Digital Mixer or Recording Interface

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[BillAllyn]

I use a Presonus 32R digital mixer. I enjoy the fact that I can go from band practicing/jamming to multitrack recording at the push of one button. Or record live at a show with no extra effort. I can record up to 32 tracks simultaneously, over USB 2.0, and provide up to 9 independent stereo mixes to musicians. If I like how it sounded live, I can use the same onboard compressors and EQs in my DAW, with the same settings, and get a similar result. It just makes it all SO freaking easy.

[davidknight]

I have an A&H SQ5 for my home studio. The way I work is almost completely live with quite a few synths running at once. It works for me, and it keeps my head out of the computer. I can just stem it all off and deal with that later, all the while using the onboard EQ for sculpting the sound.

[clinterz]

I'm an old school kinda guy. I just sold my Tascam DM4800. I loved having all those buttons and knobs in front of me, but really, I hardly used it. Even the control surface part of it I almost never used. Recording in the 21'st century isn't as much fun, but it's way most efficient.

[Erix]

I useva presonus studiolive 32sx, and love it. Use it for both rehearsal and recording. It's amazing.

[kvmoore]

A decade ago, I was debating this myself. Because of the limited budget I had at the time vs. the features I wanted, I went with a digital mixer, which was a Tascam DM4800. The DM4800 was the best bang-for-buck digital mixer around at the time (circa 2012), and it was also expandable. Going the audio interface route would've been more expensive for me at the time because I needed something with a lot of input channels on board because I had a lot of hardware synths and drum machines. Also, space wasn't an issue at the time because it replaced my bigger analog board that died on me just before that. So, it was a nice upgrade with lots of nice features like digital recall, built-in effects, eq, and dynamics with the integrated DSP processor. I eventually bought the firewire card for it too which allowed it to become an audio interface with 32 simultaneous channels in and out. Unfortunately, firewire became obsolete around that time and new computers no longer supported it. I admit that the overall sound quality of the console was very clean. You got out what you put in. The console was later discontinued by Tascam and it is probably no longer supported today.

However, life has changed in more recent years, and I was forced to move into a smaller space. As a result, the DM4800 had to go. It did not hold it's value and I did lose a lot of money in it. However, I just let it go and moved on because I had no choice. I later went with a MOTU AVB rack interface setup running into Protools and never looked back. This is my current setup (two MOTU 24ai interfaces plus a Behringer ADA8200 via ADAT). The overall quality of the sound of these interfaces and the expandability options far surpass the DM4800. Also, these interfaces also have DSP processing a well so they can also function as a digital mixer if desired. At some point, I would like to eventually upgrade the ADA8200 ADAT converter to something more high-end, and/or add a MOTU 1248 to the setup later on. Another thing I like about interfaces is the fact they are simple component-wise and have less physical hardware to break down, unlike consoles with all of those knobs, buttons, displays, and motorized faders.

So yes, I agree. The audio interface is a much better solution for recording than a digital mixer. Now, if I wanted to add a hardware control surface with physical controls, I could do that. However, I'm using a touchscreen monitor for that, which is far more flexible considering the limited space I have.

[DaveRave]

Great video thank you ! One additional benefit on the mixer side for me, is DAW control - most modern digital mixers can be a decent control surface with layers or channels set-up to do that. Now, compare the price of some of the current control surfaces, that do nothing else (like the SSL or new Qcon) and channel for channel the digital mixer suddenly doesn't look so pricey.

[MapleSonics]

I have a big modular synth and more external stuff. I really like to assign individual signals to a dedicated channel. I went full out on an EVO 16, SP8 and a Octopre. The fact that there is a noticable latency, when listening to the signal coming from pc, is for me the reason to have switched to a digital mixer. Now i can do anything i want, without any latency.

[armandocardenas]

I use a Soundcraft UI24R. The learning curve was a little steep but once I got it, it became so easy. That feeds to my computer which in turn feeds it to my DAW on my 40" monitor in real time with no obvious latency.

[christopherdowney]

Great discussion here. Having that all-in-one solution for tracking, monitoring, and mixing has a lot of merit, especially for the budget-constrained studio. But compromises have to be made somewhere. But I’ve heard plenty of pro-level recordings made on Studio Live boards. The key factor here is the engineer.

[Capt-Cran]

Alway just incredible videos with common sense information ... thank you!!

[RandyWhited-rwwo]

I have gone back and forth a few times to identify where I need to focus efforts to upgrade what I have now. Thanks for posting!!

[revp]

Thanks for sharing this. After using various audio interfaces, I got a Midas MR18 for my home studio. The routing flexibility, the preamps, the ease of use, MIDI I/O, 18x18 audio interface, & monitoring expansion via P16 have been awesome. It has been VERY reliable and sounds great. Also, I use a XR18 for live keys and backing tracks because of its 8 XLR outputs. The only downside to the Midas may be the sample rate, given that it is 44.1 or 48 kHz. That was the compromise at that price point.

[greenloungerecording]

I have gone from a digital mixer to an interface. The one thing digital mixers have going for them is the ability to manage monitor mixes, using the actual faders, in a really simple way. Also most digital mixers will have a phone/tablet app that can be used by each artist to control their own monitor mixes.
On the negative side, most digital mixers have quite a bit of latency once the daw is inserted into the signal path, so you are really stuck with using the effects on the mixer (eq, compression) when tracking.

[paolotonolo]

I'm using the SSL BigSex ..gosh I love that console

[TheBunkhouseStudios]

I came from working in a studio with an X32 as our front end and interface. I now have an RME UFX III with SSL Alphalink in my new studio. The main reason is converter quality and using external preamps and outboard. There's a lot that's *really* great about using a digital mixer as an interface though. The main one being headphone monitoring. With the X32 we bought a bunch of cheap amazon fire tablets and used the Mixing station app, with each tablet being set to have control over a different output bus so that musicians could control their own headphone mix. Why no audio interfaces have this kind of functionality built in I don't know. It seems like such an obvious thing. Instead with an interface you have to spend more money on an expensive headphone monitoring system for the same control options. Being able to save scenes on the mixer with different routing configs was super useful. Having a frontend with physical faders was nice. The preamps as something clean and transparent sounded absolutely fine. The ability to use digital stageboxes like the S16's is nice - just a single ethernet cable to the live room - although that means you can't use external preamps for character, unless you want your preamps sat in the live room. The conversion on the X32 was good, and you could certainly make great recordings with it, but there are much better options out there with dedicated interfaces. Routing outboard on the X32 was a pain and there were other quirks too. Ultimately when it came to my new studio space I knew I just couldn't get the quality I needed from a digital mixer, unless I was spend tens of thousands (aka something like a digico or yamaha console.)

[andersborgh]

I will say for location recording a digital desk is pretty great. I helped a band I was mixing foh for to track drums on my A&H SQ for a single they needed to finish quickly. Done in under half an hour between sound check and gig while the band was set up on stage anyway. Effortless, sounded great.

[jgooch]

While having a great preamp is an ingredient to a great recording, the other ingredients I dare say other things should be considered first. Having a digital mixer can get you to a place where you can: learn gain structure, record rehearsals, and play live. Things that are going to be way more beneficial prior to the recording. Also the majority of musicians are going to make money playing live, not recording. If a band can hear each other well, they can perform well. As someone who has done live sound with digital mixers I can say they can be extremely reliable. Depending on which series of live mixers that you go with, you can upgrade the preamps to a better series once you are ready. Setting yourself up to have a great live Show is way more important than recording.

[DcPhr]

great video, I think I'm going with the recording interface for starters, Happy Holidays

[faautobahna]

I was exactly thinking about this choice a couple of months back but could not find clear answers. Thank you for putting this out.

[snoopywalker]

Barry, great discussion. Would be great to have more pictures or demos of pros and cons of digital mixers or a link to one. Have a great day.