Firewire Mixer, Need your experience... Options

[jce44]

Greetings,

I have a need for live performance mixing for a setup of guitars (3- lead, bass & rythym) & vocals (2) and have also researched to purchase my first audio interface.

I'm looking at the Alesis MultiMix 12 channel Firewire Mixer.

My Mac G4 is fully upgraded with a Sonnet 1.8Ghz CPU and 2GB Ram. I'm running OS X 3.9 on the 2nd hard drive- 115GB, and OS 9 on the original HD. Just installed a Pioneer DVR-111 DVD/CD RW drive. Our gigs and my studio would be classified as "friendly" as opposed to "professional".

There's little information or feedback on Alesis Mixers in this forum, especially the newer MultiMix Firewire models. The lower price for the Alesis is hugely attractive to me (it's half what a Mackie would cost), and the fact that it comes with Cubase LE is quite a bonus. (500 bucks is more than I can afford, but am willing to spend to do both mixing and recording). I like manually controlling the mix with physical controls vs software.

Does anyone out there have experience with Alesis firewire mixers and could you provide some information regarding quality, customer service, and compatibility with my computer system?

Thank you for all comments.

[pandabeatz]

to be honest. i feel where you are coming from but i went for the mackie and i did not regret it. i bought mine second hand and the are great value second hand. got my 1620 with firewire card for 750€. ive seen one in ebay.de go for 650€ if you live in eurpoe. the build and quality of most other mixers are not worth the money and they are aware of this so they offer things overpriced below the"good quality" level. if you can save some more and get an investment where you have something more robust, sounds good and has a tested standard build and performance, ie. less like to get damaged AND, if damaged, repairable.sounds like you could use the mackie1220. imo, better second bargain than first hand expensive.

[Drummer519]

The Mackie Onyx (firewire) boards are well worth it. I've used on and my friend has one. I work at a music store that sells both the Onyx boards and the Multimixes and we get so many returned or work ordered Alesis units back. They just don't hold up like the Mackie gear does.