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Best bang for a buck mixer

S

spacerust

Feb 9, 2010
82
0
56
South Texas
#1
Our band is needing to upgrade to a bigger mixer. We are going to be mic'ing 5 vocals, two guitars, one bass, and drums. I was looking into a behringer pmp5000 or pmp6000. I have two peavey pr15's and a couple of monitors all unpowered so this is why I was looking at a powered mixer. Any comments on this mixers or better suggestions?
 
#2
Always loved Behringer.
Let the flames begin....
May be copies of <whatever>....
Built in China with Chinese forced labor....
Whatever.....
Best bang for the buck for me has been Behringer. Mixers always worked fine.
But if ya don't want to go that way, best off with a used Yammy off CL.
 
#7
I dont like powered mixers. Unpowered gives your more flexibility if you want to change direction or add power down the road. Powered mixer might be fine for monitors, but if you start playing medium sized venues, you are going to want more powerful mains.

Best bang for your buck? A good brand used. If you are looking new, the Allen and Heath ZED boards sound great and are a very good price. Im using a makie 1604 board which has enough inputs for what you are using. You can probably pick up a 1604 VLZ3 used on craigslist in the 400ish range.
 
#12
A schedule of channel assignments, other expectations, and a budget are a good starting point.

As happy as I am with my 16-channel Allen & Heath MixWizard, if I were buying a new mixer today, I'd probably buy a 24-channel Presonus StudioLive.

I don't like to put all of my eggs in one basket, so I'm wary of powered mixers. For me, separate power amps or powered speakers are the way to go.
 
#13
Ive been doing a little research and I am thinking about going that route as well. I need to cover small to medium
venues because when we have played larger audiences they had the sound system. Now with this in mind, all my speakers and monitors are unpowered. What wattage should I look for and do I need seperate amps for mains and monitors?
 
#14
spacerust said:
Ive been doing a little research and I am thinking about going that route as well. I need to cover small to medium
venues because when we have played larger audiences they had the sound system. Now with this in mind, all my speakers and monitors are unpowered. What wattage should I look for and do I need seperate amps for mains and monitors?
Click to expand...


Wattage requirements depend a lot on your speakers, and how loudly you play. If I were looking at amps today, I'd be looking closely at lightweight amps like the Peavey IPR 3000 (8-pounds, 440 Watts per side @ 8 Ohms, 840 Watts per side into 4 Ohms, $450), or Carvin DCM3000L ( 15-pounds, 550 Watts per side @ 8 Ohms, 950 Watts per side into 4 Ohms, $650).

I use two amps for PA duty: a QSC PLX3002 for the mains (550W per ch @ 8 Ohms, 900W per ch @ 4 Ohms, 3000 W @ 4 Ohms bridged), and a 4-channel Carvin CDM1204 (200 watts per ch @ 8 Ohms, 300 W per ch @ 4 Ohms) for monitors (4 separate monitor mixes).
 
#15
Presonus StudioLive 16. They can be had for under $1700 new (PM me) and, while that may seem a little steep, it has on-board compressor/limiters, EQ (channel, main and monitor), two effects processors and much more. It's very intuitive, so the learning curve is pretty flat if you know how to run an analog board.
 
#17
Soundcraft Spirit FX16 is a discontinued older board. Did you find one used?

My school owns a Soundcraft FX16ii board (the successor, i think) and I like it quite a lot. It's a pretty basic board, Lexicon FX are nice, and the preamps sound decent.

Also, when you say Mackie Pro22, I presume you mean ProFX22, yes?
 

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