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Sound:
The sound is present, clear and open. Believe the hype! The Onyx preamps are terrific - amazing really at this price point. I have tracked drums, guitars, piano, bass and vocals and gotten great results all around. Paired with decent mics, you have no excuse for getting a bad recording through this board.
Feature:
It would almost be greedy want more from it. OK, automation would be pretty rad, but not gonna happen at this price.
Ease of Use:
The learning curve wasn't overwhelming, but if you have limited console experience (as I did) it is a lot to wrap your head around at first. Aspects of the manual could have been more in-depth or better explained, I think. And some tasks, like doing a tape-style mixdown, took more trial and error than I expected, but over the course of a couple of days, I got the hang of it. B+ for ease of use.
Quality:
It's fantastically well built. No issues so far.
Value:
A great value. I know of no other Pro Tools-compatible firewire mixer with this much I/O and this many features that sounds this good. Not at this price, anyway.
Manufacturer Support:
No issues to date (knocking on wood). As I said - it's very well built.
The Wow Factor:
Some people knock the design, but think it looks really cool, and it feels great. I like to put my hands on it. 'Nuff said.
Overall:
I took a leap of faith with this mixer. No one I knew had one or had ever worked with one, but it had everything I was looking for an d then some. Still, I rarely drop that much money, and I exceeded my initial project studio budget by $500 to get this unit, which I only did after many months of scraping and saving. I have not regretted it once. The quality of my recordings was vastly improved from the second I plugged the first mic in.
As a DAW front end, it is practically ideal. It looks great. It sounds great. All of the musicians I've shown it to - some professional engineers themselves - have been mightily impressed. If you want a first rate audio interface but also want the magic of analog and the tactile pleasure of working with a console, get it. Love it.
7 of 7 people
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Sound:
Clean, clear, lots of headroom.
Feature:
Being able to mix 16 channels of firewire on an analog board makes life wonderful.
Ease of Use:
Plug and play on my Mac.
Quality:
Built like a tank.
Value:
Got this at an amazing price at zZounds. No haggle.
Manufacturer Support:
n/a
The Wow Factor:
Gorgeous. Feels great. I couldn't be happier.
Overall:
I needed a firewire interface to replace the old one. I was originally looking at the Mackie Blackbird, but it doesn't come out until October, I'm told. Then I saw the 1640i, saw that it had 16x16 firewire PLUS an amazing Mackie analog board with the Onyx preamps and the Perkins EQ, and I knew it was the way to go. Being able to do a 16 channel firewire mix and include outboard and virtual effects gives me the best of all worlds.
8 of 8 people
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"if you can afford it, get one. but pass on the lower i-series units... theyre great but the 1640i is a joy to use and more versa" submitted February 6, 2010
Sound:
very interesting sound out of this unit, i compared it directly to a yamaha n12, m-audio 192 (profire converters) and e-mu 1212m (protools hd converters). the yamaha and e-mu sound very similar (a lot of people rave about these converters, to me they're a little harsh and clinical for my taste)- the m-audio sounds extremely smooth, has great extended frequency response with buckets of headroom which i really prefer. the mackie 1640i converter's sit directly between the yamaha/e-mu and the m-audio. this is very pleasing to my ears! the eq and preamps are the same as their other onyx products (if it aint broke don't fix it) however the circutry, headroom and noisefloor are a little better than previous units. ssl (which i have used and love) can compare to this unit, its squekey clean! its actually cleaner than the digital yamaha n12- surprisingly the mackie 1640i is mostly analog and less noisey... how is that possible? a very solid 9/10 for the mackie. the only reason it doesnt get a 10/10 is that while this unit is fantastic on many levels it still aint a neve or ssl. but- it's damn close for a lot less money. home studio owners will be thrilled.
Feature:
this is where things get a little hairy, no spdif/adat inputs? no wordclock? no midi? no monitor select buttons (the yamaha n12 has 3!)? and why do most of these damn mixers have to have the on/off switch at the back of the unit (that goes for most monitors as well)???
i can understand the reasoning behind having no wordclock, the quality of affordable converters these days are exceptional anyway. 5 years ago i would as said no. but, it would have been nice.
i like to use my ssl alpha channel for a big pop vocal sound and like to use its spdif capabilities- rather than hooking it up analog (don't try and tell me it doesn't make a difference to the sound, it does my friend). i've gotten around this by having my maudio 192 card installed as well. a little tricky, but it works with no conflicts! solved the midi problem too.
by purchasing a tc electronic level pilot i can no also use two sets of monitors efficiently.
i think mackie may have jumped the gun a little and thought most people would be buying this product for 'live' recording use, however many would want this for the studio. i would have happily paid a little more for the extra features- but like i said, people can get around it by installing a soundcard of their choice, for example.
Ease of Use:
considering these are early drivers (mackie don't outsource their driver team/echo product manufacturing anymore - which is great- it's all in house now!) i'm amazed it works perfectly. the installation was painless, and i have used it in sonar, cubase, wavelab and traktion in windows 7 pro64 with no problems whatsoever! that's pretty impressive with such early drivers. i havent used it in protools, but i can't see why it wouldnt be flawless. latency has been decent so far and should get even better with more updates.
keep in mind ive built a decent new i5 pc with 12gig of ram and intel mobo so dont expect this kind of operation on something you havent got off your ass to upgrade recently. you really should upgrade a pc every couple of years guys- its not hard to do and it aint that expensive. you can quietly smirk when your friends rave about their 'powerful' style over substance- and very expensive macs. losers. and this is from a guy that always used macs up to about 6 years ago... the change was the best thing i ever did (just don't be stupid and get another pc for your internet surfing).
Quality:
the quality is what you have come to expect from mackie. they've always made decent gear, even now that theyve been bought out and their manufacturing is done in china. the knobs are a little wobbly these days though (but nothing to be concerned about). as far as the new design, i like it but preffered the look of the previous onyx series. the preamps, eq and recording quality... you wont buy better in this price range (unless you buy a neve or ssl as i've already mentioned). i've also started mixing out of the box again with 2 behringer v-verb rev2496's, ensoniq dp4, neumann tlm103 mic and various fmr compressors with amazing results! i've worked in some high end studio's before and it's amazing what you can do these days at home with not much outlay. the computer to 1640i analog fw 'record to tape' style mixdown has also been problem free, and if you know what you're doing, you will get a pro, punchy, sweet sound for your tracks. sounds better than a digital mixdown (to my ears at least).
Value:
for the money theres a few comparable products out there (yamaha n12 for example), but... i like the mackie more. and it sounds better too. it will be very interesting to see what they release next!
Manufacturer Support:
havent needed it at all so far, even after almost 2 months of constant use.
The Wow Factor:
as i said before i prefer the look of the previous onyx mixers, but... damned if i don't wanna carress this thing now and again.
Overall:
this unit should keep me happy for a couple of years until mackie tempt me with something else. luckily the resale value on a mackie is still pretty good, being a well respected company, so my upgrades arent too problematic.
most home reviewers only ever report a really good or a really bad experience with a product they have just purchased... but for me, it's made my home studio fun again with its ease of use, solid drivers, decent sound quality and flawless pc to 1640i analog mixdown capabilities.
they got it (almost) right this time. thanks again mackie!
34 of 37 people
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