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What's a good 4 channel stereo line mixer? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by FrankAI@lemmy.world to c/musicproduction@lemmy.ml

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I'm having different audio sources that I want all to be played by the same boxes. I don't expect anything fancy, only bringing the signals together (hence I hope to get it cheap) while maintaining the quality.

As I read through the internet, when it comes to quality it's where all the affordable ones seem to stay behind. And I'm afraid of tuning the sound to an ill manipulated signal that is added by the mixer and not the track itself.

I first thought about Behringer MX400.

Any experiences on that field? Am I over-engineer it or is this a valid error source that I would introduce, which wasn't there before?

Thanks ahead!

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[–] lemmefixdat4u@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Cheap works for non-professional projects. I've used Behringer, Alesis, and other inexpensive mixers for sound systems. The tradeoff is cheap generally means you might be replacing the board in 5-10 years. The Alesis mixer lasted about 6 years before the pots got noisy. My karaoke system is a mid-range 16-channel board, and it's going on 15 years trouble free.

If all you need is to set the levels and parameters then leave them alone, cheap will work. If you're making changes while recording or performing, cheap will eventually fail you.

[–] FrankAI@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It is exactly what you've said, I'm not planning to touch the controls anymore after all is setup, that's why Im hesitating to go with feature rich and expensive. Hence you didn't experience any decline in all the years of usage?

[–] lemmefixdat4u@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Electronics are pretty reliable. Cheap mechanical parts are not. High end systems are be able to withstand the rigors of setup and takedown, dusty environments, and frequent transportation. If you keep a cheap mixer indoors and cover the controls with a dropcloth to minimize dust, it should last quite a while.

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

I had a Behringer 6-channel mixer before and it did the job. If all you need is to mix multiple inputs into one output, then that should be enough.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Behringer would fit your requirements at a fairly affordable price.

[–] FrankAI@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Would you say input = output (if, to make it simple, only one channel at a time has a signal)?

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It's a mixer, it will mix all 4 inputs into a single output.

[–] FrankAI@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Sure but electronics may add an own, unintended, sound character and decay over time too. In best case it's only noise, though I'm a bit afraid it would also tweak filter frequencies a bit, not that it would disturb much but if I optimize a track against a corrupted sound then the export won't be optimal either.