NDMD - "New" desktop mixer day

[markb]

Well, I finally bought a desktop mixer for home recording and/or small gigs. It's a (discontinued) Tapco Mix 220FX. I recommended a Behringer 1204 to a friend and I'm feeling a bit guilty now. The Tapco is much more solidly built and the fx sound a lot better. AND it has a built in power supply with a power switch on the back panel :AOK
Mind you, I've only had a chance to try the UST in my acoustic through it so far but it feeds Garageband quite nicely through the line inputs on my Macbook. Hope to get my mics back for the weekend.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug06/images/tapco220header_l.jpg

I suppose I'll have to get on and record some clips now :(

[Eric]

Cool. I recently bought a Samson mixer just to work as a mic preamp, but this looks nicer. Congrats!

[Spudman]

That Tapco looks nice. They've always made quality mixers.

Does yours have a USB output by any chance?

[markb]

No USB, Spud but it feeds the sound card with a clean and healthy signal from the tape outputs. In fact, I got a little clipping in Garageband at the first go. It's a marvelously robust unit for a "cheap" brand, I'd have no qualms about using it for small gigs, jams or open mics.

A cheap 2-1n, 2-out i/f will do the trick if latency becomes a problem. I know where I can borrow one ;)

[wingsdad]

That's a very nice unit, mark. I like the 'solo' buttons on the channel strips so you can isolate a signal from the mix to hear it clearly to make fine adjustments without disturbing settings on the other channels. That's a very useful but rare feature in an inexpensive little 8-10 channel board like that, usually found on much bigger boards, and intended more for adjusting monitor sub-mixes. I have 2 similar units that regrettably lack solo that I use to preamp with to send to my DAW, much like you use this with G-band, that I went to after quitting doing sound for money and having no more use for 16-24 channel boards with subs, etc.

Tapco was actually Mackie's brand name when Greg Mackie started the company 30-some years ago. His products were so good and grew to benchmark status for so many engineers that he went to his own name for his brand instead, and put 'Tapco' to sleep for about 20 years. To compete better against the Asian import products that ate his market share at the low end, particularly Behringer, that mastered the 'art' of reverse-engineering and cloning Mackie boards, he brought back the Tapco brand several years ago to hang on an Asian-made Mackie 'budget' line like Epiphone is to Gibson or Squier to Fender. Tapco's are for the most part essentially Mackie-USA design product produced less expensively. So it's only 'cheap' in that sense. In fact, the 'solo switch' has long been one of the coolest essential features of Mackie boards as small as 12-in.

[hubberjub]

As Wing said, Tapco is a good brand. They are basically an affordable Mackie. They are a solid board.

[markb]

I've been using the Tapco Thump powered speakers for a couple of years in a live setting. They're very good too.