Keyboard Mixer needed

[Mark Amundson]

> Looking for a 19" rack mount line level mixer. The Mackie LM3204 is nice, but too much $$$. Alnybody ever use
> a Rane SM82 (not too great on the AUX sends, though) or a Samson Mixpad 12? The Behringer MX2804, which if you believe Mackie is a direct rip-off, is also looks tempting ($579 from a mail order place). Paul Schreiber

Consider the Carvin Studio Mate mixer for $299 plus about $10 more for
the rack ears.
It has 16 channels set up as 8 mic inputs and 4 stereo line inputs for
synths, etc. The
mic channels also have line jacks to handle more line inputs. The mic
inputs are
discrete front end followed by NE5532's and 1% metal film resistors for
moderate
quality CMRR specs. The rest of the line level processing is done by
Japan Victor's
excellent quality NJM4558 dual op-amps. Feature-wise, it has a lot of
the features and
signal chain of Mackie's VLZ compact mixers without directly ripping off
the topology.

For me, this mixer replaces a Greg Mackie design (a.k.a. TAPCO) 6200
used for keyboard
submix.

Mark Amundson,