Mackie Onyx

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Mackie Onyx

Postby Burnsy » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:22 pm

Has anyone used one of these Mackie firewire interface/mixer hybrids before? http://www.mackie.com/products/onyx1640i/Looking for some thoughts, they have received good reviews online, but it's nice to have some feedback from people in the community who have actually used one. Thanks!!!
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby macrae11 » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:21 pm

I've used them a fair amount. Not very much for recording, mostly just for small live rigs. They're ok, certainly nothing to write home about. They would be useful for someone who needed a small live mixer and also record shows, but wouldn't be a great choice in the studio IMO. The preamps are ok at best and I'm not crazy about the EQ. The aux's are nice since there's 6 fully independent sends that are all pre/post switchable and the master section is fairly powerful for a 16 channel live mixer. The dedicated talkback with switching/assigning is nice so you don't have to burn a channel just to talk to the band.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Burnsy » Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:29 am

I don't think I'd be using the pre's much as I'm really trying to find an inexpensive way to get my analogue Yamaha mixer into the digital domain. I don't have 3 grand to spend on nice converters, so I was thinking of using the direct outs of my board to the line inputs of the mackie, bypassing the EQ's, but having the firewire capability with all 16 of my analogue outputs. The ither option I've come up with is daisychaining 2 firewire interfaces to get 16 channels of audio. I really like the pre's on the old Yamaha, which I'd like to keep. Any suggestions?
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby sean.boyer » Thu Jul 12, 2012 5:27 pm

If you already have the Onyx, I'd say try it. I've used the 32 ch version for recording a few times, and I find the preamps to be fine. They're not Great River or anything, but I mean - come on... It's a cheap portable desk. They have a reasonable noise floor, and you can completely physically bypass the EQ's. I've never used the firewire option, as I just did the ol' insert to lineout trick to get out of the desk, and went into a pair or Tubefire interfaces. They're not bad if you aren't using their preamps as well. A pair of those could be as cheap as $300 if you look around.

If you don't have it already, why not just go into a MOTU A/D or something? A pair of Fire Studio's even.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby macrae11 » Thu Jul 12, 2012 8:27 pm

sean.boyer wrote:If you already have the Onyx, I'd say try it. I've used the 32 ch version for recording a few times, and I find the preamps to be fine. They're not Great River or anything, but I mean - come on... It's a cheap portable desk. They have a reasonable noise floor, and you can completely physically bypass the EQ's. I've never used the firewire option, as I just did the ol' insert to lineout trick to get out of the desk, and went into a pair or Tubefire interfaces. They're not bad if you aren't using their preamps as well. A pair of those could be as cheap as $300 if you look around.

If you don't have it already, why not just go into a MOTU A/D or something? A pair of Fire Studio's even.


For the rest of the story, read this thread. Tom doesn't have the Onyx yet and it would include a bunch of stuff that he doesn't need for his situation. One of the big issues is that his current board has largely unbalanced I/O. While a lot of interfaces these days have unbalanced ins, very few have unbalanced outputs. This is why I suggested to Tom to post in the wireworks forum to see if a smart person like yourself or Alain might have a good idea for a workaround. Either for an oddball interface, or some balancing solution.

Maybe he can get away with driving the higher impedance inputs of the board from the lower impedance outputs on an interface as long as he keeps levels conservative. This isn't something I'm really qualified to answer, especially if someone's planning on dropping several hundreds or thousands of dollars on some gear.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Burnsy » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:04 pm

Thanks for the input Sean and Andrew. I'm considering all possibilities with the price range of $800 - $1800, and I haven't thrown out any possibilities yet. I'm still in research mode.

Something else to ponder, a fellow classmate asked me if its possible for me to mix on the board as well, on playback. I believe this is possible, the board has a mix bus and a record bus. So something else I need to consider is a device or devices to allow for that to happen.

Yamaha mixer's unbalanced outs ----- unbalanced ins on interface or another mixer with firewire/usb ---- Pro Tools

From Pro Tools ---- to Usb/firewire interface or usb/firewire mixer ---- unbalanced outs on interface or usb/firewire mixer ----- unbalanced ins on Yamaha mixer

I think the MOTU's offer balanced/unbalanced ins and outs. I can't do a PCI interface, so it would appear that I'm limited to 8 channels, unless I daisy chain one MOTU with 8 ins/outs to another MOTU interface with 8ins/outs..... or find a mixer that offers unbalanced ins/outs and usb/firewire connectivity.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Burnsy » Wed Jul 18, 2012 8:58 pm

Well, I'm going to bite the bullet. Sigh. There's just no inexpensive way around it. I'm going to have to purchase a 16 channel i/o ad/da converter. Its truly the best option I have, not the cheapest for sure. Nothing else will do what I need. Thinking of the Aruara Lynx 16 ch i/o. We have one at school, and its a pretty sweet piece of equipment.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:18 pm

Burnsy wrote:Well, I'm going to bite the bullet. Sigh. There's just no inexpensive way around it. I'm going to have to purchase a 16 channel i/o ad/da converter. Its truly the best option I have, not the cheapest for sure. Nothing else will do what I need. Thinking of the Aruara Lynx 16 ch i/o. We have one at school, and its a pretty sweet piece of equipment.
That seems rather extreme on the far end of quality and price for what I figured was a more budget oriented approach. It'll be a sweet A/D D/A setup, no doubt about that, but I guess to me it's a pretty big jump from Mackie Onyx, to Lynx Aurora...
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Burnsy » Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:28 pm

Discussions with some of my instructors told me that I would have some major latency issues if I didn't go with converters, like playback and overdubbing. So, unless i can figure out some other solution....it seems I may have to suck it up and deal with it.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:52 pm

Burnsy wrote:Discussions with some of my instructors told me that I would have some major latency issues if I didn't go with converters, like playback and overdubbing. So, unless i can figure out some other solution....it seems I may have to suck it up and deal with it.
The build of the DAW (computer) will have as big an impact on "latency" as the type of converters you use. I doubt you need to step up to Lynx to get a usable spec. Andrew?
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby macrae11 » Thu Jul 19, 2012 8:55 am

Yeah not sure what situation the latency issues would come into play. I'd have to hear the context.

That being said, you will basically never have to upgrade from the lynx. It really is a converter for life, so in the long run it's probably cheaper than buying multiple units as you grow. And with the expansion slot capabilities it's very flexible. Keep in mind that you will also have to purchase some sort of interface like the LT-FW, or LT-USB to be able to use it directly with your computer.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Burnsy » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:13 pm

Right now, as far as latency...and I don't think this is going to change if I purchased the Onyx... when I do an overdub for example, if I sing over the acoustic track I just laid down, I have to mute the track I'm recording to, and sing without hearing my vox over the acoustic track. If I un-mute the track I'm tracking on, so I can hear my vox going through the chain, there is a delay and it's off just enough to screw with the timing and my head. From what I understand, that issue will remain if I purchase something that isn't going to deal with the latency properly. Basically, I want 16 tracks to record at once, just in case I get the opportunity to record a live band. The other thing, is most interfaces only allow for 8 channels. And that's just not enough for recording drums how I'd like to. 2 mics, 1 SNR, 1 Kik, 2 OVH, 2 Toms, 1 HH, 2 Room Mic, and perhaps a talkback mic. That's potentially 12 mics, just on the drums.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby macrae11 » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:35 pm

Burnsy wrote:Right now, as far as latency...and I don't think this is going to change if I purchased the Onyx... when I do an overdub for example, if I sing over the acoustic track I just laid down, I have to mute the track I'm recording to, and sing without hearing my vox over the acoustic track. If I un-mute the track I'm tracking on, so I can hear my vox going through the chain, there is a delay and it's off just enough to screw with the timing and my head. From what I understand, that issue will remain if I purchase something that isn't going to deal with the latency properly.


I don't think this latency is being caused by your converters. Perhaps the situation you were discussing included PTHD, which would indeed take care of your latency issues. For now try adjusting your hardware buffer setting in the playback engine, or using low latency monitoring mode.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Burnsy » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:46 pm

Hmmm, I did not think of that. I will try that tonight, and see what happens. So, if it is just a computer buffering issue, and changing settings... I may not have to drop $4000.00? Hmmmmmmm........
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby macrae11 » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:55 pm

Burnsy wrote:Hmmm, I did not think of that. I will try that tonight, and see what happens. So, if it is just a computer buffering issue, and changing settings... I may not have to drop $4000.00? Hmmmmmmm........


Correct. Just upgrading your converters won't directly affect that. Any native system will require a bit of juggling to get acceptable latency.
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Re: Mackie Onyx

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:01 pm

macrae11 wrote:Correct. Just upgrading your converters won't directly affect that. Any native system will require a bit of juggling to get acceptable latency.
This.
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