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Mackie Onyx 400F FireWire Audio Interface

4 Onyx Mic Pre-Amps. Stand Alone Operation.

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"Sing back to me baby!!" submitted July 8, 2006

By a customer from terr-or.com
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Manufacturer Support
Musical Background: Active Musician
Music Style: Industrial Wall
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Sound: As an industrial musician, I need absolutely the clearest recordings I can get before I start using effects - this unit has the most pristine mic pre amps I have ever heard. After effects and mixdown, I couldn't find any interuptions or glitches to my vocals!! This is the cleanest recording unit at this price and trashes other units at much higher prices!!! Feature: The firewire cable was suppose to come with an adapter to 1394 but didn't. Mackie no longer includes that with the unit. The firewire cable itself is super long for those studio (and stage) connections. The only thing I wished Mackie had considered was lightpipe so I wouldn't have to make so many connections from the three keyboards I have (the Korg Triton Studio and Extreme have six outs and there are only 10 inputs on the Mackie). Ease of Use: I had this unit up, running and recording in about 10 minutes. 10 hours later, I realized that I was being possessed by the "Let's do it again!," sickness! Of all the equipment in my studio, this one is the easiest to use!! Quality: I can tell that the ONYX 400F is going to be the workhorse for many recordings in the studio and the stage. It's solid and gives me comfort looking at how well it is built. Value: I read a lot of forums and reviews on this product before I decided to buy and, none of the horrors I read turned out to be true for me. There was no "whine" from the unit or in any of my recordings and the drivers have worked well!! Mackie has given this unit the right price in that it only has ten inputs and outputs. You will get everything out of this that you payed for and more. I can see that even new and aspiring recording engineers or just hobbyists will find this product an excellent value!!! Manufacturer Support: I have had no need for any support. The Wow Factor: The appeal is not in the looks (though it doesn't look bad) - just hearing the final recording is enough make one very satisfied. Overall: I will buy other equipment as I need it. I can see keeping this product for a long time as I can always use it with other stuff if it becomes outdated. Since I buy for quality and the long haul, saying I made the right choice should be enough!!
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"Greate unit. The center of my studio. Greaet for Live gigs as a mixer great for Studio with amazing preamps and converters." submitted April 9, 2008

By a customer from kzustang.com
Overall
Sound
Features
Ease of Use
The Wow Factor
Musical Background: Producer, Soundtrack composer, studio owner
Music Style: Progressive rock, Blues, Psychedelic rock, Latin Avantguard
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Sound: great for live use. great for studio use. great with a laptop on location. Great sound Great drivers (3.2.8). Installation was a breeze. Latency is quite low (3ms in 3ms out with 64 buffer size in 48kHz) Works on my PC with the on-board non TI FireWire chip. robust. Great features. even the service support center has improved over the past months. 192kHz 24bit sounds amazing. I would like a better meter on the front panel for inputs but I can handle the one on the unit. sounds better than the MOTU traveler or mK828. I use it as the central unit between my PC, mixing board, external effects, midi controllers, external preamps, line inputs and mics. Great value. I was afraid to buy this unit as it had some early driver problems. I never had any problem with it. Didn't work well with MacBook Pro running XP on BootCamp but that could be a SP2 FW update issue so it should be checked again. Overall: I Love this unit and I stopped using my external preamps because the sound is just good enough for me. Feature: could have a separate mix for the two headphone outputs. Ease of Use: very easy. very good. swift installation. no crashes or glitches since Quality: Built well. strong chassi. good knobs. 48V and front input buttons slightly plasticy. Value: very good Manufacturer Support: Support was terrible but got very good over the past few months. there is a new team for dealing with Onyx products. The Wow Factor: I don't get overwhelmed by 'must have it' sex-appeal looks
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"mackies tutorials and manuals are a bit silly but what's inside there products is serious stuff" submitted December 17, 2007

By a customer from hotmail.com
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Value
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Musical Background: compose/producer
Music Style: on demand
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Sound: It's the first interface I have so I don't have any reference. Before I recorded vocals and guitars on a Tascam 2488 workstation. Well the difference between those are pretty huge so I think i bought the right one. I heard a lot about Onyx amps so that did it for me. Feature: I liked the very long firewire cable, cheer fun when unpacking because I havea distant machineroom. I like the final mix plug in but I work with cubase and the version included only works within traktion. Too bad... Ease of Use: It goes in, it goes out, you decide how, it's like that. Quality: Didn't get across one glitch. I have it for 6 months now. Value: It did'n hurt at all once I was up and running in minutes and heard the quality. I want to buy more! Manufacturer Support: I use a lot of support from cubase because they experiment a lot, for this product it's the opposite. Mackie works very straith forward, I think they do not dare try to build things that can come across difficult bridges. The Wow Factor: Two headphone sockets on the front, very convenient. I almost bought a MOTU MKII because it looks a lot better. I think that beauty comes from the inside. With audio interfaces that is Overall: I like it, as I mentioned, I want to daisy chain a couple in the future.
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"Simplifies my setup and sounds great." submitted April 4, 2007

Overall
Sound
Features
Ease of Use
Quality
Value
Manufacturer Support
The Wow Factor
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Sound: VERY clean sound. I got it to use as my main sound card, playback, recording, and mixing. I use it for small project studio tasks and usually only have 1-2 channels recording at once. The outputs to the mains and headphones are very clear. Recording guitar, vocals, and synth is also top notch. Feature: For what I wanted, a small component that did pretty much everything, it has all I need. Of course I knew this BEFORE I bought it. I use it for recording, playback, monitoring (speakers and headphones). I got this to simplify my studio configuration. It sits on my desk next to my LCD. Nice and simple. Ease of Use: Manual is very clear. Everything is clearly marked. The software is fairly simple. If you know mixers and have a little bit of experience with computer recording, you should do fine. Quality: One knock against it because my computer behaves a little strangely if you decide to turn it off when it's connected. Otherwise, not a single bug. I only use it for recording 1-2 streams at a time though. I'd recommend for anyone to thoroughly test any component in their real life setting and return it if it doesn't work out. Every product has its quirks and share of unsatisfied customers ranting on newsgroups. Value: Value is moderate. I'm just paying for the quality of the AD DA converters and the convenience of having all the features I need built in. You could probably get all the features in something cheaper, minus the quality of course. Manufacturer Support: Never used them. They do have a support forum and they are big enough that I hope they actually take notice of major problems. The Wow Factor: It looks nice I guess. Overall: I've owned this for a few months. It seems like it's going to work for years to come. I'd buy another if it broke.
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"Mackie has done it again." submitted November 16, 2005

By a customer from yahoo.com
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Sound
Features
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Value
The Wow Factor
Musical Background: Recording Artist
Music Style: Hip hop R&G Gospel r&b
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Sound: Onyx Preamps- the best you can get in this price range.!!! Quality: For the money it cant be beat. Value: After doing a little homework and getting feedback from engineers and audio enthusiasts, the is definitely the way to go. Manufacturer Support: no need for it. The Wow Factor: Read the previous statement. Overall: Do not pass this one up. You will not be disappointed.
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"Users of PCs....beware!" submitted December 14, 2005

By a customer from yahoo.com
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Sound
Features
Quality
Value
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The Wow Factor
Musical Background: Pianist, Rhodes&Hammond
Music Style: Rock, Blues, Fussion.
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Sound: Great and clear sound. The 4 preamps can't be beaten for the price but specially for the quality of sound. Midi, works great as well. Feature: 4 preamps are the kings of this product. The DSP mixer, can be better in configuration. Quality: Solid and well-build, you don't have to worry about a thing with this device. Value: Fair. The price is like the middle way, the most part of people can afford it. Manufacturer Support: The future will show, so far so good, not a problem. The Wow Factor: Mmmmm, nice looking! Absolutely gorgeos. Great work from designers of Mackie. Overall: I think, I'm gonna replace it in about 6 months with RME 800 Firewire. It's not working as I thought with my PC (with MAC no problem) and I don't wanna spend time restarting again and again my computer and the aplications. I want to trust in a more reliable sound card (M-Audio worked fine with my PC) than Mackie.
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"I have a love/hate relationship with this product." submitted August 29, 2008

By a customer from msn.com
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Ease of Use
Quality
Value
The Wow Factor
Musical Background: Recording Engineer
Music Style: Alternative
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Sound: The preamps are beautiful and the sound is clear but I have to play with latency, occasional clicks, pops, etc, to get it to work. Feature: Love the preamps and inputs. Ease of Use: It's pretty straight forward. I've built two computers for this system and I made clear music with it. It can be problematic. Quality: I take great care of my onxy and it has is the 2nd one. First screamed and had constant popping. 2nd one will make a noise when turning volume on/off and left fader will sometimes not work. Value: Aside from all the criticism, it's a great product and I've done great work with it. However, it's not as transparent as some firewire devices and I have to work extra hard to get it to work. Manufacturer Support: Some of the people at Mackie are not easy to deal with. The Wow Factor: It's physically beautiful. Preamps are awesome. Features are great. Overall: I hope it last.
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"More great Mackie stuff." submitted November 16, 2005

By a customer from hotmail.com
Overall
Sound
Features
Quality
Value
Manufacturer Support
The Wow Factor
Musical Background: Musician
Music Style: Rock, Hard Rock
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Sound: Pretty hard to beat this sound quality for $700; probably hard to beat for twice that amount. Acoustic drum tracks--particularly snare--are outstanding. Very satisfied. Feature: The matrix mixer could be a little better with more tracks than 10. Also, disappointed that the Traction 2 that comes with the interface doesn't come bundled, as it does if you buy it alone. 4 Onyx pre-amps do compensate for the lack of plug ins, however. Quality: Mackie through and through. Well built, simple, intuitive. Value: Hard to beat, in almost every way. Manufacturer Support: Well, tech support calls back, which is more than I can say for a number of other interface manufacturers. They aim to please and know what they are talking about. The Wow Factor: It has practical design, is easy to use and is well built. High marks in my book. Overall: All things considered, it's a 10 in my estimation.
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"No firewire device has preamps like this... not even the RME. If I sold it, I'd miss them so much. I wish the overall package wa" submitted December 20, 2008

By a customer from msn.com
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Sound
Features
Ease of Use
Quality
Value
Manufacturer Support
The Wow Factor
Musical Background: Professional Musician
Music Style: Experimental
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Sound: The preamp's are amazingly pristine. The digital to analog converters are too shrill for my taste. Feature: Preamps! Ease of Use: I never liked the drivers. They're better now, but 3 years ago they were a nightmare. The CPU load still drops out with Nuendo. Quality: After three years my ONYX is not perfect. One of the phantom powered pre-amps is "ify". The volume control spikes on the right monitor and I pray it doesn't break. My first one was broken but zZounds paid for fast shipping and was great about it -- which is why I buy everything from them. Value: When it works, you're not having latency problems, it's awesome. If the AD/DA converters were better I'd put up with everything and give it a 10/10. If I had to get it again, I'd get an RME fireface or PCI device. Manufacturer Support: Mackie tech suppport has never been very helpful. zzounds was great and more helpful. The Wow Factor: It's physically beautiful and the preamps are the best I've ever heard. They make up for a multitude of sins. I absolutely wanted it and now that I have it use it a lot. I take good care of it and love it inspite of everything I wrote. Overall: I hope to sell it and get and RME or PCI interface. If I can't sell it I'll use it for the incredible preamps.
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