small mixer for live set recommendations?

hello --

i'm in the market for a small formfactor stagetop mixer for my live work.

i want to be able to bypass venue supplied DIs via xlr outs
i also want to be able to run a monitor mix into this mixer so i can listen back to it via in-ear monitors and bypass venue supplied monitors.
so something like mackie's mute=alt out would be ideal - alt out the signal coming from my soundcard and vocalist, and then just listen to what comes back via the in ears.

i do not need much in the way of EQ. i do NOT need anything with built in fx.

any recommendations? i am not a brand snob and would be happy with low end stuff.

its all digital now isn't it! I am always looking at mixers and they are all digital in that format it seems. Though there is a lot of boutique high end shizzy so if you got cash then its maybe toft, cardec ect ect, but cheap ones its like mackie, berengher, allen and heath, prosonus, soundcraft, yamaha. Most live format mixers go and use subgroups as monitor sends, and not much in the way of monitor via headphones but you can simply use headphone amp or amp for speakers from that subgroup. I think most digital desks now have that function in there to monitor via tracks and inputs by headphones out and not hear main mix out like say my larger format desk does.
And most seem to have XLR out to in the digital desks, so yeah depends if you want to go digital and if you don't, do you want to sacrifice a subgroup to monitor tracks in the mix separately, as that is what you can do to get around monitoring problem.

When I first moved here to Austin I got a job doing live sound for a small club downtown and saw a variety of acts come through. Many of them had small mixers to use on stage like you're describing. I'd plug them into the snake and and mix them in with whatever else was coming off the stage on my mixer.

I don't recall that there was ever a case where the brand or specs on the mixer they had on stage ever mattered. Even the small cheap Behringers performed adequately for the task.

You're going to be sending your mix to a desk, which may or may not be mixed in with the rest to your liking but you won't really know since you're on stage and only hearing the monitors, which are then going to go back out through whatever magic boxes the club has between the desk and the mains and then it's all going to get swallowed up by the stupid architecture of the venue anyway.

Clubs are designed to hold bodies and sell drinks, not maximize sound quality. If you sound good enough that people are staying and buying drinks instead of going somewhere else, your gig has achieved success (at least in the eyes of the people who invited you to play their venue).

So my advice is: don't over think it. You already know what you want to accomplish technically on stage so find some choices of gear that meet your requirements and are within your budget and then crawl forums for opinions on said gear to make sure all the pieces you're eyeballing are going to work well together.

I've been looking into this as well ... Not sure what they will be or sound like? But will let y'all know very soonish...
http://www.smproaudio.com/index.php/en/products/digital-mixers/umix

Interesting in that it uses HTML format for control. So any computer (android iOS windows Linux etc) that has a web browser can control these units. Has built in wifi and LAN. More info at website