Mackie ONYX ... the truth: a big fake!

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remember fletcher's 1202 and adat trade show exhibit?


mercenary-audio_1883_19306395.jpg
 
Yes, I was thinking of Fletcher's schtick on a schtick, during this thread.

Yeah, that's right, I can see the John Mayer producer saying that the limitations make you work better/different. Being aware of the limitations forces you to find the magic in the music and really use your outboard gear. The older Mackie EQ is barely usable, you cut instead of boost, and like Dave said you have to watch levels and tread lightly. Knowing the board is not magic makes you find what you can in the material and arrangement and juice from your outboard gear, and thus concentrates the mixing process more where it counts.
 
[quote author="Svart"]
I am sure mackie is like the rest of the companies where the prototype is made of the best stuff, then the bean counters get a hold of it and the device that actually gets produced is of much cheaper quality.

Do we really get a copy of the concept car?[/quote]

If this is true, and I don't doubt it, it means that we could easely pimp up mackies. BUT... Anytime a newb asks that question around here, they get very disappointing reactions...

I work on a double (old) mackie daily and have made some very interesting productions with them... even with a mackie ran way too hot, sometimes it just is that kind of sound you're after. I don't worship the mackie at all, but we compared it once with a British console costing
50 000 euro/dollar and the mackie had more headroom and a nicer EQ than this other (no I wont name the brand) desk.

I also did mixes on Neves and SSL 4Ks and I like those better. :wink:
My bank on the other hand loves the mackie :green:

Most of the people wanting to do pro audio for a living should be forced to make decent mixes, for some years, on cheap gear, it is possible. Once your work sounds right on budget equipment, it will sound better on top gear. Your ears will have made progress you hardly can get with "good solutions available" and this is what you REALLY need.

just my 2 euro (i take this statement 100 times more serious :twisted:
 
I remember the "Musik Messe Frankfurt-Germany" 3 years ago ... Neumann used the Mackie onyx 1640 in their recording boxes to show how good sounding recordings you can make with neumann mics.  ;)
I use my onyx 1640 for 3 years at live recording sessions and multi-track audio/AV. The preamps are more open sounding than the older Wackies i used. Compared with the hottest (budget) live mixers of a&h and midas - i haven´t seen great disadvantage for the Wackie. The onyx is a good tool for live sound and recording simultaneously with Firewire ... no extra cables or interfaces. It was the first of its (budget) art. I'm happy with the Wackie!
I am less happy with the fact that there is only little discussion about the "pimp of onyx" - but rather contempt. :mad:
Is there really nobody in the world who added subgroup-inserts into his onyx or made eq's also useful for recording? etc

Wackie !? - I'm not a fan ... but I like to use good inexpensive equipment ... why not?
 
hey hessenmusik, theres loads of stuff on the mackie forum about modding the onyx, check it out.
I 'fixed' the direct outs in one so they were post eq/fader. A very simple mod.
mackie will give you schematics  if u ask nicely.

I think they sound pretty good too. Tested it recording grand piano with a couple of 414's and it was sweet.
 
If you look into the history here, there's  a lot of "Ruin a good name and then sell it going on..." Not that Mackie was ever that great, but historically some of the earlier stuff was more top shelf than of late...if you want to see what will happen to Mackie just remember that the same guy who owned Tapco is now running the show.

When I was designing a mic pre several years ago my engineer and I took a look at the Mackie specs on the 120_-ProVLZ and he looked at me and said "I can't beat that and why would you want to" my response was "They sound like crap"...

there's a severe disconnect between the final marketing specs and what happens in the real world, thats why I still use my ears.

Heck one of my favorite pre's is Peters Green Pre...its easy to make it sound good if you know how to use it...not sure I could (or want to) with the Mackie stuff although if its what I had I'm sure with all due diligence there's a way to make it happen.

Here's the interesting part (at least for tweak-freaks like us) Mackie and Sony and Peter can all use the NE5532 and everyones topology will make it sound different, I have a Pro VLZ and an old Sony MX 390 and Petes Green...they all use the same chip and the Mackie NEVER gets turned on, there's no point in wasting good electrons on bad design.
 
I was working with a client the other day that had just been to NAMM... he was telling me that Mackie is OUT OF BUSINESS! hard to believe... but from what he was telling me is that Mackie is clearing remaining stock merchandise and not releasing any new products

can anybody confirm or deny this?
 
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