Mackie Onyx 1620 16-Channel Mixer
Better sound quality, advanced tonal shaping, lots of "extras" like 4-segment LED metering on every channel, and optional FireWire connectivity.
Overall User Ratings (based on 47 ratings)
Submitted September 27, 2005 by a customer from woeis.us
"The best board I've ever bought!"
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Kicks the **!#@%$*! of any other mixer Ive ever heard.
Sound
THE MOST AMAZING THING I HAVE EVER HEARD!
Until I got this mixer, I honestly never knew how much difference a mixing board can make in your sound. I owned a Behringer Eurorack 2442FX-Pro but had consistent problems with machine noise / mechanical hum. Power conditioners didnt help, brand new monitors didn't help, etc. Nope - this thing sounds BEAUTIFUL...
Features
The EQ in it is great. I also love the "guitar" features on channels 1 & 2. If I had my way about it - I'd have them on 3 & 4 as well, but hey - I didnt even know about them until I bought it. It was a pleasant surprise...
I can't *WAIT* to get the Firewire I/O card for it!
Quality
I'm 100% comfortable cutting a CD on this board.
Value
Expensive!! But *DEFINITELY* worth the price!
Manufacturer Support
A single question on one occasion and they answered it quickly and friendly.
The Wow Factor
*LOOKS* gorgeous.
Musical Background:
Active Musician
Musical Style:
Electronic / Gothic / Darkwave
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Submitted September 7, 2004 by a customer from bobrogers.com
"Excellent all around..."
I agree with the previous post - this is great, new EQ and pre's are excellent (just look at the pre's specs), and YES, the firewire sends being PRE-EQ makes perfect sense - this is designed for live use and you don't want your live EQ ending up on the recording - who knows if what you did live will work at all on the recording!
Musical Background:
Engineer
Musical Style:
All styles
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Submitted September 23, 2005 by a customer from suplife.co.nz
"the best of i have ever used in a long time and very easy to use such as setup and useing it it's for church and a band of any"
Sound
has a good pan system and the gain is very good so is the aux send and in i have used for 18 months and i think it rocks
by the way i am a tech man on sound
Features
very very good features such as sound fx and etc
Quality
Very good for a church and so on
i love this mixer i like to buy one for myself
Manufacturer Support
very supportive for this brand
The Wow Factor
yes i do want but when ihave the money i live in new zealand in thames
Musical Background:
Hobbyist and Recording man
Musical Style:
gopel and techno
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Submitted December 14, 2005 by a customer from inter-op.com
"Read the REAL reviews, not the Dummies that don't know what they're doing..."
Using one at work, would purchase one in a heartbeat if/when I need it.
Sound
Awesome sound; clear, warm preamps. Very low noise.
Features
EQ works great, and hardware bypass is a nice extra. "Extra" 3/4 busses a nice touch. I used the instrument inputs on chs 1 & 2, a nice touch.
Quality
Very nice quality, built like a tank. Quality feel to faders and pots, exc quality connectors.
Value
Great product, but a little pricey for this market; should consider including the firewire interface with it, for this price.
Manufacturer Support
Didn't need support for any troubles; web support for drivers and DAW upgrade worked fine.
The Wow Factor
Awesome Mackie good looks and feel.
Musical Background:
Active musician
Musical Style:
Folk, alt, contemp Christian
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Submitted June 16, 2005 by a customer from hotmail.com
"Great mixer, check it out."
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
This is for life or until I'm filthy rich, which ever comes first.
Sound
The sound is great on this mixer. Of course it is expected with all Mackie products.
Features
One of the main problems with this mixer is that the firewire is pre EQ. What the heck was Mackie thinking. Hello, some people may want to EQ while recording. Anyway there is a work around.
All you need is a 2 foot 1/4" patch cable. You can route the Aux out from one channel into another channels input. Aux out is either pre or post EQ. An example is taking channel one's Aux out into channel two's audio input. Then record on channel two, while EQ'ing channel one. This is a little ghetto, but if you have to EQ while recording it can be done.
Quality
Has the rubber side and is built very solid.
Value
Mackie items are always a little bit higher than others. There is reason for this, superior quality.
Manufacturer Support
Havn't dealt with support.
The Wow Factor
Hey baby.
Musical Background:
Hobbyist
Musical Style:
Electronic
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Submitted February 19, 2006 by a customer from yahoo.com
Mackie Onyx 1620 Mixer Customer Review
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Features
should have direct outs! and have a post/pre switch for the eq when using the firewire option! other than that this mixer kicks serious ass.
Value
well i got a serious price brake.. but i'd prolly pay full price if i had to again.
Manufacturer Support
they're only nice AFTER you buy their product.
Musical Background:
active musician, homestudio engineer, hobbyist
Musical Style:
metal/hardcore
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Submitted January 30, 2005 by a customer from yahoo.com
"HOT LITTLE BOARD"
This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
Sound
i can`t give it 10 because that means that it`s the best,but let me tell you i had the Mackie 24-8 buss mixer and it sounded great. I brought the Mackie Onyx 1620 to replace it. This board kicks a@#$%^. the sound is somthing you would not believe. DON`T LET THE SIZE AND PRICE FOOL YOU!!!!
Features
It should come with digital card.
Quality
FOR THE PRICE ?
Value
MY BEST BUY FOR THE BUCK,HANDS DOWN!!!!
Musical Background:
producer\CEO
Musical Style:
Hip Hop, R&B, Gospel
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Submitted July 22, 2004 by a customer from hotmail.com
"Optional firewire stuff is PRE EQ, PRE FADE ONLY!!!!"
Features
It turns out that the optional Firewire output is ONLY Pre-Insert, Pre-EQ, Pre-Mute, Pre-Fade!!! So unless you're planning to do all the mixing AND EQ on your computer you'll have wasted your money. The only benefit you get from the desk in terms of firewire output are the preamps!
The Wow Factor
It *would* have been very desirable, were it not for the daft implementation of firewire. I'm not going to buy it.
Musical Style:
classical
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Submitted January 20, 2007 by a customer from yahoo.com
"HEY READ THIS!!!"
if in the right situation I would LOVE to keep this unit, it has awsome sound through the perkins and the eq. I would keep it if I did more live mixing/recording. but I find that I have a need to simplify and move on.. I can buy a stand alone unit with a midi interface for half the cost and then purchase a good program, or a midi controler... any one want to buy a 1620?
Sound
the sound quality is great, the perkins eq's i could not be happier with.
Features
I had to learn how to use traction cause the mixer didint work with SONAR. I am kinda new at the recording game and thought I had bought the mixer to end all needs, 8 xlr's 8 stereo thats 16 tracks to the computer, phantom power, aux outs, talkback which is friggin cool, firewire, eq bypass. oh yeah, eq bypass if you are in a live situation. the eq dosent even run to the firewire. I dont have the option of mixing the signal pre firewire! the aux outs dont even run through the signal, that means the compressor or efects processor you want to run wont even hit the computer.. so all I have now is a bad ass live mixer, and an interface... honestly I am thinking of running it to my electronics engineer neighbor and having him hotwire it...
Ease of Use
the solo and mute buttons are kinda confusing.
Quality
the construction is great, sturdy, rubber sides, adjustable feet on the bottom. I dont feel that it would break unless it was dropped on its head.
Value
well, it dosent do what I thought it did, but if you are in a live show situation its nice to be able to record the band your mixing.
Manufacturer Support
support has been knida wishy washy. I wrote them about the input direct to firewire and they kinda were all snooty like I dont need a reason to run the signal through eq before firewire. like even the thought of the idea was stupid.
The Wow Factor
yeah I hate to say it this thing is friggin cool looking I love the look and feel of it.
Musical Background:
hobby, guitarist, recording engineer, loaf,
Musical Style:
METAL!!!
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Submitted June 14, 2006
"This mixer totally rocks. If you need a great mixer and a computer interface, buy it with the firewire option."
This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
I hope this is the last mixer I ever buy. The only reason I can see upgrading is if firewire ever becomes obsolete sometime in the future. That would be a bummer. Even then, the rest of the mixer is pretty great.
Sound
Clean mic pres with plenty of gain. Sweet.
Features
I think Mackie really optimized the feature set with this mixer. There is really nothing I need that this mixer can't do yet I use pretty much every feature it has. Sweet.
Ease of Use
I got the firewire option and I was prepared for the worst in terms of install and setup. As it turned out, it was super easy to install and everything just worked first try. Getting the screws to line up when installing the actual card was probably the hardest part. The software install was a piece of cake (WinXP). Sweet.
Quality
This thing feels totally solid. I've only had it a few days but I'm anticipating lots of trouble free mixing. Sweet.
Value
With the firewire card this is a lot more expensive than the similar offering from Alesis. However, I've read nothing but bad reviews for that mixer...especially with the firewire interface. This mixer sounds great and just works. Rock solid. For me, it was worth the extra $$ to not have to mess around for hours trying to get it to work.
Manufacturer Support
Haven't had to deal with them yet.
The Wow Factor
It's a mixer man. It's got multi-colored knobs. The new design is nice but I'm not sure I'd call it "sexy". However, technically, it's great, a great mixer and a great computer interface all in one. Sweet.
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Submitted June 27, 2005
"***** Firewire pre-INSERT issue *****"
I feel the need to get into the pre-INSERT firewire debate. I have been looking to upgrade my analog home studio to digital for some time now, and was looking hard at Digi 001/002 options, and when I first found the Onyx with firewire option for half the cost of the ProTools setup (with more features) I was sure I had found my 'answer'. And yes, it's true that if you are doing sound reinforcement (live sound) the firewire pre-INSERT is definitely the way to go (though, I should add, that there are pre-INSERT analog outputs for every channel on the back of the mixer for direct feed into a hard-disk recorder - and these do NOT even require the Firewire card!). BUT for those of us, like myself, who want to use this board in their home studio, and there ONLY, there should ABSOLUTELY be a pre-FADER option, ideally on each channel but even across the board would be OK. Otherwise, as several other reviewers have mentioned, hardware insert effects, the Perkins EQ, MUTE functionality are all useless! I don't want to have to remaster some great track I just laid down in my studio,for which I used an outboard effects box and the channel Perkins EQ just because that portion of the sound didn't make it into my computer! This is an IDEAL board for a home studio in every respect, EXCEPT for this one. Mackie really needs to consider offering another version targeted for the home studio market, it would be virtually identical except for the firewire pre-FADER instead of pre-INSERT. As it is, I'm still considering it as my 'answer', I'm just going to have to invest in another firewire box (probably MOTU 828 mkii) so that I can feed the Aux Sends (which can be pre- OR post-FADER) into my DAW, as I won't have enough channels left on the 1620 if I have to use two for each source with an effect or EQ. Not an optimum solution, and more expensive, but it still gives me more flexibility and power for less money than the Pro Tools solution.
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Submitted April 8, 2005
"Don't listen to those who gave it a low rating!"
This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
I recommend this to everyone who's into recording and live mixing. Very versitle.
Sound
The pre-amps on this Mackie are much better than the other Mackies within its same price range. Glad that they put extra time into them.
Features
Could there be more features? Of course, but for the money this board gives everything you need and then some.
Quality
Everything comes out just the way you want it to. As far as recording goes, the reviews that give the board a low rating is because those people don't know what they're talking about. The best part about this mixer is that you can mix for a live venue while recording and the recording is all pre fade so you can EQ on your computer giving a much better mix. Thoes of you who know a lot about sound know what I'm talking about.
Value
Worth every penny.
Manufacturer Support
I've never had any problems or reasons to contact for assistance.
The Wow Factor
Its definitely what was needed. A well made mixer within a reasonable price range.
Musical Background:
Sound engineer
Musical Style:
I mix all kinds
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Submitted March 29, 2005
Mackie Onyx 1620 Mixer Customer Review
Features
I agree for us studio pundits there ought to be the option for using the system anyway one wishes, and getting Perkins EQ and warm Mackie sound into your DAW software was what tempted me to begin with but knowing now that this option is unavailable makes this a 'live board' only. Only workaround I can see is there is no workaround, so point is, it is not meant for studio recording so forget it.
I am gonna look into the Tascam DM 3200 which does the same thing via firewire, has internal effects, controls your DAW through HUI emuulation and doesn't require you to shell out half the price of the board itself for the added firewire option. Mackie boards are sweet and analog, but the company really needs to stay the hello outta the DAW market if they can't put out something usable. The Future Music review says it all about the unit, so read it and wait before you spend your cash on it if you are a studio boffin.
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Submitted February 27, 2005
Mackie Onyx 1620 Mixer Customer Review
Mackie gets two thumbs up on the Onyx boards.
Sound
The sound of this board is crazy .I`ve been recording for about ten years in my home studio and tried just about every piece of equitment out there in the price range $50 -$2000.put it this way i traded in my Mackie 24/8 buss board ( a legend in it`s own right), for this board. NO REGRETS P.S. you have train your ears to know what is good or bad sound is.
Features
Need main inserts and the option to go pre or post faders on direct outs.
Quality
Sound better than some more exspensive boards.
Value
For the Hard to beat.
The Wow Factor
Have it, Love it!!!
Musical Background:
Producer/CEO
Musical Style:
RnB,Hip hop,Goshpel
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Submitted January 24, 2005
Mackie Onyx 1620 Mixer Customer Review
Sound
Sounds awesome...not a Midas, but what is?
Features
Sweet! I can record live performances onto HD. Whoever said that they would want post fade/EQ outs for recording obviously has never done live recording before - you mix for the room in live sound, not for the CD. It is much more useful to have raw sound data to mix later.
Quality
Mackie is made for the road.
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