What desk?

Shintogurl · Post by **Shintogurl** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 9:21 pm

Hi folks. I'm looking at someday buying a mixing desk, preferably a new one but second hand if need be. I just don't know which direction to go.
I'll be sticking with an analogue desk but I don't know whether I should go for one that's fully analogue and has direct outs on every channel or something like the Allen and Heath ZED R16 that doesn't have direct outs but does have firewire that can plug straight into my Mac mini. I currently use a Focusrite Saffire Pro40 interface. If I was to get an analogue desk with direct outs I could get another Pro40 and daisy chain them giving 16 analogue ins and outs as well as the adat and spdif. This would work out cheaper than the ZED R16, but I could sell the Pro40 and put the money towards the ZED R16. I want to be able to do all my work through the desk I get while learning how to produce dub recordings as well. The ZED R16 does have a 4 band eq with full parametric mids that would be useful for my other stuff, if not for dub recordings.
I would prefer to work with outboard effects rather than VST/plugins but I will use whatever is at my disposal until I can afford the gear I need.
Any advice would be very much appreciated, thanks.

Pegman · Post by **Pegman** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 11:10 pm

go for a second hand analog mixer.
they sound the best but maybe have to be fixed to some extent.
but thats just my point of view.
you can pick one up cheap at second hand platform in the internet.

Shintogurl · Post by **Shintogurl** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 11:35 pm

Thanks. I forgot about this board, it's been that long since i looked. LOL
Anyway, I have put a deposit down on a 2nd hand Soundcraft Spirit FX8 desk that's pretty cheap. At least I hope it is at £80. It has direct outs so I can output the mono channels through my Focusrite Pro 40 and then send the outs from that to the FX8s inputs. So hopefully it won't be long before i'm producing some nice dub recordings in a kind of new old fashioned way.