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Looper's Delight
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hi Luis, (and loopers everywhere suffereing the "mixer problem")
I had a really good look at the Alesis 8Line.
The chips used are the cheapest op amps available for audio.
The construction is good enough, but not better than Behringer
( held together by self tap screws).
The "tech support" on the website never replies at all.
As it's a line mixer though, the cheap chips only have to do 1:1 amplification, which means the sound quality doesn't suffer too much.
I wouldn't consider it for studio use, but for live work I think it's
going to scrape by.
As for noise levels...less than the EDPs.
I was able to successfully mod the 8Line so that the mic input, and
one other, are sent to the FX send without going to the main mix.
That's a very easy hack to do which makes the mixer loop friendly,
just clipping a few wires. (plus of course the 3 days to work out
which wires to clip because Alesis won't provide docs).
I also added switches for that, which is a bit harder, but allows a bit of flexibility.
I reckon it wouldn't be hard to do other mods to the 8Line, luike re=routing
I don't know the Rolls stuff at all, don't even know if
there's a European dealer.
...but I mailed their tech support to test them out on your behalf ;-)
Anyway, those 2 mixers have very different feature lists,
surely that's the first consideration?
andy butler
L.Angulo wrote:
hey Andy,
Still investigating this.
Which one do you think is better in terms of sound quality between this and the Rolls RM 65B?
specs here for both
http://www.rolls.com/pdf/DS_RM65.pdf
http://www.alesis.com/multimix8line
anyone?
Is this the ideal small mixer we've
all been looking for?
Alesis Multimix 8 Line. 1u mixer for looping.
http://www.alesis.com/multimix8line.
Feature list and mini review.
features
All connections on 1/4 unbalanced jacks unless otherwise
noted.
8 stereo/mono input channels, vol, balance, fx send
*Stereo* FX send ( works with channel pan/balance, for each
channel)
stereo FX return (with vol control)
Channel 1 switches to a mono microphone input, XLR, no
phantom.
Main outs on balanced jacks with master vol.
..and some additional connections on *stereo* 1/4 in jacks
Monitor out...after master vol
Mix out ...before master vol
Input to main bus.
Input to fx bus.
(those last 3 are officially for daisy chaining 2 or more
units).
Comments
1) stereo fx bus....that's very useful
2) seems well built, and sounds ok. Not noisy.
3) none of the controls has a 0dB calibration, which makes
set up that much harder. ( the cheap Behringer
stuff often has this). Not really a problem.
4) the mic input sounds good enough for live work with good
full range response. Not for studio though, there's
a distinctive quality/color to the transient response, and
no 48V.
5) Mic pre-amp doesn't have an insert, and there's no way
to make fx send pre fade. In simple terms
this means you can't EQ the mic, or compress it.
(and can't use my Vortex patches!)
6) the additional connectors available give some
scope for extra routing, as long as you
don't mind using Y-cables.
7) neither of the 2 additional outputs has an independent
vol control, (such as would be useful for
sending to Zoom H2 for recording)
8) there's no mixer schematic in the manual, it's printed
on the top of the unit. Obviously
when you rack the unit you no longer have the
schematic which is the only way to see
the mixer features at a glance.
9) Balanced outs means that you only need a couple of jack
to XLR converters and
you're able to say " I have my own DI box" to any
sound engineer you encounter when playing live.
This reduces their anxiety about how to deal with
your complex setup to zero.
10) no official way to make sends pre-fade, which would
make the unit much more usable.
Conclusion
Very nearly a neat way to route your looping gear, and add
a microphone
with just a 1u unit.
If you don't need to use the mic-pre there's no real minus
points to the mixer,
apart from lack of pre-fade sends.
Sound quality is easily good enough for live work.
Big disappointment is the implementation of the mic input.
There's no way to
eq the mic, so unless you want a flat response, and have a
dynamic mic that
will give that you can't really this mixer. Using with an
SM58, for instance, will
just give you that unclear boxy sound which is normally
filtered out at the desk.
So, probably ok for announcements that no-one understands.
I'm ok, I have a Sennheiser 421 which works very well for
feeding assorted
acoustic sounds into the loops (on the fx send), but those
aren't exactly
cheap.
Generally, anyone looking to add a mic to their setup ( or
to remove a mic-pre
to save weight/space) is going to be frustrated.
Further investigation.
It must be possible to mod this unit so that there's a way
to eq( or Vortex) the mic.
but no service sheet available.
I emailed Alesis tech support, US *and* UK and was sent a
pair of automated responses
promising a reply within 2 days....about a week ago.
andy butler
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