mackie onynx

djfm · Post by **djfm** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:22 pm

i have just moved over to mac and need a firewire sound card and have been eyeing up the mackie oynx. Anybody have any experiance with this?
would appricate any info. how does it perform?
thanks

misteron · Post by **misteron** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:42 pm

If u mean Mackie Onyx Satellite - don't touch it.
Do a forum search here. i'm sure I've posted my troubles.
Also see the Mackie forums.

The Satellite was a great idea, great buid and great price - but unfortunately was plagued with problems which made all that good stuff pale to insignificance.

thelike5 · Post by **thelike5** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 4:52 pm

misteron wrote:If u mean Mackie Onyx Satellite - don't touch it.
Do a forum search here. i'm sure I've posted my troubles.
Also see the Mackie forums.

The Satellite was a great idea, great buid and great price - but unfortunately was plagued with problems which made all that good stuff pale to insignificance.

Really? I use one all the time and its a totally fine system for me. I was nervous after reading several less than glowing reviews but I anted up my $150 and I would gladly pay double for this sound card.

Truth be told, I have only used the base station part of this unit once. Until I have bigger projects the little satellite simply does everything I need. I have my monitors hooked up directly to it at home and on the road I simply drop it in my bag with a set of Sony headphones and a mic and off I go.

Outstanding build quality. If I had to find a flaw I'd say that it sucks that when using the base station you have to power the unit with an ac adaptor. You can't power the large base unit via firewire. The little satellite section powers just fine via firewire though. Another complaint would be that the fire wire cable they give you is short. NIce thick cable, just a little short. I guess they figure you are going to have it right next to your notebook, which isn't really a big deal.

I say go for it. I love mine.

koneko · Post by **koneko** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:47 pm

+1
mine works here. on mac. i guess some units did have problems. and its a bummer that you can not have more than 2 outs on the satellite unit. but its well built and sounds good to my ears. the low price gives it a bad image.. but if you're on a budget and fine with the specs - it's worth checking out

djfm · Post by **djfm** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 7:05 pm

thanks guys for the info

thelike5 · Post by **thelike5** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 10:38 pm

koneko wrote:+1
mine works here. on mac. i guess some units did have problems. and its a bummer that you can not have more than 2 outs on the satellite unit. but its well built and sounds good to my ears. the low price gives it a bad image.. but if you're on a budget and fine with the specs - it's worth checking out

I'm also on a Mac... I think the low price is due to Mackie discontinuing the units. If I can purchase this rather massive and flexible unit for $150 I consider that a great thing! Mackie rarely disappoints.

mjl5629 · Post by **mjl5629** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:56 pm

I used to own a Mackie Onyx 16 track mixer with the firewire card.

I would not recommend this to anybody.

I believe this was one of the first mixers with firewire capability.

First of all I thought the driver was iffy. Sometimes the mixer would not get recognized when I turned it on.

Next, I was dissappointed to find out that the signal sent to the computer was pre- eq. I was under the impression that the eq from each track would get sent into the computer but I was wrong.

I recently bought a Motu Ultralite. So far I'm impressed. It sends the same data into the computer as my old Mackie did but it about 1/10 the size.

DaffyDub · Post by **DaffyDub** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 3:12 pm

mjl5629 wrote:I used to own a Mackie Onyx 16 track mixer with the firewire card.

I would not recommend this to anybody.

I believe this was one of the first mixers with firewire capability.

First of all I thought the driver was iffy. Sometimes the mixer would not get recognized when I turned it on.

Next, I was dissappointed to find out that the signal sent to the computer was pre- eq. I was under the impression that the eq from each track would get sent into the computer but I was wrong.

I recently bought a Motu Ultralite. So far I'm impressed. It sends the same data into the computer as my old Mackie did but it about 1/10 the size.

I have a 1620 and a 1220 both with firewire.... one is running on a windows machine and the other on a Mac - both work flawlessly - but it's true that the firewire taps the signal pre fader and pre eq ..... there's a mod-kit for this though.... and I'm having my 1620 modded SOOOOON.....

Apart from that odd choice on M;ackie's behalf (why not a Pre/post switch???) these desks are wonderfull for Live situations as well as studio use!!!

misteron · Post by **misteron** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 3:28 pm

I agree with all the positive comments on the Satellite - it is great, in theory, but I also agree with this

koneko wrote:i guess some units did have problems.

i would say far too many units had problems.

Any card is a lottery where u can potentially get 1 bad unit, but the odds on that lottery are way worse with the Satellite - possibly why it was discontinued.

It is also a fact that the drivers were never sorted out - loads of people had problems with the drivers and can't use the unit after paying and Mackie don't seem to care.
Can't remember if that was one of the issues I ran into.

Also I found that using it with my ADAM p11A's was not possible - even with the input trim on the ADAMs set to max it was not possible to get low volume - only intermediate to (very quickly) loud in 3 short volume jumps, all squeezed into about 10 degrees of the vol knob's rotation. Anything below 'kinda loud' was silence.

This is not a problem with the Satellite as such - it is known that it is a LOUD card.
It would seem now that the p11A's are LOUD monitors also.
So beware based on what monitors you use.

Hope this helps.