Been playing with the idea of buying a mixer...

and I found this really interesting thread on GearSlutz. Makie vs Midas. Thought you guys would be interested. A girl records an entire song twice, one through each and puts up the results for comparison. Only listened to it through my laptop speakers so far, but I'll be grabbing my monitors later for another listen.

I had the Onyx (1640i) and a Midas (Venice 320, older model still produced by Midas). As you can see in the replies on gearslutz, Midas is the clear winner.

It's also my experience. Hearing the midas after owning the mackie... it's another world of quality. Mackie has cross channel talk, preamps with a very small margin before they sound crap when you overload them (they can sound nice, but the limit is VERY small before it sounds crap), summing is kinda shit.

The Midas on the other hand... Very little to almost zero cross talk (i NEVER noticed it), VERY good preamps that you can overdrive A LOT, great great summing, etc.

It's not even a question... if you can afford it, get a Midas.

yeah it's about price... well there was behringer at 200 bucks for a 32 channel big board (really there was only 1 channel... it was a great audio merging machine)
then there was mackie. some of their mixers that were great for the price.. you could get a 24 channel 8 bus for between 500 and a grand.
midas wasn't really a thing to look at unless you planned to spend thousands.. but if you're making money why not... otherwise maybe renting something in that league might be the thing to do to record an album or something.

Midas also holds value much better than the Mackie... just something to keep in mind. Plus they can be found used for much less than they cost new once.

I bought my Mackie for 1.500 swiss francs (admittedly i bought it new) and only got 350 measly bucks when selling it in perfect condition. I had it on auction for weeks and not even for 500 bucks i could find a buyer.

I bought my Midas for 1400 and sold it for 1300.

100 bucks lost against 1150 (!!!) bucks lost.

Okok... unfair comparison because i bought the Mackie brand new... but still. Midas will hold value better.

yeah and my theory is because nobody cares about mixers anymore at all... so if there is gonna be a mixer it has to be a worthwhile high end one or else they might as well use the new digital interface box or what ever.

mr_debauch wrote:yeah and my theory is because nobody cares about mixers anymore at all...

Maybe it's a minority these days, but there are still many people who want an analog mixer. Not everybody likes computers.

Thomann music website still has ultra cheap Behringer and Soundcraft analog mixers in their top 20 best seller list by the way, has been that way since years.

yeah could be... but i meant more in a recording environment.. in live sound they are still used all the time

I know quite a few people who still record the main outs from their analog mixers. There's also many people on gearslutz who use analog mixers for tracking... Hell there's still people that record to tape!

But yeah... Different folks, different experiences. For sure the analog guys are in the minority these days... But don't be so sure they don't exist anymore... They are more than you might think.

no for sure... i still use stuff like that too... but i was doing some assumptive thinking from a manufacturer's perspective. I think midas made way fewer mixers annually then they probably do now that they are owned by behringer... those more expensive mixers have a smaller market due to price, plus when you own a good one it doesn't need replacing like behringers did right out of the box.

This will hopefully be interesting to see with the midas of today. i hope they do more than develop stuff like the deep mind 12.

Ohh, now i understand... yeah i agree.

From what i've heard, the older Midas boards definitely had better quality control when they left the factory. Apparently the newer consoles produced by Behringer still sound just as good as the old ones produced by Midas... the general advice however is that you should not take them on the road to much since they then tend to "fall apart"...

A friend helped another friend to repair his newly bought midas console after it broke when he took it with him for two shows. He said that once he had it opened, there were multiple screws that were loose and some had even fallen out and were just laying around inside of the console. So the best advice for the newer midas mixers is probably to buy them, install them in the studio, and then never move them again... and you should be fine.

that is insane.... that could be dangerous in many ways aside from damaging the machine.

All I here is good things about the Midas. Is there a downside to them (in regards to other hardware and not software)?