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Goodbye mixer and gigantic edit speakers?
In our never ending quest to simplify and make things easier/better/simpler/awesomer, we were going through our edit suites today. It occurs to me that since we’re transitioning to iMacs, edit suite staples like Mackie mixers really don’t have a place in an FCPX / iMac environment. I think in the old days it was just for quickie levels, muting certain tracks when digitizing a tape, etc., but as our use of tape based media is rapidly dwindling, I can’t think of why we should waste edit desk space on a mixer. With X, listening to independent tracks is native in the Inspector.
I’ve been editing with a Bose companion speaker system with no mixer in my office suite and it’s great. What’s the point of the mixer board again? Live instruments? VO? All our devices (speakers, mics, etc) are USB or Thunderbolt now. Can anyone explain why we would need a mixer anymore? We can’t even remember the last time we had a use for them.
I’d love to hear thoughts on the matter.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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22 Replies
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I agree. I use powered speakers with multiple inputs on the back. An old pair of Roland’s I think. They’re attached to the output of the Flanders Scientific monitor. It’s powered via SDI from BM Ultrastudio extreme. All very clean and few cables. Plugging the speakers into the extreme didnt work because of the delay in the video signal. I have the headphone audio out of the iMac plugged into the other jacks on the back.
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Looks like I better fire up the old ebay page before these things are all worthless!
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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For the simple benefit of monitoring volume control. Faster to control a knob than to do it in software. Depending on how your monitoring is set-up, the keyboard speaker controls might not work. A small $99 4-input Mackie is still useful in the suite. I have one connected to an M-Box Mini and at a shop I work at, they have the same mixer connected to the output of the Decklink cards.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
That’s true – but the bose has one of these guys with a much smaller footprint than even a tiny mixer. It even has a headphone jack for when it’s quiet time. Tap the top and it mutes. Rotate the rubber knob and it controls volume (or vu can be controlled by the keyboard, too).
For some unknown reason the cow likes to flip images I upload/embed. I’m too lazy to fix it.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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I am aware that the bose stuff isn’t everyone’s favorite. They can be pricey, too. In fact, a cheap mixer and some decent KRK’s combined might even be cheaper than the Bose system. I’m not looking at the issue financially as much as for simplicity’s sake. It’s also nice to have as clean and uncluttered edit area as possible, IMHO.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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Scroll to the bottom here for a nice clean suite design.
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/diy-edit-suite-design-pointers/
Couch in the back for clients.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Very nice!
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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Thanks. Not my design, but a place I freelance at a lot.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
A real nice n tidy edit suite, that! Just in time as I’m planning/designing a new edit suite (my first).
Thanks Oliver.Kannan Raghavan
The Big Toad Films Pte. Ltd. -
I have a small 8 channel mixer…with 5-6 and 7-8 being single knobs. Because I not only play back from my computer, but also my capture card, play back from DVDs I author, and I have a digibeta/beta player deck. I don’t have a HUGE Mackie like we always had…I get by with a small one, as I still need multiple inputs.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
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