[Scott Dorsey]

Joseph wrote:
I have a chance to buy one for $300, but I've read that the pres and the eq are pretty bad.Is this true? What would be a good alternative?

You can mix on it. It's workable. You don't need the preamps anyway, since
in the modern age you can just track through an external preamp and lay one
track per mike down since there is no worry about running out of tracks to
tape.

The EQ.... you could do worse... you could do a lot better but you can
certainly do worse. But again, you can use the DAW EQ for fine work and the
console EQ for rough tone-shaping and be pretty happy with it.

Mute all unused channels, keep the meters out of the yellow zone... you want
peaks at -20dB on the meters. The mix bus has zero headroom, but on the other
hand it's quiet enough that you can just keep the levels down and not worry
about it.

It's no API by any means, but you're not going to find an API for $300.
I have heard some very fine work mixed on a Mackie 8-buss. It's more effort
to work on than a higher end console but that's how life is.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."