Good cheap mixers/preamps?

[lukpac]

Well, I got that Audiophile 2496 card. It's a bit quirky in places on the Mac, but seems to work fine nonetheless. However, there's no way to adjust the incoming levels. It's really not that different from my old setup, except there I could apply gain in software during recording. No such luck here. I know I could feed things through the record stage of a tape deck, but the deck I have here is a POS, and I'd really rather have a more elegant solution.

The same holds true if I want to record something that's loud (which is rare). I can route things through the card's mixer, but if something hits the card overloaded, it stays that way - lowering the volume in the mixer just results in a quieter overloaded signal.

Ideas?

[Patrick M]

Are you using an outboard ADC?

[lukpac]

Nope.

[Rspaight]

You might want to drop a line to Dr. Ron. (He doesn't browse here much anymore and probably won't see this for a while.) He wrestled with this exact same problem, but I don't know what his ultimate solution was.

Ryan

[lukpac]

I'm going through a tape deck I have here for now. Unfortunately I have to have it directly between my amp and computer, vs on my receiver's second tape stage. My receiver has a "dub" switch, which takes the output from one deck and feeds it into the other, but unfortunately it goes both ways - output 1 to input 2 and output 2 to input 1. Thus you just get an endless loop (feedback).

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

You can get a Behringer DJ mixer. Zzounds sells the DX052 for $80:

http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHDX052

[lukpac]

Funny, I was looking in the Full Compass catalog and saw these (non-DJ) mixers from Behringer:

UB502
UB802
UB1002

Or how about this, nice and simple:

ART Macromix

[damianm]

I use(d to use) a Mackie 1402 for home recording. The 1402 is a 14-channel board which would probably be overkill for your needs, but I understand the smaller models use the same electronics and preamps, maybe with a little less-flexible signal routing capabilities.

Mine is the 1402-VLZ; the current model is the 1402-VLZ Pro, and there was a first non-VLZ, non-Pro version, which I understand had slightly-inferior preamps. From what I recall the difference between the VLZ and the VLZ Pro is just in signal-routing capabilities.

The 1402 sounds OK to me, I haven't really compared it to much else but it's a clean sounding board with a good amount of headroom. The EQ is a bit 'blatty' sounding but not all of the inputs are routed thru EQ circuits.

I used mine many times for bringing up the gain when doing needledrops (via the AUX 2 RETURNs, which are just a set of inputs with a gain control, no EQ), and I don't recall being displeased at the results.

I don't know what the US prices on these are, but maybe a used one could be a good choice? They're built well, so as long as you take the time to check all inputs and faders it should be a relatively safe bet.

I also recall having seen something called a Spirit Folio Notepad Mixer, which I never tried. In the ad it looked like uh.. a mixer the size of a notepad. Might be worth checking out, I don't know about the sound quality though.

[lukpac]

UB502
UB802
UB1002

ART Macromix

Turns out that despite what most websites say, the Macromix is actually a mono mixer. Fine for Grant I suppose, but not much good for me.

I ended up with the UB502. Seems to work fairly well. It's got RCA's for tape in/out, which for my purposes are receiver/sound card. It's got 3 other channels (1 mono and 2 stereo) but I don't even need them. Not too bad for $35.

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

Aren't you using this for vinyl transfers? How do you do this without a phono preamp? (I don't see this in the UB502 specs.)

Or maybe I'm way offbase. Just curious what the setup is, that's all.

I've been looking at the UB502 since you posted the link. Are you happy with its performance? I'm thinking of getting one for myself.

[lukpac]

Turntable -> amp -> mixer -> sound card (-> amp)

It seems decent enough. I haven't noticed any problems so far.