I wonder how much difference there are between those two Mackie
products which share the newest mic pre. I assume that the FireWire
card (for mixer) has all the A/D converters, but I wonder if anyone
knows how it differs from the one in 800R.

TM wrote:
I wonder how much difference there are between those two Mackie
products which share the newest mic pre. I assume that the FireWire
card (for mixer) has all the A/D converters, but I wonder if anyone
knows how it differs from the one in 800R.

There are many differences. While they share the same basic front end
(with the exception of the two channels on the 800R that have variable
input impedance), almost everything else is different.

They use different converters. There are real A/D converters in the
800R while the Onyx Firewire is a Bridgeco audio chip. The 800R works
up to 192 kHz (good for marketing, questionable in practice) and has an
assortment of outputs (but not Firewire). The Onyx is limited to 96 kHz
and has only Firewire digital outputs. Then there's the fact that the
1640 gives you 16 mic inputs and the 800R has only 8.

If you're looking for a studio product, I'd recommend the 800R and work
out the interfacing depending on how you work. The Onyx mixer with the
Firewire card is a really great way to bring home a multitrack
recording of whatever went into the mics when you're doing a live show,
but that combination can be somewhat awkward for studio use. You'll
**** and moan because in order to use the mixer's EQ for recording
you'll have to do some patching, and then you can only get two EQ'd
channels going to the computer through the Firewire interface. And to
use the mixer's EQ for mixing your tracks, you'll need an interface for
your computer that has multiple outputs.

The two are as much alike as two watermelons in a patch.

Mike,

do you know if the pres sound the same? I guess technically they
should be. I need more channels of pre- i have an onyx 1220 and a RNP.
I was thinking a focusrite octopre or a mackie 800r but i don't
really like the pres in my mackie board. They're kind of nasally.

Nate

Nate Najar wrote:

do you know if the pres sound the same?

I don't know of any two preamps, even on the same console, that I can
tell you sound the same. Suffice it to say that they're both perfectly
decent preamps. They both have about the same amount of gain (which, at
just barely 60 dB is less than I'd like sometimes) and they don't get
noisy when you crank them wide open.

I was thinking a focusrite octopre or a mackie 800r but i don't
really like the pres in my mackie board. They're kind of nasally.

In that case, find a preamp that sounds good with the mics you're
using. Hank Alrich gave the Onyx quite a good workout a couple of
months back and posted his findings here. He found that with some mics
it was flattering, with other mics it was not, which is typical of any
mic preamp, particularly a transformerless one. It's really a crapshoot
that you have to shoot out yourself.

I would think that you could take care of a little "nasally" with a
touch of EQ, though on the Onxy mixer, unless you route the input
channel to the main or ALT outputs you can't use the channel EQ when
you're tracking. But if you're recording in a DAW, you can certainly
touch it up. It's no sin to use the tools that you have, provided
they're decent tools.