I bought this to record my bluegrass band. I have owned this for about ten months and only recorded acoustic instruments and vocals. The sound is great. I don't like the onboard FX for this style, but they would be great for other things. I took the board and a laptop and setup 6 mics to record in about 15 minutes, recorded 15 songs for a show and with minimal editing later I cut a disc that sounded great.

This board is ready to go within minutes out of the box. I was disappointed in cubase LE being some sort of trial version that only allows 4 tracks simolteneously. Lucky I had other software already. In thier defense, recording software is expensive and a full version would impact the overall price quite abit. It has more than enough inputs and outputs, you can do anything you can imagine.

I had no prior experience with this sort of thing and had to tinker a bit with settings in windows and experiment with the way I plugged things into the board, but overall it is very easy to use. There are so many options and knobs you really have to spend some intimate time playing with it to know the possibilities.

I think the construction is durable, it looks sharp. It has an internal fan which is good, heat is your enemy with electronics. If it left my house often I would invest in a good case. It has ran flawlessly both hardware and software. I have used this board quite a bit.

As I said earlier, I bought this about 10 months ago when it was first out. I was waiting for a cheaper and small alesis to come in and finally saw this board sitting there on the shelf the day it came in. I bought it instead despite the slightly higher price and am so glad I did. This board is awsome. It could double as a pa mix board for live shows, or use it at home for one mic quick ideas. I love it. Great Value.

I sent one email and got a very fast response. Their website is great with downloads for manuals and updates if they have one.

I love this thing. Unlike my choice of recording software, this board has been troublefree and wonderful to use.

Hobbyist-Active

Bluegrass

So far, so good. We're using it as a means to record 7 channels of drums, guitar, bass, vocals - into Cubase SX. In the short time we've worked with it, what we have recorded is quite clear, and achieving something worth mixing down was relatively easy - something I was starting to think I'd never say in any honesty.

Does everything I need it to. Literally. If I need to add more tracks, I'd get another of the same model.

It's practically idiot proof. The manual is straight to the point, there's no mandatory goofy internal routing to worry about - if you want to hook it up and get tracks mapped into Cubase (or similar) it'll take longer to run your cables across the room than to configure this unit.

No complaints so far. Sliders have a little lateral wobble to them, but given our use of this unit, we won't be messing with them once our input levels are set right. The remaining dials' action feels smooth and solid.

Took a risk on this mixer, and while it is true that you get what you pay for, I feel like this is exactly as advertised - no more, no less. That it allows me to painlessly record 9 tracks simultaneously at 6ms latency while monitoring ourselves live gives me the impression it's a great value.

Haven't had a need to contact them yet. We're not rough on our gear, so short of something inside the unit catching fire I don't foresee major issues.

The layout is clean and simplistic. That appeals to me as I value function over form in my gear. In that regard, clean and simple = very sexy. Oh yeah. Very.

Between hobbyist and active

Punk/Metal/Surf/Horror

For it's price, the phonic is incredible, the preamps are quiet and transparent. Real nice sound! I love it. The EQ also work like a charm.

-8 mic preamps -firewire interface -near zero latency -16 effects -nice EQ This mixer is quiet nice for it's price range whati would have wanted to see is individual phantom power switch, otherwise it's great.

It's my first time recording but i find it quite easy, cubase detected the inputs of the mixer right away, now problem with that. I had to experience it a bit to get use to it, there sure are a lot of buttons on it. Anyway, quite simple if you know what to expect.

I think it's great, you can't get another firewire mixer of this quality anywhere else, maybe Mackie's onyx are better but their price range is way higher.

Buy It!

I emailed them on a sunday night and when i got up and opened my computer the next morning i had receive all the answers to my questions. Great!

It's nice, like all other mixers out there

Active Musician

Rock-Hardcore

Excellent sound, good preamps, quiet when set up carefully. Got noise? Drop the ground on the computer or the Helix. Use a tube preamp if you want a warm sound but its a good clean sound with lots of headroom. Ditch the free LE software and get Cubase SL, at least.

You get more than you pay for, and has the flexibility for live sound, too. Wish it had more output returns from the computer, though (for patching in DSP/EFX).

No such thing as an easy to use digital mixer (because you have to learn all its buttons PLUS the separate software controls), but this one is not overly difficult... however, it would have helped to have larger buttons and bigger labels. But once you know the ropes, it is very easy to use.

Similar to Behringer and Mackie.

A steal. You will NOT find a Firewire mixer at this price with these features, period.

Lousy. No direct phone line. But that seems to be par for the course with most manufacturers. Sad.

No lust, just practicality and value.

Musician/Studio Owner

Preamps are better then i expected. You get a nice clean sound out of it, and with a little time and some tweaking, I think I can get a semi-pro sound out of this baby.

Firstly, product comes with a firewire cable. I wasn't positive, but this is a nice touch because those things are expensive. I found out upon my units arrival that they have upgraded the effects unit from 24 to 32 bits. I think thats a really nice touch, you get a far more realistic feel from it. Thank you Phonic.

Followed the directions and it was installed easily. Took me a while to figure out how to set all the inputs up in Cubase SX3, but i've got it now, and everything works flawlessly

I give it a 7 here because the faders do feel cheap, having never used a console mixer to any extent personally before, i'm not positive, but i'm PRETTY sure they aren't supposed to move sideways like that. But the product looks really sturdy otherwise.

How else can you get 18 channels simultaneous for this price?!?

I ordered this through a local music shop, and it took longer then expected to get it. Phonic doesn't appear to have very good communication with small businesses, but it showed up eventually. I should also mention that the notice they included informing me about the upgraded effects was RIDDLED with spelling errors. Come on now, that's just embarassing. (Fireweir, bellow)

It doesn't look anything special. Looks just like any other Behringer mixer, but considering what it does, and what I paid for it, it's extremely sexy sitting on my desk.

Active Musician

Rock / Ska / Jazz

These preamps are comparable to Mackie and better than Alesis. In this price range, feature-for-feature, you can't lose with the Phonic.

Tons of features -- how can you go wrong?

Very simple board to use. Who needs a manual? If you're getting a mixer like this, Phonic isn't going to give you lessons in engineering a recording and what button turns your brain on. Built-in effects are nice, but not necessary. At this price, who cares? It's a recording board, it's a live board, it's a....

Faders looked a little iffy, but actually proved to be very solid. The whole thing is built like a tank. Just don't spill drinks on it!

Truly the best. Look at the other options in the price range... Alesis (yikes! noisy preamps), Mackie (sorry, you have to pay more for the Firewire card itself). I know other brands are going the Firewire route, but Phonic has the market cornered at the moment.

Good website. Who knows about their phone service. Of COURSE they're going to charge you shipping to return it. That's probably written out in the 3-Year warranty, if you took the time to READ it.

It looks very professional with a good "all-American" colour scheme.

Professional - Composer, performer, engineer, producer, studio owner

All styles

The sound is great. When multitracking with the firewire, it doesn't add much color so you have great tracks to work with

This is not just a great mixer but also a great firewire interface. You can't complain with that price either! I also like that they now have the SPDIF as well. Mine doesn't have it, nor do I need it, but it is nice to have all of those expandability options.

The manual is a little slim, but you can't really expect phonic to teach you the art of recording I guess. After a little messing around, you can get up and running in no time with a few mics and a computer you can have some solid tracks.

The only reason I give this an 8 is because it does have some firewire issues with our PC. I have not run it on my new souped up macbook, but the PC we have been using is about 5 or 6 years old generic Dell computer. I would say that if it can run well on that computer you should be golden if you have a much better computer.

There is nothing really out there that has all of these features

I haven't had any problems so I haven't dealt with their customer service. So I give an 8 because it works fine.

I think this board can even be compared to the Mackie 1604vlz. If you don't have enough cash to go out and get a 1604 and the mixer card, then this is a great option for you.

musician, engineer

all of the above

So far the sound quality has been excellent. The gain control on the inputs can be a little touchy, but you quickly get use to it.

Aside from a computer it came with everything you need to get going for home recording.

It would be nice if the instruction manual was a bit more informative, so you need to a base knowledge to get going. As far as the installation went, i found it seamless. Read the PDF the comes with Cubase LE.

The faders are a bit toyish but over all it has a good build, nothing seems loose or anything.

I have never seen anything that even comes close to compare with this unit, features to dollars, you can't go wrong.

haven't had to use support (finger crossed) it's been super reliable.

it's a nice looking machine, your friends will think you spent a lot more than you did.

Active Musician

Alternative Country, Indie Rock

The pre-amps on this one are a little noisy. Ok to use if you're using it with a large diaphram condenser with high sensitivity, but you might want to get an external pre-amp if you're going to use those SM-57's. There was an annoying tone around 5k that outputs even when nothing is connected. Reverb wasn't the best I've heard.

This board have flexible routing.

Real easy to set up. Just install software and hook it up via firewire. You have to set it to use external clock if you're going to use it with Nuendo or Cubase via the phonic control panel.

It's decent for beginners and for the price. The pre-amps were a little on the low quality side.

For the price, you can't get anything better.

Haven't need it yet.

Decent looking board.

Recording Enginner

Rock, Jazz, Pop

Good sound, hard when recording vocals through large condensor

Good, I only say 7 because Comes with cubase LE, wich when i installed it i was expecting it to allow unlimeted tracks recording at the same time. Instead it only allowed you to take 4 in at a time.

goood ease of use

Feels like its made well, knobs are sturdy

good, cheap and works well

Havent needed it

I would like it more if it was the color black

recording engineer, actice musician

classic rock

I've been using a mackie 1604 for years and have been happy with it...until now! The phonic is CLEAN. No tainting of the original signal. Just pure, clean sound. If you're not careful, though, you can overload the signal easily. Even with the gain at almost zero, it can tend to clip on louder instruments like drums.

I can't believe that you get a 10 band eq, digital effects, and 16 independant channels of streaming to the computer for this price!

I give it a 6 in ease of use. I only did this because any digital mixer is going to have a steeper learning curve than an analog. I am very computer savvy as well as a long-time studio engineer. It took me about a half hour to get it set up and ready to record. With an analog, it would have taken me less than half of that.

Seems to be built well. It's not going to survive a drop off the Empire State Building, but it seems road worthy.

If you only have $400, get this. You won't find another product that sounds this good in this price range!

Here's the weak point. Hopefully you won't need support because, like every other company these days, they like to make it as difficult as possible to get a hold of them.

Looks like a mixer.

Recording Engineer / Active Musician

Progressive Rock

So much promise, but right out of the box I have RFI through the firewire connection. Maybe RFI isn't the right term, but what I have is noise that I can directly relate to disk IO on my laptop.

I wish it had a cheat sheet. I don't know what some of this stuff is for or why I want to use it. I really wanted many audio channels into firewire. Everything else is either gravey or overkill, depending on how you look at it.

looks very nice

I called their Tech Support. Don't expect to get anyone before 10:00 AM EST. Like a fool I listened to them and sent the unit back to Phonic. Like a fool I didn't ask before hand for them to pay the shipping. Naturally they didn't offer. Now I'm out $30 and I haven't even used it yet.

amatuer musician

rock

No problems with the sound of the preamps. You are getting a deal with this mixer.

Fairly easy to use. I does take awhile to understand exactly what every button does but if you know mixers you should have any issues.

The drivers are bad...probably the downfall of an otherwise great product. Latency can be an issue depending on your computer but even at its best it won't compare with the "near-zero" latency of a pci soundcard.

As a standalone, this is great but could be a better buy with better drivers.

n/a

I looks like a plain mixer but lights up nice at night.

Hobbyist

Hip-hop/R&b

The sound is great. For our band we needed 7 channels and using Adobe Audition 1.5 we are able to multitrack very easy. The board is simply a way to get the mix into the computer and we will edit it in Audition. The sound we get is nice quality.

I am rating this high, because though it does not have alot of affects, we never really use these from the board anyway. We simply use audition to get the effects if need be. The biggest feature of this is the use of Firewire to get multitracking into the computer. It works flawlessly and my machine is no power house by any means. It is a 1.8 Ghz AMD Athlon XP 2200 with 1GB of 400DDR ram. I am useing WinXP Pro SP1 and had to install a PCI Firewire card. Everything worked like a champ.

The mixer is very easy to use and the drivers install very nicely. The one thing to be careful about is when selecting the tracking in Audition. The inputs look funny, but come to find out that that is kind of a norm for Digital signals. In Audition you first have to enable any soundcard interfaces you'll be using with the program. Go to Options > Device Order and make sure that, if you have the option of multiple channels from your interface, they're all selected. From the Helix you will see something listed like "Input 1/2", "Input 3/4", etc. Once you've made sure to do that, in Multitrack mode in Audition, you can click the button that says "Input 1" on any of the channels, and then you are able to select the input you want to assign to that channel, and if you want the left signal or the right signal, or a stereo signal. Its generally accepted that odd numbered inputs are Left, and even numbered are Right, so if you wanted input 1 only on track one, you would select the corresponding input in Audition, and select "Left Channel". To put input 2 on channel two, you'd select the same input 1 as before, only you'd select "Right Channel". The input buttons will change to say Input 1R or Input 1L accordingly.

Well I must say that it is not the prettiest of mixers and the sliders and knobs are kinda cheap looking, but for what it was bought for... I say it is well worth it! Hopefully it is what is inside that counts!

For the money... this thing cannot be beat... I did research before buying this mixer. I was looking at the Alesis version and everywhere I looked that mixer seems to have issues with its drivers. This is the reason I chose the Helix. On every forum I looked, the drivers proved to be quite easy and stable.

Active Musician

Alternative Rock

After using my tascam 414mkII to record directly to my computer for 4 years, I decided that I needed something better. The sound qualiy that I got out of this thing is unbelievable. When you turn the gain on the preamps up, you get an awesome saturation effect. It's no tubes but it sounds pretty darn good. The clarity out of the preamps is great. I honestly think that it's because of the 96khz from the firewire output.

The effects are nice but pretty much useless if you're recording. Live applications are where this feature will most likely be used. I would have liked to see a longer firewire cable but i imagine that this cuts down on price and latency.

You plug it in to a firewire port and there you go.

It is a solid mixer that arrived in perfect condition and

For the money that you spend on this thing you could maybe buy the firewire card for the mackie.

I haven't had to use support. but i image that they're probably pretty good.

The look of it in person is sweet. The picture does it no justice. It has has a metallic sheen that is not shown.

Recording Engineer

Rock

I have had this for about a year in a smoke free environment and two of the channels have died on me. One causing loud pops in the mix, and the other with a loud fuzz. The built in effects aren't the highest quality. I have recorded with the firewire and not noticed any problems with the quality there though.

Lots of features for such a low price.

When it works the layout is logical, and easy enough.

It looks fine, but you can tell that you are getting an economy product. The knobs don't feel very durable or solid. I would not feel comfortable taking it gigging. Also as I mentioned a few of the channels have become unusable for no apparent reason. And when i first got the board the firewire was doa and had to be replaced.

You get a lot of features in one convenient place, but you really sacrifice reliability. I would not get this again for anything that had deadlines or was used on a regular basis. However if your interest is more of on a causal level, replicating the features that come in this unit is going to cost you at least twice as much in other products.

The people at phonic have been very responsive and helpful.

I need it, but I wish I had some more cash to get something more reliable

Live sound Engineer, Hobby Recording

Acoustic, Folk Rock

Very clean sound. No noticeable noise from mic or line inputs.

Eight mic/line inputs plus another two stereo pairs, three-band EQ, built-in effects, this plus an internal sound card that interfaces with your DAW via firewire. The software control panel is useful and lets you rename the inputs that show up in your DAW. It also comes with rack mounts and a very short (1 meter) six-pin firewire cable. I had another longer cable so I used it instead of the included one. At this price I guess they had to scrimp somewhere.

The unit seems very well made. The finish is very slick and it looks like it will handle the rigors of the road. My only concern is that it seems to generate a fair amount of heat which comes from underneath the unit.

For the money you get a ridiculous amount of features. A mixer plus a sound card built in!

Haven't dealt with support yet. There is a driver upgrade on the website, but it appears to be the same version as shipped with my unit.

Very cool looking.

minister of music

choral and gospel

Sound is colored. With EQ flat the bias is mid. Don't even think about using the onboard effects, they are crap.

The most useful feature is the off button. Buy a quality board not a bargain basement board.

Use? too big for a paper weight, so see how far you can throw this POS!

Quality, had to ship it back in the first 90 days for repair and it took longer than that to get it back.

No Value at all, buy a quality board and forget about bargain boards like the Phonic.

You can not reach the manufacturer they are in Tiawan and the local agent is in Tampa Fl. Good luck getting any help the US rep they only wants your $$$$$.

Sex appeal?? RU kidding?

Musician

Sound gets distorted running 10ms or less latency.

This would be much higher if the thing actually worked. Main problem is it's a gamble whether the thing is recognized by my firewire port. Thinking perhaps the "onboard" firewire may be the issue, I bought a dedicated (TI chipset) Firewire card. No change.

Why, why, why, can't this stuff just work as promised. Many hours of troubleshooting and it "might" show up next time I reboot my computer. Maybe not.

Seems OK.

IF the thing worked as promised, it would have been a 10. As is, it's WORSE THAN USELESS considering the frustration.

Looks like the only option was 24 email support. Whatever.

I wanted it, but now that I see what I got, I'm sending it back.

Hobbyist

Pop, jazz

This thing is very difficult to use due to the fact the manual does not exactly explain how to use it or walk you through how to do things with it. For example it has built in effects but it does not show you how to work the effects or apply them to an input. It also doe not show you how to get the recorded audio back into the board for monitoring while recording. I am no pro and I need a manual that will walk me through steps on how to use it, like the Roland VS880EX manual does.

It added a a loud hum to my power amp just from hooking up the outputs to it.

I think it would be an excellent value of it didn't have a buzz sound being added to your signal. It would also be a good value if it came with a manual that actually showed you how to use it. All the manual does is give a definition of what a button is supposed to do. IT doesn't actually walk you through the steps of how to use anything.

If you need help on the weekends forget about it.

Hobbyist

Metal

I suppose that the mic preamps are decent, but not nearly as good as the ones in the Echo Gina 3G that I used to own. First thing I did when I got the Phonic was recorded myself singing with an acoustic guitar with my Oktava MK319 condenser mic and compared it with some old recordings I made through Gina 3G. The Phonic recording was clear and upfront, but it lacked a certain smoothness and spark of my earlier Gina 3G recordings (I could hear the room's little reflections in the Gina recording but not in the Phonic one). I was able to get a very decent drum sound through the Phonic, though. This unit is not something you want if your will be recording lost of vocals or acoustic guitar in a quiet room (where subtleties are important). But if you want to record a jamming band in a room, I suppose it will do.

At first sight, this unit has absolutely everything and more. However, there are a couple of pretty strange shortcomings to the routing options. First of all, all the assignments into the control room mix are always SOLO (cannot assign several things simultaneously). Which means, in the headphone/control room out, you cannot hear the Firewire audio coming out of the computer at the same time with the input signals coming into the mixer (you can hear either one or the other). This is pretty stupid, I think (because, naturally, you want to be able to hear yourself and whatever it is you're recording along with). I ended up using the 1/8 line out for the headphones (but there, you don't get a volume knob!).

Very easy to use, if it works. It worked fine on my desktop computer at home, but on my laptop it would just record silence, most of the time. Usually, it would work right after I plugged it in, but after less than a minute, it would just record silence (and there was no way to get it to work again). No error messages or anything; just lack of signal. I've messed with it for hours trying to get it to work reliably, but I couldn't. I've had it for about a week and I ended up returning it.

When it came, one of the main faders was crooked! No big deal, I though. Then, at a rehearsal, I realized that the solo button on one of the channels gets stuck every time it's pressed! (and it's very hard to unpress it again). This could cause a disaster at a gig! Also, in the place where our band practices, every time I would turn on the effects, it would add an annoying hum to the main mix, rendering the effects almost unusable there (but there was no hum when I used the effects at home). Sounds like they really use some cheap components.

If it works for you, it's a fantastic value. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me at all.

I haven't dealt with Phonic support, but I couldn't find any phone numbers to call on the Phonic website. All I found was a support web form. This is not a good sign, I think.

Hobbyist

Pop/Rock

all the inputs- at first I thought I'd only be using the mic pre's. When It came time to start plugging in all our gear, I found we needed other inputs as well. ie drum tigger module into the stereo in puts, cd player in the rca etc. we loaded up the board! and everything works.

The manual is short but sweet. everything I need to know is in the manual. I read it...did exactly what it said....and everything works.

I thought the faders had a little extra side to side movement, so I hope they'll stand up to regular use. if not, gotta love the 3 yr.s warranty. The chasis is good and heavy, all the inputs seem to be quality. and there is a cooling fan inside the unit.

When I read everything this board had I thought...Great, ass long as it does what they say, and it does!

haven't needed to call yet.

20 yr. guitar player. 10 recording at home

heavy to wimpy accoustic songs