For all the naysayers,, I love this board

[yigba]

Played an outdoor gig last night and the DL1608 worked perfectly. I mix from stage as I am the lead singer and guitarist. Here's my setup.

1) Pan L and R for poor man's Aux Fed Subs. I use Bill Fitzmaurice OmniTop 12's and T39 subs and with their efficiency I can use smaller and lighter amps.

2) Aux 1 and 2 outs for monitors.

3) Aux 6 out to a little digital recorder. I set the levels off this to get a nice even recording.

This thing is so small and light and eliminates so much crap I had in the past. I also amazed my drummer when I walked out in front to do a preliminary mix from the audience section with my Iphone.

Never got more complements on the sound as last night. When we were soundchecking even I was amazed at the clarity of this mixer. I had an Allen & Heath MixWiz and IMHO this sounds better.

Anyway, with some of the negativity here just thought I'd share a positive experience.

[sam.spoons]

Mine has performed flawlessly since I bought it, did another gig last night, Lisa Mills and Ian Jennings in Macclesfield, great gig, many complements about the sound. I am concerned that others are having problems though, perhaps I should stop reading the forum 

[RoadRanger]

^ LOL

[yigba]

I am concerned that others are having problems though, perhaps I should stop reading the forum 

Tell me about it!! I also was perusing a QU16 because I was paranoid about the DL1608 from reading this board!!!

But if it ain't broke....

[RoadRanger]

Except for the slightly annoying disconnect issue I've been real pleased with it myself. I've not had the "white noise" issue but I do have an iPad 2 dedicated to being docked with minimal apps on it and no MP3s above 128Kbps.

[WK154]

Yigba choose your words wisely. The only Naysayer in this picture is Mackie. We all hope that they resolve their technical issues before their reputation goes by the way of the Dodo bird. We are all hoping for additional features and a reliable board. I'm certain that the "negativity" you speak about had an influence on your configuration. No iPad recording and no mention of iPad playback. I'm not sure what you mean by "1) Pan L and R for poor man's Aux Fed Subs.". I'm certain that if you have some unique way to use the DL we'd all like to hear about it. Being new I would suggest you check the history of this Forum and why it came about.

[yigba]

You are correct that I setup my equipment based on issues discussed here. Though I did have my Ipad docked throughout the gig with no issues.

No Ipad playback? Correct. Why bother when I have an Iphone - actually a few Iphones between band members that I can simply connect into one of the channels? I simply use a 1/8" plug into a mono 1/4" plug into channel 16.
Now I can definitely see the point of fixing it so it would work as it should. But even without the white noise wasn't the issue also that the input was too hot? I also don't want to flip through apps to choose songs to play. Having a separate playback source is much easier.

No Ipad recording? Correct. I much prefer the ability to use a separate mix out of Aux 6 than record using the live mix. I find that the vocals are way too out front when using the live mix out of the board as a recording source.

Now, will there be users that use every channel and every Aux out? I'm sure there are. But not me. And the simple workaround that I have incorporated makes this board perfect - at its price point - for my bar band needs.

P.S. - aux fed subs - i use the right channel out for my mains and the left channel out for my subs and pan channels accordingly so i can control the mix with the master fader.

[RoadRanger]

P.S. - aux fed subs - i use the right channel out for my mains and the left channel out for my subs and pan channels accordingly so i can control the mix with the master fader.

Yup, that's an old trick that works fine as long as your speakers have built-in crossovers or you use an external crossover. If you want to use the DL's built-in "crossovers" and/or want to run stereo mains you have to burn an aux for the subs. Oh, and there are details here on this board about using the main outs just to record on the iPad and using an aux for the PA so that they can be different mixes - I've done that with acceptable results.

[WK154]

But even without the white noise wasn't the issue also that the input was too hot?

Here is what I found with actual tests.
http://cacophony.aspinock.com/index.php?topic=483.msg3667#msg3667
Yes Mackie got it right!
A lot can be done to make the process useful and convenient. Assignment of any stereo pair (L&R and aux pairs) to the iPad channel would be a start. Using the meters for both recording and playback seems logical since only one can be active at one time. Faders for record and not just playback would be useful. All of these mods are software only no hardware mods required.

[thedrums]

Mine has performed flawlessly since I bought it, did another gig last night, Lisa Mills and Ian Jennings in Macclesfield, great gig, many complements about the sound.[

Sam,
Lisa Mills is a good friend of mine from this side of the pond. I was surprised to see her name pop up in this forum. Glad to know everything went great with her show. She is a hell of a singer. Can't wait for her to return from the UK tour.
Keep on rockin' the DL.
GT

[abzurd]

Well sure, your board works! If you had the problems I've had with mine, some of them quite embarrassing, your tune would change in a hurry. Mackie admitted to me the problems existed and they had no answers. I also sent them videos of the board malfunctioning. If you choose to call that nay-saying, I suppose that's your right, albeit an ignorant view, IMO. I prefer to call it what it is..... the truth, as confirmed by Mackie.


I loved the board for what it's supposed to be. It just wasn't living up to it. After having it on CL for 2 months, it finally sold. I didn't feel bad about the bugs because that's how they are selling them new, and aren't repairing them because it's a software issue somewhere that they've yet to identify. I think it has as much or more to do with the ipad than anything else. The person that I sold it to emailed me and said he loves it.


FWIW, I'm diggin' my Qu-16. I really missed multi-track recording, which I had with my Presonus previous to the Mackie. Recently A&H gave the green light for compatibility with recording directly to select thumb drives. That's going to be very cool.

[dpdan]

abzurd, I purchased a QU24 and absolutely love it..
it is in a league of it's own!


Still use the DL1608 for lot's of small gigs like wedding receptions
Dan

[sam.spoons]

Mine has performed flawlessly since I bought it, did another gig last night, Lisa Mills and Ian Jennings in Macclesfield, great gig, many complements about the sound.[

Sam,
Lisa Mills is a good friend of mine from this side of the pond. I was surprised to see her name pop up in this forum. Glad to know everything went great with her show. She is a hell of a singer. Can't wait for her to return from the UK tour.
Keep on rockin' the DL.
GT

It is, indeed, a small world. Yes she's great.

[abzurd]

abzurd, I purchased a QU24 and absolutely love it..
it is in a league of it's own!


Still use the DL1608 for lot's of small gigs like wedding receptions
Dan

At the end of the day I wanted more features than the DL1608 could offer so buying the Qu-16 was the right decision. That said, I wasn't hurting for dough when I bought the Qu-16 and would have kept the DL1608 in a heartbeat had it been a viable board. Even if I could get it to connect eventually, I simply didn't want to show up to the gig 15 minutes earlier to troubleshoot the mixer every time I wanted to use it.

]I tried for months to remedy the issues. A 50% "first try"success connection percentage is not good. Russian roulette pink noise blasts, not good. Random connection drops, even when docked, not good. Even if it's something specific to my ipads, those are the ipads I have so they become the mixer's problem. We do around 30 "high profile" gigs per year (weddings, corporate, private) where technical issues simply aren't tolerated. We're under enough stress to be "perfect" as it is without purposely introducing problems. I love the idea of the board, but the mixer is a mission critical piece and it would have been irresponsible to have continued to use it.

[stevegarris]

Played an outdoor gig last night and the DL1608 worked perfectly. I mix from stage as I am the lead singer and guitarist. Here's my setup.

1) Pan L and R for poor man's Aux Fed Subs. I use Bill Fitzmaurice OmniTop 12's and T39 subs and with their efficiency I can use smaller and lighter amps.

2) Aux 1 and 2 outs for monitors.

3) Aux 6 out to a little digital recorder. I set the levels off this to get a nice even recording.

This thing is so small and light and eliminates so much crap I had in the past. I also amazed my drummer when I walked out in front to do a preliminary mix from the audience section with my Iphone.

Never got more complements on the sound as last night. When we were soundchecking even I was amazed at the clarity of this mixer. I had an Allen & Heath MixWiz and IMHO this sounds better.

Anyway, with some of the negativity here just thought I'd share a positive experience.

My sentiment exactly! I went from a MixWiz as well, and I also use L/R for aux fed sub's. Nothing poor man about that. Almost all newer powered boxes will sound great using this method (I've mixed and matched several different boxes). I also enjoy just letting an iPod play through 1 channel on the board.