Mackie DL1608 Awesome Mixer!

[Silvertopsolarnut]

Love this little mixer!  It's much more user friendly than other virtual mixers.  We've been using the Presonus Studio Live 16 channel mixer prior to this for a couple of years.  Presonus has it's quirks.  We are using this new board in a small church that has an antiquated powered mixer.  We are using the Mackie board at the stage, to plug the team into and then running the main out into one of the mic XLR's  to the old board as a 'host'.  The old board has no EQ's and just high/mid/low adjustments and only one AUX send for the whole team.  We have crafted the sound through the Mackie and improved the sound of the main speakers 100%!  We are the new kids on the block and changing out the old board isn't up to us.  Their sound tech is curious and skeptical of virtual boards as he likes to have his hands on physical sliders.......but time will tell!    They run wedge monitors which creates a lot of 'mud' at the stage area.  We are using wired (can't afford the wireless ones for now) IEM's which they are also curious about.

[robbocurry]

Happy days! Get the peq and geq working to clean up those monitors and enjoy!

[Wynnd]

And a lot of monitor setups are run much louder than necessary.   Drums in the drum monitor for an acoustic set?   Just stupid if you ask me.  There have been times when the FOH was shut down during a break and the band returned only using the monitors and the audience couldn't tell the difference.  That is proof the monitors are LOUD!   When I played an outdoor gig at the State Fair about 8 years ago, I had the monitor engineer drop my monitor more than 15 db.  Then the drummer's monitor, too loud with all the drums running through it was blasting me, even though I was 15' away!!!!  (Kick was the worst.)   If you can get the musicians to drop their monitor levels, that would clean up a lot of the issues immediately.  Of course all this advice goes away if all the instruments are direct through the PA and the drums are e-drums. 

I do prefer real faders most of the time.  Really helps me with my Senior's variety show.  (Next Month.)

The DL1608 does have a lot of useful tools.  (I figure about 1200 controls on the ipad.  MixWiz has about 400.) Glad you're having fun with yours.

[Silvertopsolarnut]

Definitely having fun!  We also have had monitor wars..... That's why we went to with custom in ears, it really helped the band tighten up; you can pick just what you need.  I play rhythm acoustic  and I find for me all I really  need is the lead vocal and my 810ce with no wedges just house I can hear the bass and drum kit...... Everyone can get just what they need. That was our old band, since we are with a new band the wedges are not up to us to adjust, so lead vocal (wife) and me use our in ears and let them crank the wedges.....maybe they will interested in in ears?  When we do an acoustic set just us two I turn off the wedges...

[Wynnd]

I've always considered the ability to play at low volume and sound good to be a sign of musical maturity.  When you can do that, it's easy to turn it up and still sound good.  If you never play at low volume, getting down here for a gig is nearly impossible and to sound good. 

IEM's really drop the amount of equipment on stage and the number of wires on stage too.  (I hate spaghetti)  If the transmitters are mounted in your mixing stack, setup and tear down is simplified too.  Hope you can push your band towards them.  (Or learn how to play so low that monitors are unnecessary.)

[Silvertopsolarnut]

Definitely,  I think all musicians/bands go through this phase. We have gone to a musicians teaching summit and they always say turn down or unplug the monitors forcing the musicians to play closer together and then slowly turn up just what is needed. I think this is why I don't put everything in my ear, I limit it to what I need to lock in and I follow the front of housebfor the rest.....

[Wynnd]

And boy does Bass sail right past the IEMs.  That's especially true for me.  I have a hearing loss in the mid and higher ranges.  Bass is unaffected.

[Kev tyler]

Monitors, designed so feuding musicians don't have to stand next to each other, is there any other use for them?