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Rackmount mixer - living room project

travep

travep

Apr 16, 2010
225
57
Austin, TX
www.bluecanoerecords.com
#1
I'm putting together a living room project. It's more of a live thing with friends (not serious) but I would like to record our sessions. We are building a custom cabinet to house all the gear (I'm married...haha) so that it looks nice. I need help selecting a mixing console. I have one I really like (below) but I don't think it has a way to connect to a computer with my DAW. The requirement is that it has to be rackmounted and that the connections need to be in the rear (again...wife wants it hidden). In the opinion of the TalkBass gurus, will this one work? I don't see an "out" that I can direct to a computer. If this doesn't work, do you guys have an opinion as to another tool?

Alesis MultiMix 12R

Thanks in advance
 
#4
For my practice room (a 12 x 16 Amish built shed - insulated) I picked up a used computer hutch almost identical to the one pictured below. It's mounted on a modified furniture dolly so it's mobile. I'm adding a second keyboard slide out for the control surface\keyboard. I mounted the monitor to the back panel and the PC fits easily for the DAW. We are using a Behringer Xenix X2222USB board to control the PA, it just sits on the desktop. with Crown power amp and a Furman power filter for all components. The DAW USB interface is a Tascam US 16x08. The cabinet is a little tight but works OK and I like being able to close the doors when it's not being used. I like having the PA board on the desktop, it's basically a set it and forget it for practices and we can record direct to the DAW if we want. Good luck with your set up.

space-saving-home-office-computer-desk-armoire.jpg
 
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#5
The Alesis unit you show doesn’t seem to have any way to connect to a computer. You would have to go out the analog outputs to an interface and then to the computer.

One of the Behringer (XR12) or Presonus rack-mount mixers (SL16R) would serve your needs nicely, but neither of these mixers meet the requirements of no connections on the front. Being remote-controllable, perhaps you could arrange for a remote mixer like one of those to be hidden out of site to meet the “requirements “...:D
 
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#6
I have a 19" rack in my living room. It's got one piece of rack equipment (a sound interface), all the rest are shelves and misc. stuff connected to sound interface from the behind. When I need to record, I put a laptop on the top of the rack, connect it and everything is set up. Most time when preparing to record is to unfold the mic stands and put mics on them.

If your aim is recording, I'd suggest looking into audio interfaces, not mixers. I've tried several analogue+digital mixers (analogue, but with digital effects and USB) and concluded that they're inferior even to a cheap audio interface, if the goal is recording. I've heard that new entirely digital mixers are better, but have no personal experience with them.
 
#7
actually a simple, but good rackmount sound interface will be like $500+.
if you want to make it cheaper, it will be a smaller interface that's not rack mountable.

if I wanted to set up a compact recording environment, I'd go without a rack, just tuck a smaller interface on a shelf. you can disconnect the front connections while not in use to make your wife happy. or even put the interface in a drawer, taking it out and connecting is pretty fast.
 
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#8
seamonkey said:
Many many many digital mixers have iPad apps to control them through WiFi.
Put all the hardware hidden in the cabinet and have the iPad sitting out to control things. iPads are now spousal acceptable living room gear.
Click to expand...

I have that same Alesis mixer. You are correct, it has no way to directly interface with a computer. You *could* route main sends into an audio interface so you can record.

I ran that mixer with a small stage snake so I could patch instruments in and out quickly without having to go behind the rack. A patchbay would also work.
 
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#11
The Tascam model 12 and model 16 has been getting great reviews if you want the mixer and interface together. Cheaper than the mixer you linked plus an other audio interface
Oh only the 16 is factory rack mountable though.

The Presonus Studio live boards are also pretty nice and most of them I believe have an audio interface as well, and many are rack mountable. Lots of these available used now.

The Soundcraft signature 12 is also rack mountable and includes a built in audio interface.

Of course this is all assuming a mixer rack that you can put the top on to hide the board.
 
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#12
Since you're building a custom cabinet, why not build the rails so that the unit sits back a couple of inches (so that the cables can stay plugged in), or faces the rear side of the cabinet? This, especially combined with a snake, would keep things tidy.

Most of the wireless mixers out there will let you control your live mix in the room while saving the raw, unmixed tracks to a flash drive or sending them out to your daw. I have done this many times with my Soundcraft ui24r. I know people happily doing this with Beringer/Midas, Allen & Heath, and Mackie units as well.
 
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#14
travep said:
I'm putting together a living room project. It's more of a live thing with friends (not serious) but I would like to record our sessions. We are building a custom cabinet to house all the gear (I'm married...haha) so that it looks nice. I need help selecting a mixing console. I have one I really like (below) but I don't think it has a way to connect to a computer with my DAW. The requirement is that it has to be rackmounted and that the connections need to be in the rear (again...wife wants it hidden). In the opinion of the TalkBass gurus, will this one work? I don't see an "out" that I can direct to a computer. If this doesn't work, do you guys have an opinion as to another tool?

Alesis MultiMix 12R

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Been there! Needed to hide away all my gear from the family and built myself a 24U rack unit inside a cupboard.

I had that Alesis mixer. It is OK for the price but I found that the knobs were pretty cheap and wobbly (unlike my Mackie mixers) and also the output was quite noisy (especially the headphone out). But.... for the money, and if you’re just looking to record fun sessions with friends, it would do the job. I would not want to do anything more serious with it than that, though. As an alternative, you might want to look at the second hand market. Old analogue mixing desks are very out of fashion now and you may be able to pick up a small 12 channel desk with the option of mounting rack ears for not much money at all. Allen & Heath, Soundcraft, Mackie etc may be options there.

A better idea may be to consider the option I eventually ended up with.... I bought a 3U high rackmount drawer and then put a small mixer inside it. You would need to drill a couple of holes in the back wall of the drawer for cable access. That would mean you could buy any mixer that would fit in a drawer (Mackie a good choice there, also Behringer) and slide it out when playing. That’s where I ended up when I sold my Alesis 12R... much better build quality and sound quality in a small desktop mixer compared with a rack mixer, and far better routing options. You could also go for a mixer with USB out which would give you a recording interface.

BTW I went with a rack drawer rather than a rackmount sliding shelf as I found the shelf was a little too flimsy. The 3U drawer is solid steel and copes with the weight of a mixer just fine. It’s pretty neat. When the drawer is closed, you can’t see any cables (or even the mixer itself).

BTW#2... I’ve also designed my small pedalboard so it fits inside another rackmount drawer... means no pedalboards lying around and I can leave it permanently connected to the mixer.
 
#15
One thing to to consider with USB enabled mixers, most of the reasonably priced integrated USB mixers send the full mix to your computer as stereo mix, same as you would be sending to the PA (not individual channels). So to record individual tracks to your DAW from the mixer you have to record them as single tracks on the mixer. I had a Behringer X2222 USB and use the inserts on the mixer as sends to Tascam US 16-08 line level input. It provided a shortcut for recording practices sessions to the DAW. I think the Zoom LiveTrak mixers may be a cleaner option.
 
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#17
Matt B said:
If not mentioned already the soundcraft ui24r is worth a look
Click to expand...

That's pretty cool, I just Googled the UI24R and this add came up from Audio Savings - it must be a refurb (listed as Open Box) but $599 for 24 tracks is a pretty decent price. That's a lot of bang for the buck with a warranty. I just picked up a Crown power amp from Audio Savings for $199 over the weekend as an "Open Box" - it arrived yesterday and looks brand new and came with a 5 year warranty. I haven't tried it yet... But I debated ordering from them as there were a lot of negative reviews, but this was over 50% off which was hard to beat.
 
#18
I use an ART MX-822 as a sub mixer in the studio for keyboards and elec. drums. Just volume, pan and FX send but It works fine and didn’t break the bank.
Eq and conversions are done elsewhere downstream so a basic router is all it’s used for.
 
#19
I'll put my vote in for the Behringer XR18. 18 channels. 6 Aux outs, linkable to make 3 stereo aux outs. No controls, so mix with a pad or a computer via wifi or wired ethernet. You can rack mount the unit backwards in a rack so no wiring is visible. What makes this mixer really versatile for recording is that it is actually an 18 channel USB sound interface. All channels have have USB outs and USB returns. You can record all channels separately and mixdown later.

I have one for our church (and also one at home). With the pandemic and no in-person church services, I multi-track record our praise team for use in Zoom conferencing and pre-recorded streaming. I record all channels to Reaper (DAW). I take the files home and then use Reaper to clean up the tracks, add additional tracks as needed and then mix down.

Don't get an XR12 or XR16. Those units only provide 2-channel output to a USB drive.
 
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#20
tothemax said:
That's pretty cool, I just Googled the UI24R and this add came up from Audio Savings - it must be a refurb (listed as Open Box) but $599 for 24 tracks is a pretty decent price. That's a lot of bang for the buck with a warranty. I just picked up a Crown power amp from Audio Savings for $199 over the weekend as an "Open Box" - it arrived yesterday and looks brand new and came with a 5 year warranty. I haven't tried it yet... But I debated ordering from them as there were a lot of negative reviews, but this was over 50% off which was hard to beat.
Click to expand...

That's a cool mixer. 24 tracks directly to a thumb drive looks to be a very handy option.

Soundcraft is part of Harman (JBL, Crown, and many top brands) which are all under Samsung. All great product lines.
 

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