Compared to the other mackie mixers i have owned [ 1604vlz, 1402vlz, SR 24-4 and Onyx1640] the cfx series are terrible.
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Best bang for a buck mixer
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Compared to the other mackie mixers i have owned [ 1604vlz, 1402vlz, SR 24-4 and Onyx1640] the cfx series are terrible.
One thing you may consider when shopping for speakers and amps is going with a JBL/Crown set up with a DBX Drive Rack unit. It makes set up easier at different venues for someone who is new to live sound. The DriveRacks have all of the outboard gear you will need in a single rack space. It will have preset EQ setting for all JBL point source speakers as well as most Electro Voice. It will also have settings for whatever Crown amps you are using. It will have a crossover, compressor, feedback suppressor, graphic EQ, RTA Analyzer to tune the system to a room / venue. They are pretty easy to use and elimnate a lot of outboard gear to carry. They are realtively inexpensive even when they are new.
The Driveracks have their limitations and there are better speaker / signal processors on the market but these are great to use if your band has to set up sound itself.
The Driveracks have their limitations and there are better speaker / signal processors on the market but these are great to use if your band has to set up sound itself.
If you ever get your hands on a used Soundcraft board, pre 1990, wow wow wow. Perfect for live use. Might need maintenance, though. Anyway, the sweet memories with Soundcraft boards made me a fan of that company.
I hear ya. Behringer is a bad word in some regards (I can attest to the fact that their combo amps are basically crap).
I've got a Xenyx 2442 mixer (16 Ch) and it has worked flawlessly since I got it.
Being sort of a Peavey homer, I love their stuff as well.
I just bought a ProFX16 for my trio, since we now have four members. I've been using a ProFX 12, and I like the simplicity of it. It's got decent effects and decent EQ. The ProFX16 (and 22) adds sweepable mids and compression on four channels. It has 10 mic preamps, which is plenty for my four-man trio, but you should always buy more channels than you need. The price point is excellent, too.
Rule of mixers: get at least 50% more channels than you think you'll need.
With Behringers, ignore the blurb about "12 inputs" or whatever as they count anything you can possibly plug anything into as an input; make sure the desk have enough XLR inputs for your needs. For example, what they call a 12 input mixer is actually what I call a 4 channel desk...
With Behringers, ignore the blurb about "12 inputs" or whatever as they count anything you can possibly plug anything into as an input; make sure the desk have enough XLR inputs for your needs. For example, what they call a 12 input mixer is actually what I call a 4 channel desk...
I've just been through the same thing on behalf of the singer in the band I play in - he's new to bands and wanted to buy his first small PA, just wanted me to tell him what to buy.
The spec of the mixer was that it was primarily for vocals (3 channels), a channel for acoustic guitar, two channels for mic'ed guitars (I've persuaded the guitarists to keep their backline level down). The Bass drum also gets mic'ed.
It also had to have FX suitable for vocals, be simple enough to operate from the 'stage' and be small enough to fit into the restricted areas we have to play in.
I looked at Soundcraft, Yamaha and Mackie etc, but wound up getting an Allen and Heath PA12 because it seemed to have all the features required but to offer just a little more.
It has very flexible four band EQ with swept hi-mid (not unique for mixers at this price level but useful). Most significantly it has 4 Aux sends, which not a lot of small mixers have. One of these is a post fader FX send to the internal effects, and there is another post fader send. However, it has 2 pre fader Aux sends so this allows the guitarists to have one monitor mix (guitar heavy of course) while me and the lead vocalist have a vocal mix - haven't seen this facility on other small mixers at the price.
It also has a dual fully parametric EQ on the outputs. These can be configured to work as either L+R FOH, Mono FOH + Monitor 1 or Monitor 1 + Monitor 2. This is more flexible than the usual small graphic and we find that the Mono FOH + Monitor 1 config is most successful for us.
It also has 100mm faders which is nice to have.
I will echo the advice to get as many mono channels as you can afford, since getting this mixer we have the possibility of playing bigger venues where we'll need to add a sub-woofer, mic the whole kit (bass, snare + 2 overheads)and put the bass through as well. With the PA12 we'll run out of mono channels but it's nothing that can't be solved using a small submixer for the kit and sending the output from that to one of the stereo channels on the PA 12.
If we ever need a bigger mixer I have a Yamaha MG2414 FX that we can use - I originally proposed that we just use this anyway but it takes up a lot of space, is not quite so intuitive to operate and the singer wanted his own system rather than depend on others
The spec of the mixer was that it was primarily for vocals (3 channels), a channel for acoustic guitar, two channels for mic'ed guitars (I've persuaded the guitarists to keep their backline level down). The Bass drum also gets mic'ed.
It also had to have FX suitable for vocals, be simple enough to operate from the 'stage' and be small enough to fit into the restricted areas we have to play in.
I looked at Soundcraft, Yamaha and Mackie etc, but wound up getting an Allen and Heath PA12 because it seemed to have all the features required but to offer just a little more.
It has very flexible four band EQ with swept hi-mid (not unique for mixers at this price level but useful). Most significantly it has 4 Aux sends, which not a lot of small mixers have. One of these is a post fader FX send to the internal effects, and there is another post fader send. However, it has 2 pre fader Aux sends so this allows the guitarists to have one monitor mix (guitar heavy of course) while me and the lead vocalist have a vocal mix - haven't seen this facility on other small mixers at the price.
It also has a dual fully parametric EQ on the outputs. These can be configured to work as either L+R FOH, Mono FOH + Monitor 1 or Monitor 1 + Monitor 2. This is more flexible than the usual small graphic and we find that the Mono FOH + Monitor 1 config is most successful for us.
It also has 100mm faders which is nice to have.
I will echo the advice to get as many mono channels as you can afford, since getting this mixer we have the possibility of playing bigger venues where we'll need to add a sub-woofer, mic the whole kit (bass, snare + 2 overheads)and put the bass through as well. With the PA12 we'll run out of mono channels but it's nothing that can't be solved using a small submixer for the kit and sending the output from that to one of the stereo channels on the PA 12.
If we ever need a bigger mixer I have a Yamaha MG2414 FX that we can use - I originally proposed that we just use this anyway but it takes up a lot of space, is not quite so intuitive to operate and the singer wanted his own system rather than depend on others
I'll add that the DR is great for any amp & speaker configurations, irrespective of brand / model. The set-up menu includes my QSC amps (with suggested attenuator settings of 37%!) but not my speakers (Carvin & Yorkville). No problem as the "custom" option allows you to select general speaker types, stereo vs. mono operation, etc. The preset EQ's are worthless to me as I manually enter desired xover points & slopes and use the AutoEQ / RTA to establish realistic equalization venue-to-venue when possible.
Riis
I like the powered version the RX1200L. It has:
- 12 XLRs
- 4 amps each 400w @ 4 ohms. 2 can be separate monitor sends.
- EFX
- Sub out with built in crossover
This is a pretty powerful self contained unit and is expandable. If you have more money the C1648P has 16 XLRs and a little more bells and whistles.
RX1200L $700
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C1648P $1,000
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I have to admit, both the cfx mixers I have owned or used have been less than suitable: (1) the effects crap out at the wrong moments (correctable by powering off, then on again), but the worst is (2) they just don't sound very good overall. I replaced a cfx 12 with a Peavey powered unit and was wowed till the Peavey failed on a gig.
Now, I'm intrigued by the Mackie ProFX16. From what I can tell, the problem with the CFX line's sound problems seems to focus on the preamps. Does the ProFX series sound better than the CFX? Does it use different pre's? Any other issues users have found? I think the price is fantastic, Mackies are durable and (at least) resellable, if I have to up or downsize.
Feedback on the Mackie ProFX series appreciated. Thanks
Mackie ? Durable ? Really ? My old VLZ-Pro board was but under that level in Mackie, horror stories abound. Most of it was swill... What you get in the low end of Mackie and for the most part throughout the lowend industry wide... Is lots of features at a given price point. For every feature you add, unless you raise the price or lower your profit margin, you also add a compromise somewhere else. That almost never spells durability. Most days it doesn't spell audio quality either...
I have three ProFX boards - the 8, 12 and 16. We use the ProFX12 for our acoustic trio, and it's perfect for that. I had a channel preamp go out, but I'm sure it was from overdriving it with a very hot vocal with a funky effects chain (like guitar stomp boxes after the mic). The preamp itself is about the size of a piece of sen-sen - the cost? $5. Labor? $100. Anyway, it's back working great.
I use the ProFX16 for small gigs with my bigger classic rock band. So far so good. My favorite mixer is my Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2. It takes more setup, but does pretty much anything, with decent on-board effects and EQ. You can get them for under $1,700 at the right place.
CFX series mackie is discontined (big mistake on their part) the PR FX is likea better sounding/quality behringer. a great buy bang for the buck. but you shold have taken a loot at the Allen & heather consoles. they weren't that much more and considerably better..
Never been fond of Mackie. Former band had an Allen & Heath 24 channel analog that worked very well for us. Pro sound guy who mixed our FOH last week had good things to say about PreSonus but i have no personal experience. Current band has a 16 channel Yamaha digital board and it flat out rocks but theyre not cheap.
+1 to staying away from powered mixers, and that you'll need better cabs/subs for kick and bass. Good luck!
+1 to staying away from powered mixers, and that you'll need better cabs/subs for kick and bass. Good luck!
