analog, the two main choices would be a used Cooper or the Sonosax (the Sonosax would have to be new since it is a fairly new product). I am sure others here may have some additional recommendations but this is my take on the present situation for large scale cart based mixing panels.

-  Jeff Wexler

Older Sonosax SX-S mixers are also most likely available used as well. They sound great, but may have limitations regarding I/O, metering and so on base on your needs. If you are handy with a soldering iron, you can get past the I/O limitations for the most part....

I worked several jobs using an 8 X 2 SX-S and loved it.

Look for a used Audio Developments board of recent vintage, as well.

Best regards,

Jim

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I would go with a used Cooper. I am biased of course cause this is what I use. They are very solid and well built. My 106 is 20 years old and sounds sweet and clean. If I was just starting out and $$$ was not an issue, I might consider the Sonosax as well. I have also been tempted to use a Mix 12 from Zaxcom with my Deva 4. Cantar has a similar set up to go with that recorder. I know little about that system but perhaps Scott Farr has better understanding, and certainly more info about that product. I own 2 Mackie mixers, (the 1604vlz, and the Onyx1640) I like them well enough in my home studio, but for what I do, I would never consider one as a cart mixer.

CrewC

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I built up a whole cart rig around a DC-modded Mackie, and it lasted for one set-up before I decided I hated it.  Just me probably, but although I'd done tons of music recording with them production dialog and Mackie didn't jive for me.  There are some used Sonosax mixers around, and Adam Liberman is pretty good at modding them to your heart's desire (Liberman Sound 971-238-0570).  The new/current Sax is way cool but very expensive.  In LA/the Western US, you'd be more likely to run into used Coopers though, which also can be modded, as well as some now pretty old Audio Developments.  AD has some pretty good deals on new mixers if they suit you, but I don't know if they have any USA service.  They didn't when I had one.  What I mostly hear about nowadays w/ newer sound people is digital mixers, either as a fader panel add-on (Deva, Cantar) or standalone, (Yamaha 01v96).  The latter sort of requires that you rethink your whole powering scheme, but offers a stupifying number of features in one box.

Philip Perkins

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Hey Crew

I'm keeping my 106 because it's a lot better suited to what we do. I had the older SX-S and thought it sounded great but didn't do the trick. It took a lot of work-arounds to get the job done. No monitoring without add-ons, etc.

We both are in the same world - commercials for the most part. The 106 is the best mixer for that job and for many others.

I'll keep 106 #252 until it stops working, and my 104 as well. Nothing sounds as good that has the utility of either mixer. I've gotten tired of being asked why I don't have a 442.

Best regards

Jim

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I built up a whole cart rig around a DC-modded Mackie, and it lasted for one set-up before I decided I hated it.  Just me probably, but although I'd done tons of music recording with them production dialog and Mackie didn't jive for me.  There are some used Sonosax mixers around, and Adam Liberman is pretty good at modding them to your heart's desire (Liberman Sound 971-238-0570).  The new/current Sax is way cool but very expensive.  In LA/the Western US, you'd be more likely to run into used Coopers though, which also can be modded, as well as some now pretty old Audio Developments.  AD has some pretty good deals on new mixers if they suit you, but I don't know if they have any USA service.  They didn't when I had one.  What I mostly hear about nowadays w/ newer sound people is digital mixers, either as a fader panel add-on (Deva, Cantar) or standalone, (Yamaha 01v96).  The latter sort of requires that you rethink your whole powering scheme, but offers a stupifying number of features in one box.

Philip Perkins

Lots of Cooper users back East, so look for used mixers here as well.

The stupifying may lead to stupidfying on my part.

Philip knows a lot more than I do on the "mixing without a console" world than I do.

I'd follow many different lines of advice.

Jim

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Hey Jim, I agree about the Coop being the best for our world. I do own a 442 and a 744 as a back up. They are well built and sound fine, but I would never sell the Coop for the 442 for any reason I can come up with. I use the 442 on insert car work that has me jumping on and off all day. I hate to tear my cart apart. We set up the 442 and wire it up and then I bring my Deva with me when I hope into the rig. I have also been known to put my vertical cart on the back of the rig for the day. Sorry for drifting, but thats me.

CrewC

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Hey Jim, I agree about the Coop being the best for our world. I do own a 442 and a 744 as a back up. Thy are well built and sound fine, but I would never sell the Coop for the 442 for any reason I can come up with. I use the 442 on insert car work that has me jumping on and off all day. I hate to tear my cart apart. We set up the 442 and wire it up and then I bring my Deva with me when I hope into the rig. I have also been known to put my vertical cart on the back of the rig for the day. Sorry for drifting, but thats me.

CrewC

Who's drifting?

It's about cart based mixers..... We were waxing philosophical about our 106's, a cart based mixer.

I have had the 104 since before the 442 was even a passing thought. Replaced my Sonosax SX-PR4 with the Cooper 104 when the SX-PR4 acted up.

Can't see replacing a working sonically superb 104 with an equally excellent 442 right now. It's all about what we have and what works at the moment and what we are comfortable with. Otherwise I'd still have the little Sonosax (and the big boy Sonosax as well!).

Best to you,

Jim

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I bought a new Audio Developments AD 255 a couple features ago. It's my first linear fader mixer, and I am extremely happy with it. I think everyone is right, there are many different tools for the job, a mixer being one of them. I got mine through Gotham Sound in NY, and there is a distributor, and I think a service department in the Northeast, I believe. But, the boards are still manufactured in England, so it took about a month and a half for me to get mine. But, they have great features, lots of I/O capabilites, direct outs, camera feeds. Mine came modded with a camera send, which is the same as the send on 442's, and 104's I believe. I've never used a cooper, which I do feel I missed out on. But, as I came into the market for a linear board the Coopers were discontinued. The 255 is a great board, sounds wonderful, and is reasonably priced. For me a Sonosax was out of my price range, and for what I wanted in features the price for the 255 was just right. I can't say its better than any other board, since I haven't used them all, but I do love what its done for me on the cart.

Phil

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After my Mackie debacle mentioned above I decided that if I really had to MIX on the cart mixer, it had to be some kind of mixer that made that possible--had the layout and fader spacing etc to be able to make that work.  Besides the reliability aspects, I'd guess that's what you guys like about the old Coopers--they were really very intuitive and help you get a good mix going.  I found that after I got my current cart mixer scene together, and worked out my strategies as well as simple things like the working height of the mixer vs. my arms etc, I felt confident enough to not insist on always doing prefade isos for everything if the production hadn't asked for it--my split/two mix would give them everything they needed for most commercials and other jobs like that.

Philip Perkins

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Now that the Cooper is not being made anymore, what is the go to mixer for cart based mixing?  I am currently using a Mackie but want to upgrade and I am not sure what to upgrade to.

For an analog board, it's still the Cooper for the moment, unless you want a $25,000 Sonosax SX-ST that may soon be obsolete.  Times are changing so I doubt anyone's rushing to the fore to take Andy's place and produce, market, and distribute an all-analog mixer.  The nice thing about Coopers is that they're built like tanks, and even old ones (like mine) are still notoriously reliable.  I'd stay away from Audio Developments as the preamps tend to saturate pretty fast on a bad spike, unless they've gotten better over the years.

For a digital board, the Yamaha 01V seems to be the most ubiquitous.  Haven't used it myself much so I can't really comment.

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I find it odd that Philip is ok recommending the Yamaha 01V, but not ok with the Mackie.  I doubt very much that it'd be easy to tell the difference between a track recorded to my 744T from my Mackie and one recorded on the Yamaha.  But that's just my opinion.

There are a number of LONG threads about choices for a mixing panel.

Robert

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I find it odd that Philip is ok recommending the Yamaha 01V, but not ok with the Mackie.  I doubt very much that it'd be easy to tell the difference between a track recorded to my 744T from my Mackie and one recorded on the Yamaha.  But that's just my opinion.

There are a number of LONG threads about choices for a mixing panel.

Robert

Well, I liked the Yamaha, and didn't like the Mackies so much.  I'm not a tremendous fan of the Yamaha either, but if you have a very "busy" job it allows a whole lot of audio to go on in one mixer....  As for being able to tell the diff in the audio--I'll go you one better and say that for most of the production dialog I record you couldn't tell the diff between a Cooper and a Yamaha and a Mackie and my PSC M6 or a 442 etc--there is too much ambient noise, lots of audio thru wirelesses etc..  All the mixers people like here can sound great, but the recommendations seem to be more about reliability, longevity, ease and logicality of use, holding of value etc..  All these mixers, and more, will record excellent audio when used by knowledgeable and attentive sound people.  It seems like it becomes a question of what you want to live with every day, that you can afford.

Philip Perkins

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The new Sonosax SX-ST is, by far, the best sounding and most capable mixer for portable cart use. Second place for new mixers would be one from the Audio Developments line. But if a new Sonosax or AD mixer is out of reach, the best value, by far, is the Cooper 108+1 (and I don't even have one for sale). If anyone wonders why, I'll be happy to expound.

Glen Trew

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The new Sonosax SX-ST is, by far, the best sounding and most capable mixer for portable cart use. Second place for new mixers would be one from the Audio Developments line. But if a new Sonosax or AD mixer is out of reach, the best value, by far, is the Cooper 108+1 (and I don't even have one for sale). If anyone wonders why, I'll be happy to expound.

Glen Trew

It seems like few mortals can afford the SXST (but I can dream....).  The Cooper 106/8 seems the fave here by both acclaim and vote (as I recall).  Glen--do you sell AD now?  If you did that might change my thinking about them....

Philip Perkins

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I think you have proved my point.  My Mackie 1642VLZ3 has lots of really great I/O options and routing for Comteks/PL/playback/EPK.  And at $600, I can keep an extra on the truck.  Also, it's available at the click of a mouse.  Mackie has proved very reliable for me, and has a solid warranty, so you can have one fixed or serviced while having an identical replacement working during that time.

The Sonosax sure is sexy, and it sounds great, but with rental rates getting lower and more movies shooting under low budget agreements, it seems hard to justify spending over $8k for a used Cooper let alone over $20k for the Sonosax.

Robert

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I think you have proved my point.  My Mackie 1642VLZ3 has lots of really great I/O options and routing for Comteks/PL/playback/EPK.  And at $600, I can keep an extra on the truck.  Also, it's available at the click of a mouse.

And there's the added bonus of having almost any crew member walk by and say, "Hey I got one of those for my kid's home studio!  Those are cheap!"

But yes, they will do the job and I had one on my cart early on.  Forrest did his first DC mod with slate mic on my 1402VLZ.  It's still in the garage.  I now have a 208D and do not regret the purchase one bit.

~Phil (who expects to catch a bit of hell for this post)

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I upgraded from a Soundcraft LM1 to a Sonosax SX XT two years ago. Two other mixers in my market who had been Audio Developments 146 owners purchased SX XT's about the same time. It was a substantial jump in cost for all of us but we all took the view that the Sonosax has a practical operationally life of 10 to 15 years. So $US2500 per year for say 10 years is reasonably affordable.

Sonosax have had another panel mixer on the drawing boards for some time that has an estimated basic configuration cost of around US$8K. It seems to have a few more features and is physically more compact the Audio Developments AD255 which I believe is currently the lowest cost 12 volt analogue location panel mixer on the market.

http://www.sonosax.ch/mixers/sxes64/sxes64_index.htm

http://www.audio.co.uk/B10.htm

David Madigan

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You are correct, Phil.  The board lacks perception value, and I might think differently if it lived on a magliner and not nicely tucked away in my rack setup.  So far I've been lucky with producers only caring about results, but one day I might need to "upgrade" to please someone's sense of value for their rental dollar.

I have used the Cooper 208D at Warner, and it is nice.  No doubt about it.

Robert

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Now that the Cooper is not being made anymore, what is the go to mixer for cart based mixing?  I am currently using a Mackie but want to upgrade and I am not sure what to upgrade to.

What Mackie are you using? Many years ago, when Mackie was releasing their first compact mixers, I bought a 1202 which I modified extensively so it could work off batteries. It was used on several features, where the sound was considered very good.

Now I was considering doing the same on a newer type, though with less internal mods if possible. But it's imperative the mic preamps sound good and the faders are good quality. 

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I own 2 Mackie mixers, (the 1604vlz, and the Onyx1640) I like them well enough in my home studio, but for what I do, I would never consider one as a cart mixer.

Just curious: why would you never consider them as cart mixers? I can think of some reasons, like not having limiters on the inputs or being transformerless or other technical reasons. But I would like to know how it compares (audio quality wise) with others like the Cooper or the Sonosax.

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   Hey Carimart, cart mixers need to go everywhere and anywhere. That means 12v DC power when AC is not there. Weight becomes a concern, but monitoring, routing, and head room for voice how ever it comes at us is the deal maker or breaker in my book. Can't beat a Cooper or a Sonosax from all reports. Mackie makes gr8 well built stuff, I like mine, but it would never work the way the job presents itself on a lot of locations. Money aside,  I would save your $$$ and get a mixer that works for your world and is not a mass market unit. Or not.

CrewC

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I agree with pretty much everything said so far. As a 01V96 user, my only observation in the "perceived value" part of this thread is that there is something about a mixer with a digital display on it that adds a "Mission Control" vibe to the mixer cart. It makes those who are not too familiar with sound go "Oooh! Blinky buttons!" and then treat you like a genius.

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I agree with pretty much everything said so far. As a 01V96 user, my only observation in the "perceived value" part of this thread is that there is something about a mixer with a digital display on it that adds a "Mission Control" vibe to the mixer cart. It makes those who are not too familiar with sound go "Oooh! Blinky buttons!" and then treat you like a genius.

Well, I wouldn't say I was ever treated like a genius, but many years ago I had a big red LED numeric timecode display on my cart and it did attract a lot of attention, sort of like the countdown you see on the bombs in action movies. I think a lot of people thought I was doing something special, sound wise, and this wasn't even a job that had anything to do with timecode!

-  Jeff Wexler

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