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POLL: What Mixer do you use


Darren

Do you prefer analog or digital mixers? What is your primary mixing console? No EPK/ENG style mixers in this poll please.  

329 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you prefer analog or digital mixers? What is your primary mixing console? No EPK/ENG style mixers in this poll please.

    • I prefer analog mixers
      99
    • I prefer digital Mixers
      18
    • I use a Cooper
      55
    • I use a Sonosax
      31
    • I use a Yamaha
      23
    • I use a Control Surface (includes Mix12, Cantar, etc)
      21
    • I use an Audio Developments
      14
    • I use a Mackie
      20
    • I use a Cameo
      9
    • I use a PSC
      16
    • I use OTHER (please post selection)
      33


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Hey Philip, I'll join you in the Lonely PSC group. I have a run and gun feature package and I'm using an older PSC M4 MkII. It's built like a tank and I'm very happy with it. I also have a Mackie 1620 with the Firewire Option I use when I need a higher track count although, My sound cart is still a work in progress. Economics was the biggest motivating factor in choosing the Mackie plus, I've been familiar with there mixers for quite a while. I use Boom Recorder with the Mackie and the 2 work beautifully together.

Chris Howland

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Hey Philip, I'll join you in the Lonely PCS group. I have a run and gun feature package and I'm using an older PCS M4 MkII. It's built like a tank and I'm very happy with it. I also have a Mackie 1620 with the Firewire Option I use when I need a higher track count although, My sound cart is still a work in progress. Economics was the biggest motivating factor in choosing the Mackie plus, I've been familiar with there mixers for quite a while. I use Boom Recorder with the Mackie and the 2 work beautifully together.

Chris Howland

I think the OP was trying to measure table-top or "cart" style mixers, not "ENG" types, but of course we all end up using mixers every which way so perhaps the answers aren't really clear cut.  My PSC is actually a venerable M6, heavily modded.

Philip Perkins

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My Cameo went down last week and I had to use my backup Yamaha o1v96v2, witch worked fine but it simply didn't sound as good, even video village could tell.  I was careful to set up all the gain structures throughout the chain but still there was a big difference in noise floor and especially the way it handled extreme dynamics (whispers to yells). I usually run 100% digital from the Zaxcom wireless transmitters to the recorders so just by having one analogue stage (Yamaha pre amps) was a good test to honestly see if it made a difference.  I have been mixing CSI Miami for 8 seasons and everyone knows exactly what to expect so this was very eye opening to hear such a difference.  I have fixed my Cameo now and am afraid of the day when it goes down for good, to my knowledge there is no 100% digital replacement that can do what the Cameo does.

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It will be interesting to see what happens with film-style location panels in the near future.  The Cameo was the only digital mixer I've ever heard of designed for this market--all the others (Yamaha etc) have been borrowed from PA/music recording sectors.  I wonder if any of the film-style mixer manufacturers (Sax, PSC, SD) will step to this task, or if the future will be hybrids like the fader panel add-ons like Zax, SD and Aaton have for their recorders?

Philip Perkins

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Donavan,

Good to see you posting here.  I am curious about what you wrote.  Are you saying that your wireless receivers feed your Deva directly, as your "pre-fade" ISO tracks?  Then you go digital out to the Cameo to perform the mix, then back digital into the Deva for the mix track?  If that's the case, then a Mix12 or Mix8 is essentially the same thing, but without the analog options currently offered with your Cameo, which you are not using anyway.  This work flow seems to be the way things are headed.  It's something I was looking into when thinking about buying a Deva (still an option).  Problem is that I am analog on the board, so although my ISO tracks would benefit from the procedure, my mix would be further processed, which is a bit silly. 

I don't expect to see anyone else entering the analog location sound mixer game, and I don't expect a location digital board with actual ins and outs like the Cameo to ever be made again.

I am not surprised you could hear the difference, but am very surprised that the village could hear the difference in their headphones.  Did they bring it up, or did they simply agree with your assessment?  What output were you using to feed your IFBs, and what IFB system do you use?

Robert

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I use the TRX-900 for booms and wires then they go through the Zaxcom studio receivers (they have digital in/outs) then to the Cameo then to 2x Devas.  I use the Zaxcom IFB-100 to control the gain input on the transmitters during the shots to fine tune the input gain of the transmitters (this is critical in getting the best signal to noise ratio). The Comteks are the 216 variety.

My boom operators didn't like the way the Comteks handled the dynamics with the Yamaha so we experimented with different gain and compressor settings and nothing we did sounded like the Cameo, my guess is that by going all digital the amplitude and compression curves were less distorted therefore sounding less harsh.  My crew and I and our script supervisor have all been together for 8 years and it could be that we are just used to listening to the same signal and I'm sure that I didn't know the personality of the Yamaha as well as the Cameo so I didn't mix as well.  But I do know this for sure when I went back to the Cameo it was like a breath of fresh air.

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