Looking for best mixers sub $200... basement use only

[spyder]

Are Mackie or Behringer mixers decent enough for just mixing my V-Drums, a guitar or 2 and vocals? do you have any other recommendations? I will be down in the states visiting friends and wanted to stop by a Guitar Center so choices will have to be what they carry.

I will only use this in my basement with 2 possible setups..

Setup 1)
V-Drums (Most likely just Master out)
SPD-S
iPod

Setup 2)
V-Drums (Most likely just Master out)
Guitar (or 2)
Vocals

Suggestions or comments welcome.

[stickinthemud]

Scroll down and look at some of the offerings by Tapco.

http://www.music123.com/Search/Default.aspx?src=tapco

I have a 260FX and I am very pleased. Tapco is a Mackie company.

[DKaps]

Here's our inexpensive silent practice gear: A Behringer UB802 mixer feeding a Behringer AMP800 headphone distribution amp. I feed the 802 from my master out, the guitarist has his Line 6 X3 footboard processor going to it, the bass player uses an old bass head's output, and we have a single vocal mic as well. These are all mixed and sent to the AMP800 unit. The only thing we miss with this cheap setup is effects on the vocals. This is how we practice at my place one day a week. The other weekly practice is live and loud at our guitarist's place. I will add that this little mixer wouldn't be good enough for serious recording but for practice, it does a good job. With these two items, you'd be under 100 bucks which leaves another Hundy for a few pairs of inexpensive headphones.

[i-drum]

the little yamaha MG102c sounds great for the money. compression/effects/10 chanels/XLR's...$100..

[Hercules]

Hi spyder,

I highly recommend the Yamaha mixers - cheap and pro quality in an analog mixer. As i-drum suggests the MG102C is a really good unit - if you could stretch the budget just a little further and go for a MG12/4 you get 2 pairs of stereo outputs which is well worth the extra money.

Mackie make great equipment, but you would want to be moving up to the $1K plus mark and into the digital mixer world to make it worthwhile going for their gear.

[grog]

Per above, Yamaha makes good stuff. Also, Carvin. They're lesser known but make rock solid equipment at a good price.

Search in here for Behringer and well.....Plus, I've had other studio guys tell me they think Behringer equipment is "noisy". FWIW.

https://www.myspace.com/rubberuniverse

[DKaps]

Here's a recording made during our practice last week using the UB802 I mentioned. Note: The vocals are a bit weak as our bass player was filling for our singer who was a no-show.

panama.mp3

[srobak]

$60, Craigslist.

[weldman]

yea for live sound the Behringer mixers will work fine however if you can, go with a Yamaha MG or Tapco as they are built better and will last longer. I have been using the MG10/2 (old version) for about 2 years now and it's very nice although for my setup I would have enjoyed some more sub outs on it...

For recording, an audio interface with the amount of inputs is all you need these days as you can mix with the software.

I had the Behringer UB802 before the Yamaha MG and was not happy with it. It worked well but was noisy when you turned up the preamps to any usable level...
I returned it after a few days and got the Yamaha in it's place.