Mackie or Soundcraft ??

I'm thinking of buying an analogue console, maybe a 1402 vlz (mackie) or m8, or e8 (soundcraft). I need 8 mono inputs and at least 2 stereos ins. Which one sound best ? I'm into breakbeat / jungle, and i'm looking for a warm sound, with a nice little analogue distorsion of the signal when boosting the gains... Anyone an ideai?

analog distortion is usually more associated with tape saturation. when you run a hot level to reels (or even cassette tape) it has a way of compressing itself and really saturating the tape in those spots and sounding 'warm'. it is a nice, weird electromagnetical phenomenon. if you are recording to digital you arent going to want to go in that hot as you will get digital clipping which is harsh and nasty. the sound of those is going to be opinion. personally i have a behringer and really like it and got more mixer than the mackie that was the same price sooo i would check out their stuff too. www.behringer.com

My Mackie VLZ has a great sound when overdriven. I haven't heard soundcraft stuff overdriven, but they have nice EQ.

Many analogue boards sound kick ass when you get the "overload" light goin'. SSL 4000 series get very punchy once you push them to the extreme. Don't try it on a J series, though.

On digital, always record as hot as possible without going into the "red". It's all about using those bits. More signal = more bits used. More bits used = less dither. Less dither = better sound. I even let ProTools hit red as long as it's not through the whole song/track. Be careful!!!

is an ssl 4000 series anywhere near the price range he was askin about?

anyways, what i think freq meant was let the channel's peak and clip (redlight) but make sure your level going into the computer does not go over 0db. that would be fine, just make sure your master levels arent going into the computer too hot. that may be tricky on a smaller board like that as you are probably going to have to be maxing out the trim on the channel and bringing it's level way back down with the fader. maxing out the trim is going to bring up the noise unless you have really descreet mic pre's and give you a worse signal to noise ratio. besides the boards you were asking about might be solid state (not digital) but they are not analog and are not going to overload the same.

brainwashcloth wrote:is an ssl 4000 series anywhere near the price range he was askin about?

I was just using that as an example to show that some analog consoles handle overload well (ssl 4000), while other boards (ssl 9000J) don't tolerate excessive signal levels at all, regardless of price.

brainwashcloth wrote:besides the boards you were asking about might be solid state (not digital) but they are not analog and are not going to overload the same.

Just FYI, if it's not digital, it's analog. The "SS" in SSL stands for Solid State. Their motto used to be something like "The Makers of The Finest Analog Consoles" or something like that, until they started making digital desks, too. Solid state = no tubes.

No offense, but I think that my previous post doesn't need explaining. Thanks for simplifying it though, just in case.