Mackie onyx 1220. Anybody here use it?

sadmac · Post by **sadmac** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:56 am

I am about to buy this mixer. I am little bit confused.

Some people say that the sound from my powerbook would become warmer,

rougher, and more sweet and crispy.....

and other says that it would cause

noisy parts and in general that its not good to use a mixer when you play laptop music.

I am pretty sure that in live perfomances routing the signal of the laptop to mackie 1220 would make it better . I ll use also condenser mics, and contact mics .
My question is: is it worthy to get a mixer ? Is it possible to use it as a controller also? How much a mixer affects the sound of a powerbook? Is that good or not, to the home recordings ad live perfomances?

thank you for reading

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 9:23 am

nobody help him, he's an unrepentant ableton thief.

sadmac · Post by **sadmac** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 10:25 am

anybody here???

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 2:27 pm

Are you planning on buying the firewire card for it? If you buy the firewire card as well, you can play the audio from your computer out of the XLR outputs of the onyx, which should be an improvement over the headphone out of your computer.

You cannot use the onyx as a control surface.

If you're going to use 4 mics on stage the onyx may be a good choice. You can mix the mics yourself + tweak the EQ for the house mix. But, it's important to understand that with the onyx, when you record into your computer, the interface only hits the preamps and then records to the hard drive - if you tweak the EQ the tweak will not be recorded.

sadmac · Post by **sadmac** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:12 pm

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Are you planning on buying the firewire card for it? If you buy the firewire card as well, you can play the audio from your computer out of the XLR outputs of the onyx, which should be an improvement over the headphone out of your computer.

You cannot use the onyx as a control surface.

If you're going to use 4 mics on stage the onyx may be a good choice. You can mix the mics yourself + tweak the EQ for the house mix. But, it's important to understand that with the onyx, when you record into your computer, the interface only hits the preamps and then records to the hard drive - if you tweak the EQ the tweak will not be recorded.

No, i dont planning to buy the firewire card at the moment.
Is it possible to perform live without the firewire card? Will be any improvement like this?
Yes i know that its impossible to use it as a control surface.
I use a controller for that.
The last thing you mentioned means that its impossible to record my manipulation on the mackie while recording?
If lets say at some moment i want to add some eq , while i am playing from live and the audio routes to onyx, will it be recorded or not?

thanx a lot for replying

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:19 pm

sadmac wrote:No, i dont planning to buy the firewire card at the moment.
Is it possible to perform live without the firewire card? Will be any improvement like this?

You're right. Don't buy the firewire card. Save the money for something you could really use. Like a legit copy of Live

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:27 pm

sadmac wrote: No, i dont planning to buy the firewire card at the moment.
Is it possible to perform live without the firewire card? Will be any improvement like this?
Yes i know that its impossible to use it as a control surface.
I use a controller for that.
The last thing you mentioned means that its impossible to record my manipulation on the mackie while recording?
If lets say at some moment i want to add some eq , while i am playing from live and the audio routes to onyx, will it be recorded or not?

You can play live without the optional firewire soundcard. You'll take the headphone out of your computer and plug it into a stereo channel of the onyx using an 1/8" to dual 1/4" Y cable. Then you can run your computer's signal through the mixer and mix in the microphones. Your sound isn't going to improve. The source is still the headphone output.

The last bit about recording manipulation only pretains to recording audio through the onyx using the optional firewire card. With the card you bypass the EQ section of the onyx, so if you tweeze the EQ on the board and then record that channel into the computer - the computer won't record the EQ - it's bypassed and only records straight from the preamp.

...and you should buy Live.

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 6:20 pm

Go ahead and get it. It's a really nice mixer. The only reason I sold mine is because it's really big, and I wanted to reduce the complexity of my live setup.

There were three things I didn't like about it:
1. Can't record EQing without some fancy cable routing
2. Only 2 tracks back from the computer
3. Monitor level and audio from firewire shared the same knob, so I was unable to control them seperately

Other than that, it's a solid piece of gear and very simple to use. The mic pres are killer.

ps you should buy live.

sadmac · Post by **sadmac** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:21 am

The last bit about recording manipulation only pretains to recording audio through the onyx using the optional firewire card. With the card you bypass the EQ section of the onyx, so if you tweeze the EQ on the board and then record that channel into the computer - the computer won't record the EQ - it's bypassed and only records straight from the preamp.

Well, as i understand its impossible to record the tweezing of the onyx's knobs?
I decided and i am getting the set with the firewire card.
Is there any way to avoid that? I mean thats really important to me to be able to record the manipulation from the laptop sound through mackie.
And one last question: do you think its better to get the mackie firewire or the motu ultralite sound card?
I mean in general i am little bit afraid of get involved in my set up with diff companies.
So :ONYX 1222 + firewire from MACKIE?
Or : ONYX 1222+ MOTU ultralite?

thank you very much for the response, its really helpful

sadmac · Post by **sadmac** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:25 am

the_planet wrote:Go ahead and get it. It's a really nice mixer. The only reason I sold mine is because it's really big, and I wanted to reduce the complexity of my live setup.

There were three things I didn't like about it:
1. Can't record EQing without some fancy cable routing
2. Only 2 tracks back from the computer
3. Monitor level and audio from firewire shared the same knob, so I was unable to control them seperately

Other than that, it's a solid piece of gear and very simple to use. The mic pres are killer.

ps you should buy live.

What you mean by '' fancy cable routing'' ? I am not an expert on that. Can u expalin it please? Is there any way to do it ( the recording of EQing ) ?

2 tracks back from the computer? what exactly you mean here?

thanx for replying

sadmac · Post by **sadmac** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:38 pm

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:40 pm

sadmac wrote:???

https://www.ableton.com/shop

sniffio · Post by **sniffio** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:01 pm

Sales Dude McBoob wrote: if you tweak the EQ the tweak will not be recorded.

glad u mentioned this.
pretty serious stuff.

sadmac · Post by **sadmac** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:00 am

bump!

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:03 am

sadmac wrote:What you mean by '' fancy cable routing'' ? I am not an expert on that. Can u expalin it please? Is there any way to do it ( the recording of EQing ) ?

2 tracks back from the computer? what exactly you mean here?

thanx for replying

When I wanted to record the EQs, I routed a bus output (post EQ) into new channels. Then recorded that into the computer (silent, of course, to avoid feedback).

It was just easier to use EQ4 though. Heh.
Have you bought Live yet?