mixing board for home recording and small gigs. (1 Viewer)

[Josh Simpson]

First of all, I apologize if this is in the wrong forum, considering it's more for music and recording rather than home theater. I was browsing through musiciansfriend.com looking at live mixers. I'm looking for a small board for small gigs and doing simple recordings at home through my computer. I'm a believer in Mackie, but I've seen some alesis and other brands with pretty good user ratings for the same price with USB inputs. What I'm wanting to know is the USB input essential when using Cakewalk or software like that, or is the line in jack on a high end sound card good enough? First and foremost I only have about $300 to spend. The mackie and Alesis are in the $250-$275 range.

Suggestions? Thanks for reading.

 

[Leo Kerr]

For live-gigs, I'd say nothing beats a Allen+Heath. Trying to find a control on an old Mackie VLZ-series console in the dark was always an exercise in futility: that gray on gray on gray color-scheme just didn't work. Haven't tried one of their new consoles.

I haven't tried a true digital console; the only PC->mixer I've done was through a good sound-card - NOT an on-motherboard integrated sound chip!

Leo

 

[Josh Simpson]

Thanks for the input. I hadn't thought much about finding buttons in the dark, but that does make sense. Don't know that I'll do too many gigs like that, but they happen occasionally so it's something to think about.