[Jgilchrist]

I bought one of these mixers last week and have played with it a bit. My first impressions are that it is way overkill for what I want to do (record secondary audio at events). However, it is about the cheapest way to record when you take media costs and such into account. It can record 4 mics at once, it can mix, it can monitor, it does an amazing variety of things. It has a 40G drive that looks like will record around 128 track-hours of uncompressed 16/44.1 cd-quality audio (that means if you are recording 4 tracks, you get around 32 hours). Overall, it is a nifty device that will replace my old Behringer mixer.

However, it does have some drawbacks.

1. While the hard drive will hold 128 track-hours of audio, it seems to be limited to recording 99 minutes 59 seconds in any given session (“song” in the lingo of the device). After that, it croaks and the recording stops. It has two time base systems, time and beats. I haven’t played with the “beats” method to see if it records longer or not. This time limit is a problem for me because I would like to be able to record for 2 hours unattended, and this only gives me 100 minutes.

2. I’ve heard reports of hard drive noise. Mine doesn’t seem to have significant noise (I’ve heard of a high-pitched whine). That said, the device is not silent. The sound it makes would not likely be noticeable in a normal shoot, but it does make some noise. You probably wouldn’t notice it during a wedding, but you wouldn’t want your mic right next to it.

3. I wouldn’t call it portable. It’s not huge, but it’s bigger than my laptop and requires AC power.

4. It has a learning curve that might intimidate some.

Note that these shouldn’t be deal-breakers for many people. My time usage is not what the device was designed for. I want to record 2 hours of an event, the device was designed for the budding musician who wants to record a song. I couldn’t care less about bouncing tracks and guitar distortion and many of the other features. The noise issue would likely not affect event video as it would be masked by room noise in all but the quietest situations. For example, it’s quieter than my laptop fan. If you have a sound board location and central wiring point with AC power, the portability issue is no longer an issue.

Some of the positive features: Records 4 tracks simultaneously, supplies 48v phantom power, monitor and adjust levels while recording, dump to your PC (though I haven’t done this yet), effect send/return, tons of recording space, seems to have a user-upgradeable hard drive, 4 balanced xlr’s or 1/4 unbalanced inputs. Overall, if this fits your needs it’s a great deal for the money.

-Jon